Overture Magazine 2019-20 BSO_Overture_Jan Feb | Page 29

CHARLIE CHAPLIN’S LEGACY: CLASSICAL MUSIC IN FILM
with such charm and skill (despite a few
missteps) that the room is mesmerized.
Instrumentation: Three Flutes, three oboes
including English horn, three clarinets including
bass clarinet, three bassoons including
contrabassoon, four horns, timpani, percussion,
harp, piano, celesta, accordion and strings.
CHARLIE CHAPLIN’S SMILE
Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr.
Born in London, U.K., April 16, 1889; died in
Vevey, Switzerland, December 25, 1977
Arrangements of Selections from
Chaplin’s Films for Violin and Orchestra.
Charlie Chaplin’s rise from poverty in
late Victorian England to become the
world’s most beloved star of silent—
and later sound—films is a story as
improbable and emotionally rich as
anything he ever created for the screen.
When he was born in working-class
London in 1889, his situation hardly
suggested a glorious future. His father
was a modestly successful singer-actor
and also an alcoholic; he abandoned
his wife and two children shortly after
Charlie was born. His mother was a
variety performer, but she was barely
able to support the family. Mentally
unstable, she was committed several
times to an asylum, leaving her two
boys virtually parentless.
Young Charlie’s budding performing
talent provided the way out of these
miserable circumstances. At nine, he
became a singer in The Eight Lancashire
Lads, appearing in London and on tours
around England. England’s Karno Films
provided his first break at age 18, and its
1910 tour of America introduced him
to New York City and LA. In 1913, he
signed a contract with Mack Sennett’s
Keystone Film Company and moved to
Hollywood. Sennett’s brief films were
renowned for their hyperkinetic Keystone
Cops, and Chaplin appeared in 35 of
them before moving on to the Essanay
studios in 1915. Now directing his films
as well as acting in them, he introduced
the world to his signature character in
The Tramp, released that year.
Chaplin recalled that his beloved
gentleman tramp with the inimitable
rolling walk was a sudden inspiration,
undoubtedly based on down-and-out
characters he had observed growing up
on London’s meaner streets. “I had no
idea of the character,” he wrote in My
Autobiography, “but the moment I was
dressed, the clothes and the makeup made
me feel the person he was.…By the time I
walked onto the stage, he was fully born
. …Gags and comedy ideas went racing
through my mind.”
Audiences loved the Little Tramp, and
by 1917, Chaplin was able to build his
own Los Angeles studios. From then on,
he would run his own show: writing his
scenarios, casting his actors, directing
and editing his films, as well as starring
in them. A series of immortal comedies
followed, including The Kid, The Gold
Rush, City Lights and Modern Times.
And when sound came to the movies,
he was able to add another creative role:
composer of the musical scores. City Lights
in 1931 was his first film score, and from
then on, he composed the music for all his
films, including later pictures not featuring
the Little Tramp such as The Great
Dictator, Monsieur Vendoux (in which he
played a serial killer!) and Limelight.
Chaplin adored music and taught
himself to play violin left-handed; a pipe
organ and a Steinway grand were among
his prized possessions. He was a musical
magpie, who pulled ideas from everything
he’d heard, whether the music-hall songs
of his youth or the classical music he
preferred as an adult. Because he lacked
sufficient musical training, he relied
heavily on a series of arrangers to elaborate
and orchestrate the themes he sang or
played on the piano for them. Always the
perfectionist, he devoted many weeks,
even months, creating his scores. He
knew exactly what sort of music his films
needed. “I tried to compose elegant and
romantic music to frame my comedies in
contrast to the tramp character, for elegant
music gave my comedies an emotional
dimension.” The touching theme of the
song “Smile” added a bittersweet quality
to the soundtrack of Modern Times, before
words were subsequently added to it.
Charlie Chaplin would undoubtedly
be delighted by Philippe Quint’s
arrangements, as he loved the violin: an
ideal voice for the romantic sentiments
filling so much of his music. He could not
understand why arrangers always wanted
his music to be “funny.” He, instead,
preferred it “to be a counterpoint of grace
and charm, to express sentiment, without
which…a work of art is incomplete.”

Instrumentation: Two flutes including piccolo,
two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four
horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani,
percussion, harp and strings.
Notes by Janet E. Bedell, © 2020

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