John Barry's James Bond Suite

Revelator

Apologies if this has been discussed before, but I recently heard John Barry's "James Bond Suite" for the first time. This fascinating piece of music is from his 1972 album The Concert John Barry:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbAX-H3UJbI

The orchestral suite combines GF, the Bond Theme, FRWL, TB, 007, YOLT, OHMSS, and DAF.

Though recorded in 1972, the sound points directly toward the sound of Barry's scores for the Moore films: lush symphonic sound, heavy use of triangle, and -- for the first time -- a version of the gunbarrel music that highlights strings instead of guitar. Two years before TMWTGG!

The liner notes for the album are on Barry's website. Some excerpts below:

In 1972, John Barry was thirty-nine and had just written three works, each with a different aesthetic, that were destined to leave an indelible stamp on the collective memory: the historical production Mary, Queen of Scots, the James Bond film Diamonds are Forever and his theme-music for The Persuaders. And then Sydney Samuelson invited him to conduct the orchestra at the third Filmharmonic concert in London...In accepting Samuelson's offer, Barry was well aware of what was at stake, if not the symbolic reach of such an offer: it would be his first symphonic concert, and the venue was to be the legendary Royal Albert Hall...

One has to give credit to the composer for submitting his scores to a vigorous overhaul, given the Royal Philharmonic's instrumental line-up. Barry had to rethink the orchestration of certain works due to the absence of a rhythm section, and also key instruments such as the Moog used in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the cimbalom in The Persuaders or The Adventurer, or else the harmonica in Midnight Cowboy.... "I had a full orchestra at my disposal, so it was up to me to adapt. At a pinch, you could say it was a game, a rather stimulating exercise. I managed to compensate for the absence of some of the soloists by making full use of the orchestra's resources."

...One of the high points in the concert was a shattering James Bond Suite that lasted seventeen minutes, a kind of musical compression of the first seven Bond films, from Doctor No to Diamonds are Forever, which had been released to cinemas the previous year. "I tried to preserve the best of the Bonds, and write a resume in a suite with a continuity that's fluid, logical and natural," explains John Barry. "With hindsight, you can see that this suite corresponds to the 'classic' period in the series, a period which ends with Diamonds, the last film with Sean Connery. Obviously that period is my favourite, and its template still remains Goldfinger, the Bond film where, in terms of style, all the codes and references found their place: the gun barrel, the opening sequence, the animated titles sequence, Peter Hunt's editing... It was also the first Bond where I had sole responsibility for the music; so I was able to assert a compositional style inspired by what I learned from Bill Russo, Stan Kenton's arranger: a particular way of adapting the brass right across the register from the deepest bass to the highest treble, with sharp attacks and incisive punches. That's where you find the roots of the 'Bond sound'."

...There were two consequences to the triumphant welcome reserved by Filmharmonic 1972: first, John Barry returned to the stage of The Royal Albert Hall for the event's subsequent edition a year later; and Barry also went to Abbey Road to record a large part of the concert for Polydor, the record-label with which he had just signed a contract as an artist. Released towards the end of 1972, The Concert John Barry became the first 33rpm LP produced under the new contract. It was never reissued in its entirety, curiously, because the master-tapes were reported missing. Providence, however, took a hand thirty-eight years later when the tapes were located among the archives of Universal Music in Japan.