A great director has directed a great actor in a play about a great composer and a king known as ‘The Great’. Should be great, right? Not so fast.
The Score is an entertaining drama with slapstick elements and the inevitable showdown between clashing philosophies. It is an old-fashioned history play which pits Johann Sebastian Bach against Frederick the Great in a clash between Bach’s unshakeable religious conviction and Frederick’s aetheism.
In the sure hands of Brian Cox, Bach is irascible, grumpy, loveable, and certain that his genius come from God while the much younger Frederick justifies his taking of territories by war as a historical right. There’s a certain contemporary relevance there.
The comic elements in Oliver Cotton’s play are introduced by three rival composers at Frederick’s Court who attempt to bamboozle Bach by challenging him to improvise on a complex theme composed by Frederick. Not to spoil your fun but, of course, Bach rises easily to the occasion, the three rivals were only ever there, like skittles, to be knocked down.
There is also a pantomime Frenchman, a ludicrous turn from Peter de Jersey as Voltaire, which director Trevor Nunn should have controlled better.
The meat of the play, the confrontation between Bach and Frederick, which actually took place, although not in this context, occurs late in the much better second act and redeems the seriousness of intent to display the possibility of great minds thinking very unalike.
What comes alive are the warm relationships Bach has with his wife (a lovely cameo from Brian Cox’s real-life wife Nicole Ansari-Cox) and with his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (excellent Jamie Wilkes), a journeyman musician at Frederick’s Court.
Not great, then, but a pleasant and undemanding evening.
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