Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra with silent movie scores

Yes, the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra last Sunday gave us music, but this was different. It was live piano and orchestra accompaniments to two 1920s films.

Buster Keaton's slapstick comedy 'One Week' and the silent film adaptation of Charles Dickens's 1838 Oliver Twist were accompanied by live music.

The first short film highlighted Keaton's deadpan feel for comedy. 'One Week' is one of the funniest pictures ever made and plants Buster firmly on his feet as star. The film features a newly married couple - Keaton and his wife (played by Sybil Seely) - trying to assemble a wooden house, given them in flat pack, with instructions. A jealous former suitor changed the numbered order of the parts, resulting in a dwelling where all the rooms were in the wrong order. Bits fell off everywhere, they find they're on the wrong plot, and the house is finally squashed by a passing train. Hand in hand the couple walk off into an unknown future.

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Silent film music composer Neil Brand introduced and asked the young pianist David Gray to demonstrate his improvising skills: motorbike accident, storm or love scene. We needed no convincing that he would, and did, provide a lively and emotional piano accompaniment to these house building shenanigans. David's music career started from age 4, taking him, now 31, through music colleges and The Royal Academy of Music, to dizzying heights of achievement worldwide.

Oliver Twist: Joanna McGregor, the Phil's innovative Music Director, and Neil Brand collaborated to create a new orchestral score for this black and white film of Charles Dickens's story. There have been countless stage and films since, but this one was special. While writing the score, Mr Brand explained that he wanted to keep one foot in Dickens's period and one foot in ours. We followed the story through subtitles, while actually seeing the actors mouthing the words. Sound not yet developed - mood and tension conveyed by the music.

The trick was, with McGregor conducting, that she direct percussion, flute, strings - as appropriate - to come in at the exact moment of the action, be it pathos, excitement, skulduggery. or a sudden movement. A rare feat, and it came off, to Joanna's credit and that of the Phil's 12-strong orchestra. Witness the scenes with Fagin, that incorrigible rogue, played by Lon Chaney, and the highs and lows of Oliver's journey from the Workhouse to the family who found him, and brought him home. A refreshing and eye-opening journey into the early days of film.

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Next and final Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra concert for this season: Sunday 27 March, 2.45pm, Brighton Dome. Brahms, Elgar and Mozart. Tickets: 01273 709709.

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