David Allen's original music score composed for the Oxford Playhouse's production of T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral has received overwhelming praise from critics who came to see the show on the opening night.
In association with the Oxford Playhouse's 'Plays Out' programme, Murder in the Cathedral was performed in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, from 13th-16th October 2010, with a cast made up from professionals and the best student actors from Oxford University. David composed a complete score that combined choral settings of passages from Eliot's text with full orchestral underscore and several organ voluntaries.
Christopher Gray from The Oxford Times:
It was lovely to listen to ... - as was the specially commissioned music from composer David Allen and his 14 players.
Griff Rees from the Oxford Theatre Review:
[One of the] stand-out aspects of the production [was] the music composed by David Allen ... which [was] hugely ambitious and generally excellent. The music was a mix of plainsong and 20th century serialism, which was fed amply by the soaring acoustics ... At one point in the second act, Allen ingeniously combined plainsong with a pulsing, almost stride piano base line which I particularly enjoyed, and the brutality of the horror-film esque dissonance and rhythm that punctuated the climax of the second act was thrilling.
Mary Tapper from The Public Reviews:
Music throughout was enjoyable- sometimes adding to the tension and at others hauntingly beautiful. The singing in such a building soars.
Lita Doolan from RemoteGoat:
...an incredible experience making this my favourite theatre event of the year ... A virtuoso orchestra of fourteen notches up the fear with every shift of pitch inside David Allen's deceptively simple compositions.
Simon Tavener from WhatsOnStage:
...we are launched fully [into] a production that places a far greater emphasis on music than any I have seen before. Much of the choral speaking associated with the Women is replaced by a newly composed score. At times this is highly successful – mixing, as it does, plain chant and other church forms with a more modern sound world...
Caroline Curtis, also from the Oxford Theatre Review:
...the majesty of the setting ... (complemented by an innovative and non-intrusive musical backdrop by David Allen) made for a powerful and provocative performance, justly deserving of all praise sure to be heaped upon it.
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The composer & musical director for Murder in the Cathedral, David Allen, is surely a genius. The music of the Chorus spine-tingling.