Please note, this is currently an initial temporary mix of the audio and an updated version of the film will appear on this page in due course.

Recorded live at Sheffield Chamber Music Festival on 21 May 2024.

Claudia Ajmone-Marsen – Violin
Naomi Atherton – Horn
Juliette Bausor – Flute
Peter Heginbotham – Harmonium
Tim Horton – Piano
Ursula Levaux – Bassoon
George Morton – Conductor
Benjamin Nabarro – Violin
Philip Nelson – Double bass
Robert Plane – Clarinet
Rachel Roberts – Viola
Gemma Rosefield – Cello
Adrian Wilson – Oboe

Recorded by Northern Audio Productions

Composed in 1908, L’assassinat du duc de Guise was the first original film score by a major composer. The film was written by Henri Lavedan and directed by Charles le Bardy and André Calmettes; it was first shown by Le Film d’Art at the Salle Charras at 4 rue Charras, Paris, on 16 November 1908. Saint-Saëns had already left the city to spend the winter in Las Palmas and it was his pupil Fernand Leborne who conducted the performance. As for how Saint-Saëns went about writing the score, his first biographer Jean Bonnerot wrote in 1922 that it was composed ‘scene by scene, in front of the screen’.  © Nigel Simeone