This theme is developed throughout the score and has perhaps its grandest moment in “Vogel’s Dream – The Last Valley,” as the orchestra lets loose and fully express the nuances at its heart with an almost spiritual fervor. The cue is pure simplicity, a delicacy of glowing mid-range strings tranquilly iterating the theme with gentle accompaniment by the oboe in a movement that is then reversed – the oboe takes up the theme as the choir is introduced to play up the heavenly nature of the locale. “Entry into The Last Valley” leads us to the score’s titular theme, and in my book at least, Barry’s most succulent and luminous theme yet. “The Plague Pit” again utilizes text for the male faction of the chorus, around which Barry has constructed a propulsive movement for female chorus, percussion and those, oh so typical, ascending brass flourishes.

An intro of low choral humming and tentative strings is soon usurped by more aggressive elements, as the incessant beat of snare drums and a stately brass motif lead the way, over which the chorus grows in an expression of loss and weariness as it cites both Germanic text and wordless harmonics. With a passionate performance from the Prague Philharmonic and Crouch End Festival Chorus at its disposal, the recording fully captures the dynamics and expansive scope of Barry’s score a case in point being opening cue, “The Last Valley-Main Titles (Part 1)”. With THE LAST VALLEY, Barry may well have written his finest and most compelling score to date: a compendium of grandiose eloquence as it depicts savagery and transcendence. With such agreeably weighty thrusts, the film required a suitably bold work. The title refers to the utopia that the protagonists – intellectual refugee and barbaric mercenaries – stumble across and the conflict that then arises between idealism and pragmatism and the question of what rules us – peace or violence.

The Michael Caine epic, THE LAST VALLEY, set in 17th century Germany during the Thirty Years’ war offered John Barry a chance to stretch his wings and fully express his craft.

The Last Valley by Martin Windrow