Carl Davis conducts Bond-themed music evening in Prague

This Wednesday sees the Prague Proms Music festival continue in the Czech capital at the Obecní Dům - a very special evening with world-famous conductor and composer Carl Davis. Mr Davis, who has composed hundreds of scores for TV and film, including the series Pride & Prejudice and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, will be conducting the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, performing scores from the James Bond films – from Casino Royale to Live and Let Die - reports Radio.cz.

A little earlier I spoke to Mr Davis between rehearsals, asking him how he was looking forward to James Bond Night:

“I really am looking forward to it. We spent yesterday rehearsing for the concert and the orchestra is being marvellous. It’s going to be very, very exciting.”

What about the theme – James Bond, of course?

“We’re more or less covering the entire history, from the very first film in 1961, to the Quantum of Solace, which came out earlier this year. We are running the full gamut of the story. We have a singer from England named Mary Carewe, who will be doing all the songs, and she’s marvellous. And as I said the orchestra has been great and seized on it and grabbed it and put in a lot of energy.”

Included, of course, will be the original theme by John Barry…

“Barry is interesting, his development, and the overall development across the concert will be interesting because of the history. The earlier songs in the 1960s were ballad-style. Eventually, they got Paul McCartney to write a song and the whole thing then changed again and became much more pop. The later songs, for the Daniel Craig films, are really very powerful and rough sounding and that’s quite interesting too.”

If we leave the scores aside, do you have a favourite actor in the role of Bond?

“I think Sean Connery still has the most authority in the role, because he is both attractive and you can believe that he’s very dangerous and that he can tear you apart. I think I would go with him. For me, Pierce Brosnan was always a bit light, and Daniel Craig a bit heavy!”

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