Lawrence
of Arabia

With all sorts of big names attached to the film during its production – including Richard Rodgers, William Walton and Malcolm Arnold – it fell to a young and relatively unknown French composer to create the music for one of the most ambitious films ever made. Maurice Jarre found himself in the firing line and with only six weeks to do so he composed what would become his career-affirming film score, one which would win him the first of three Academy Awards.

This ‘Overture’, which announces itself with a battery of tympani, takes in the score’s main threads; not least of all, the main theme which manages to recreate the wild romanticism of the Arabian desert, followed by the famous march with its glorious pomp and circumstance incorporating all that came before.