Well i pray to Jesus you treated them like your family nobody cares what tune your whistling when being traumatized seperated from fzmily. Didnt your mom or pop teach you how to bea good man?
What I love most about this is how much Elmer embraces the audience getting involved in the performance. Too many composers seem to be too self absorbed, and in a way I can understand why - because it’s THEIR composition. But EB just had that joy and passion for music and seemed to understand how much his music meant to others and the impact it had on the audience. The Great Escape is a truly legendary score and it’s like he wholly embraced that and understood how big of an impact it was and what it meant to so many. So for him to just sit back and revel in the audience participation was almost a way for him to acknowledge his work and understand that it was bigger than himself. A truly legendary composer.
I think some composers/conductors would be upset at the amount of unrestrained audience participation during performance- but EB encourages it and really seems to enjoy it. You can tell he's just loving it. Great treat to see him conduct his work here. Thanks!
I love that he encourages the audience when they start clapping and whistling. You don't usually get audience participation in orchestral music. It's refreshing.
A-MEN WITH THAT ONE...THE LATE ELMER BERNSTEIN WAS A GOD-DAMN GENIUS!!! HE NOT COMPOSED THE GREATEST WESTERN THEME SONG EVER RECORDED..."THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN" WILL ALWAYS STAND THE TEST OF TIME!!! HE ALSO COMPOSED THE GREATEST WWII THEME SONG EVER RECORDED IN "THE GREATEST ESCAPE"!!! HE ALSO COMPOSED SOME OF THE GREAT THEME SONGS FROM SEVERAL OF "JOHN WAYNES" WESTERN MOVIES INCLUDING THE CLASSIC WESTERN EPIC..."TRUE CRIT"!!! ITS AMAZING WHAT A GREAT COMPOSER HE WAS...REST IN PEACE!!! YOUR ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT MUSIC WILL ALWAYS STAND THE TEST OF TIME!!!!! DOC
So many absolutely great American and British actors in the movie. And a great movie, as well. Mr. Bernstein could have rested on his laurels after this piece and Magnificent Seven. Cheers.
I was there - at his 80th. Royal Albert hall London. At the end Michael Aspel walked in and said "Elmer Bernstein, this is your life!". We said -" Can we come?"
Perfect ; simply Perfect ; and the Conductor made it look as if it were so easy to conduct it. After you listen to all the other conductors, then you realize how Great this is; and cannot let go. “ the Great Addiction” to this Great escape.
It's always great to see a "film" composer come out from behind the screen, so to speak, and find proper public reward - and how right it should be at the greatest music festival in the world...the BBC's annual Proms! A lovely clip of a top man in his field enjoying his place in front of an audience - thanks!
My father would not watch the movie because of what the Germans did but,he became a 1st lieutenant in the Medical Core when he got OUT! GOD BLESS YOU DAD!
Screenwriters for "The Great Escape" did not miss out on adding dashes of American bravura to the script, for engaging audiences in the States and ramping up a defiant tone: Kommandant Von Luger: "Are all American officers so, ill-mannered?" Captain Hilts: "Yeah, about ninety-nine per cent"
Thank you so much for sharing this. It was thrilling to be present at the event at London's Royal Albert Hall in, I think July/August 1999. Corrections on the date more than welcome.
Saw this TWICE - at the theater! On the Big Screen. It's hard to sit through the whole movie on a TV now, but for this marvelous score and the great acting....
In the series "From the Earth to the Moon", about the Moon program, they used this toon in the episode on the LEM. Every time they had a glitch designing it, the boss of the company contracted to build it went outside and threw a baseball at the side of one the buildings, always losing the ball while this tune played. By the end of the episode, the LEM was completed and there were hundreds of balls on the roof. Always thought that was a great tribute to Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.
I just can’t help but smile Elmer Bernstein’s jolliness is infectious. Also does anyone think he was inspired for The Great Escape theme by The Bridge Over The River Kwai?
Glad I'm NOT alone in thinking that. At first I thought it was my mind playing Tricks, so it's nice to know that someone else is thinking along the SAME lines.
This is wonderful. Thanks for sharing. Audience participation is a sign of joyful engagement with the music. The idea that one must sit in somber silence at a performance is relatively new and not, to my mind, a particularly healthy custom.
This song is based on "The Peat Bog Soldiers". Listen to Paul Robeson's version on RUclips. In Bernstein's version, it combines a Revolutionary War Fife and drum part in a major key, with "The Peat Bog Soldiers" in a minor key. The Peat Bog Soldiers portion represents imprisonment, and the drum and fife part escape and freedom.
