This well planned CD is a welcome reminder of a once familiar occurrence when composers switched at the flick of a wrist between symphonic writing and composing for the big screen. In the two major scores here, Curse of the Werewolf and The Prisoner, we find Benjamin Frankel marrying 12-tone serialism – without abandoning tonality – to the often brief and fragmentary nature of film music with great panache. The shifting perspective of the medium is allied to an iron grip on the musical structure in each episode. If the punchy, grinding dissonances of the Prelude to Werewolf repel, listen on to ‘The Beggar’ when, with a shake of the tambourine, Frankel introduces an oriental note in this light-hearted character portrait.

In The Prisoner one is more aware of serial techniques, particularly in the metamorphosis of the string themes. In this story of a priest (Alec Guinness) who is arrested on trumped-up charges of treason, the orchestra imitates a bell pealing in thirds, which acts as a recurring motif throughout the score. Musical ideas are fecund and tracks are often a unit in their own right, as with ‘Civil Unrest’, where a brusque march prefaces and closes the cue. In the often frenetic world of film composition, there’s strong evidence here of a composer thinking afresh without resorting to cliché.

On a lighter note, So Long at the Fair introduces one of Frankel’s best known cinematic pieces, ‘Carriage and Pair’, and the equally charming ‘Long Forgotten Melody’.

The Love Theme from The Net is an understated and wistful melody, free of any sentimentality. Carl Davis secures good playing from the RLPO, though as an ensemble they are not as polished as their neighbours the BBC Philharmonic in the Chandos film music series.