Jack Beaver: Portrait of Isla (1940)

Jack Beaver’s Portrait of Isla is one of several so-called ‘Denham Concertos’ which were named after Frank Korda’s studio where many films were made. Other better-known examples include Richard Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto, Miklós Rózsa’s Spellbound Concerto and Hubert Bath’s Cornish Rhapsody. All were composed as part of a film score. These pieces were part of a trend in which films would feature a short concerto, giving the impression of a serious classical composition, while being accessible and appealing to a wide audience. They remain popular to this day, both in occasional concert performances and recordings.

The 1940 film The Case of the Frightened Lady is a crime drama based on a play written by the British author Edgar Wallace. The storyline is centred on the Lebanon family who live at Mark’s Priory. Lady Lebanon is insistent that her son, the schizophrenic and psychopathic William, must marry his cousin Isla Crane, to continue the family line. However, William does not wish to marry her, and she falls in love with an architect, Richard Ferriby, who is working on the restoration of the Priory. Enter two suspicious footmen and the family doctor to add to the suspense of this murder mystery. Lord Lebanon, in his less disturbed moments plays the piano and composes music, in this case for Isla.

The film stars Marius Goring, as Lord Lebanon and Helen Haye as his mother. Isla is played by Penelope Dudley Ward. There are shorter roles for Felix Aylmer and Ronald Shiner. In the film, Goring plays the piano part, as he was a competent pianist.

Portrait of Isla is noticeably short mini concerto written in ternary form. The outer sections tend towards the sinister, with the middle segment being highly charged, but quite delicious, romantic music. The work concludes with an overblown coda.

Jack Beaver was born on 27 March 1900 at Clapham. After study at the Metropolitan Academy of Music, he completed his formation at the Royal Academy of Music, under the tutelage of Frederick Corder. Other film scores included The Thirty-Nine Steps, Flying Fortress and his final film score, the children’s adventure set in Gibraltar, The Clue of the Missing Ape. In the latter part of his career, Beaver provided music for the various recorded music libraries. His best-known piece is Cavalcade for Youth, which was used as the signature tune for radio show The Barlows of Beddington. Another important composition was his Sovereign Heritage written for the 1954 Brass Band Championships. Jack Beaver died in Battersea, on 10 September 1963.

John Huntley, in his British Film Music (Skelton Robinson, 1947) wrote that Portrait of Isla was the first example of the “first tabloid piano concerto” or “pseudo-concerto” which was written in a style that would be copied by Addinsell, Bath, and many others. The effect was to add a “layer of sophistication and emotional depth to the film’s narrative.”

Listen to Philip Fowke and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra under the baton of Proinnsias O'Duinn on YouTube, here.