The Innocent Sleep

Music composed by Mark Ayres

This recording is recommended in the 1997 & 1998 editions of
The Gramophone Film Music Good CD Guide

Click here to see session photographs

CD Tracklisting (Silva Screen FILMCD 167, 1995)

1. "Il Sonno Innocente" (The Innocent Sleep - Main Title) (2.49)
2. The Old Site (1.27)
3. Lusano/The Execution (4.56)
4. Warehouse Chase (2.46)
5. Riverside/Nightmare/Police Station (5.23)
6. Jail Break (3.21)
7. Billie/A Word with Willie (1.01)
8. Cavani/Billie Meets Alan ("Il Sonno Innocente") (1.50)
9. Alan Calls Home (3.12)
10. Arson (2.40)
11. Hospital/Alan at Billie's Place (3.47)
12. Press Conference (4.24)
13. "Today in Focus" (1.26)
14. Ears to the Ground/Motorbike Chase (2.42)
15. Cavani Flies In (3.45)
16. A Revelation and a Death (1.31)
17. "Anybody but Stephens"/A Man for a Crisis (4.27)
18. "Tutto Posto" (4.49)
19. Ashes ("Il Sonno Innocente") (2.21)

Total Playing Time 59.04

Orchestrated and Conducted by Nic Raine
Performed by The Chamber Orchestra of London, Leader Ken Sillito
Soprano Soloist Lesley Garrett
Synthesiser programming Mark Ayres

Digitally recorded at Whitfield Street Recording Studios by Mike Ross-Trevor, 25-26 February 1995

Original score and soundtrack album produced by Mark Ayres

Associate Producer James Fitzpatrick

For information on obtaining CDs, please click here.

"Il Sonno Innocente" (The Innocent Sleep - Main Title) also features on:

"Lesley Garrett: Softly as in a Morning Sunrise"

"Silva Treasury (Great Movie Themes in Dolby Surround): Thrillers!"

"Lesley Garrett: A Soprano in Love"

The Innocent Sleep...

Alan Terry has lost his job, his wife, his home. He has become one of the thousands who roam the streets of London in search of work, food, and a bed for the night. A forgotten man...

But some people care about Alan. They care enough to want to kill him...

For Alan has witnessed a murder - a bizarre ritual execution beneath the historic pillars of Tower Bridge...

How can you trust anyone when those charged with protecting you are the very ones who want you killed, when your best hopes for survival are a fellow down-and-out who hits the bottle too hard and a young woman journalist who conceals her own past?

In the darkness of forgotten London, only the innocent sleep...

"The best British thriller since The Long Good Friday." (Screen International).

"(Mark Ayres's) theme tune to The Innocent Sleep is enormously attractive... Tuneful, appealing and soothing, they've got a winner, especially as sung by Lesley Garrett." (Richard Baker, Classic FM Chart Show, Saturday 20th January 1996).

"...a masterful thriller...a standout score...one of the best films at the festival..." (Sharon Knolle, The Seattle Film Festival, May 1996).

"...a suitably tense, underworldly hour of taut-string menace...the soprano recalls the eerie unease of Michael Nyman's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover." (Empire).

"Mark Ayres' first feature film score is quite an eye-opener...the pace and scope of this score is very impressive indeed...what I found particularly impressive was how unsettling and unnerving Mark's music is. He really has got under the skin of this film..." (Music from the Movies).

"...(Mark Ayres's) suspense music has a chilling edge...(a) gorgeous main theme...A notable piece from a British composer for a British film." (Gramophone Film Music Good CD Guide).

"(Mark) Ayres quite simply stuns with this, his first orchestral score...one of the best British film scores in years. The action cues are incredible, with spirals of string and explosions of brass conveying a great sense of motion and intensity. Larger than life, Ayres' score is an absolute must..." (Gary Kester, The Unofficial Silva Screen www Site).

A Note from the Director

Are the action sequences exciting? Will an audience be moved by the emotional scenes? In short, does the film work?

All of these questions ran through my mind when we had finished editing The Innocent Sleep. But one very important thing was missing at that stage. Something that could help to provide the answers. The music.

Only one composer was ever in my mind to compose the music for my first feature film. As he had already written the powerful electronic incidental music for my short film Seeds, I was in no doubt that Mark Ayres was the man for the task.

My rather simplistic remit to Mark was that I wanted the score to be "BIG"! We both agreed that British films tended to be a little timid in their soundtracks, and that we wanted to test the mettle of the country's cinema speakers. To this end, after Mark had spent three weeks as a virtual prisoner in his attic studio, we assembled a large classical orchestra and began the recording.

From the moment the majestic sweep of strings led us into "Cavani Flies In", I knew that Mark had delivered a score even beyond my expectations. There were all my 'big' moments - "Motorbike Chase" and "Arson", But there were also some beautiful character themes and sad laments - all crowned by the stunningly original operatic theme sung by Lesley Garrett.

Scott Michell.

A Note from the Composer

After many years spent writing music for television programmes, sell-through videos and training films, it was nice to finally get a chance to score a feature. And The Innocent Sleep was a very enjoyable first feature to work on.

Scott Michell wanted a fully orchestral and highly 'cinematic' score - wide screen music for his wide screen movie. I saw the opening of the film, where the camera follows down-and-out Alan into cardboard city, as almost operatic: a kind of Dantean descent into a hell of burning braziers and damp hovels. So in trying to find a 'different' approach, and as I'd always wanted to work with Lesley Garrett, I suggested an operatic piece which would reflect the loneliness of our hero and become a lament for the abandoned homeless. And the theme became the basis for the entire score. The text (sung in Italian) is based on a passage from Shakespeare's Macbeth: "Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more...' - the innocent sleep, ...The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course...".

Mark Ayres

Additional movie information links provided courtesy of the Internet Movie Database:

The Innocent Sleep