The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

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Introduction

The Wharf in 1996 I wrote this music for a production of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in March 1996.

It was first performed by the Tavistock County Primary School, Devon, England, at the town's performance centre, The Wharf.

Since then it has been used for performances in the US, Canada and Australia.

The book by C.S.Lewis was adapted by the Headteacher, Tony Wates, and was semi-improvised. There was no script: only a running-order of scenes. In spite of this, many people have written to me asking for a copy of the script and I always have to stress this point.

For many weeks leading up to the performances the children improvised the scenes under his direction and slowly the production took shape.

The play followed the basic story of the book, with a few changes to accommodate a cast of over ninety children. This largely meant that single characters in the book became multiple characters on stage.

The performance was progressed by two Narrators, one of whom was my daughter Isobel.

It was only at a fairly late stage that I became involved. And what at first seemed to be a matter of a few musical links soon turned into a score of over thirty minutes!

The music was written on my 486DX PC at home using a music notation package called Noteworthy Composer. Using this I was able to write and score the music, then translate it into MIDI files.

The MIDI files were in turn recorded onto tape, and it was the tape that was used over the theatre's sound system during the performance.

I have now recorded the MIDI files and they are available here in mp3 format as well as the original.

As the music was written to be heard in a theatre, it will have its greatest impact if played through a hi-fi system rather than multimedia speakers.

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.

So let's begin...