He is so energetic throughout; which must make the music so powerful. The motion he uses to signal the syncopated beat at 2:28 just gets me. I think I can see him mouthing bum, bum, bum, ...bum,... ba-bum... However, I also think it is difficult, to some extent, to separate the apparent emotion in the music from the emotion of the actual event. Great music none-the-less.
WWII ARMY PACIFIC THEATER DAUGHTER SALUTES YOU! FANTASTIC! THANK YOU! If anyone here does NOT know the TRUE story of those brave men in the REAL Great Escape, PLEASE go research and share with all you know. God bless all.
Nance, my late father was in the Belgium, Czech, France, Germany theater and in his honor I salute those brave swashbuckling men also, some of who paid the ultimate price.
@scottnoris106 Courtesy of the BBC Proms archive: Prom 32 (The Great Escape - Hollywood's Golden Age) of 2001 season. Held at Royal Albert Hall, London on Tuesday 14 August 2001. BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Elmer Bernstein.
This man, genius only won one oscar you have to be kidding !, my god West side story(the greatest musical of all time), On the town, the magnificent 7, the great escape could not win !
Otokichi786 Lead Officer: Are ALL American officers so ill-mannered? Cptn. Hilts: Yeah, About 99%. Lead Officer: Then perhaps while you are with us, you will have a chance to learn some... 10 days, Isolation, Hilts. Cptn Hilts: ... Captain Hilts. Lead Officer: 20 Days... Cptn Hilts: Right.
R. I. P to 50 souls who they lost their lives in the line of duty, thanks to this awesome movie & to this piece of gold.
I remember whistling this song loudly for much of my career as a state corrections officer, not many inmates got it.
Praise God, I hope you get to participate in His great escape from planet earth, amen
I have been busted whistling this song
Yeah, the demons in hell probably think the same thing about the people who are there .
Well i pray to Jesus you treated them like your family nobody cares what tune your whistling when being traumatized seperated from fzmily. Didnt your mom or pop teach you how to bea good man?
We’re they digging tunnels while you whistled?
What I love most about this is how much Elmer embraces the audience getting involved in the performance. Too many composers seem to be too self absorbed, and in a way I can understand why - because it’s THEIR composition. But EB just had that joy and passion for music and seemed to understand how much his music meant to others and the impact it had on the audience. The Great Escape is a truly legendary score and it’s like he wholly embraced that and understood how big of an impact it was and what it meant to so many. So for him to just sit back and revel in the audience participation was almost a way for him to acknowledge his work and understand that it was bigger than himself. A truly legendary composer.
I think Elmer was delighted that the audience participated in one of his classics
A collective prayer of joy. A harbinger of heaven.
Tunnel king, scrounger, forger, cooler king, big x...love that movie!
I think some composers/conductors would be upset at the amount of unrestrained audience participation during performance- but EB encourages it and really seems to enjoy it. You can tell he's just loving it. Great treat to see him conduct his work here. Thanks!
This piece of music just rouses even the most reluctant optimist out of me. It's joyful and inspiring music the I never tire of.
I love that he encourages the audience when they start clapping and whistling. You don't usually get audience participation in orchestral music. It's refreshing.
spontaneous...cool !!
I thought the clapping made it hard to hear the music. Glad it didn't last long. The whistling was OK though.
That is, unless, you go to Vienna to see a concert there.
Agreed 👍
THE ABSOLUTE BEST OF THE GREATEST WWII THEME SONGS EVER RECORDED!!! WILL ALWAYS STAND THE BEST OF TIME!!! DOC
WAIT UNTIL YOU HEAR THE LONGEST DAY
PATTON too
Elmer was one of the gods of film music! RIP forever in heaven Mr. Bernstein.
Praying He is in paradise with Jesus Christ!
He should have won multiple Oscar's for his magnificent film scores.
A-MEN WITH THAT ONE...THE LATE ELMER BERNSTEIN WAS A GOD-DAMN GENIUS!!! HE NOT COMPOSED THE GREATEST WESTERN THEME SONG EVER RECORDED..."THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN" WILL ALWAYS STAND THE TEST OF TIME!!! HE ALSO COMPOSED THE GREATEST WWII THEME SONG EVER RECORDED IN "THE GREATEST ESCAPE"!!! HE ALSO COMPOSED SOME OF THE GREAT THEME SONGS FROM SEVERAL OF "JOHN WAYNES" WESTERN MOVIES INCLUDING THE CLASSIC WESTERN EPIC..."TRUE CRIT"!!! ITS AMAZING WHAT A GREAT COMPOSER HE WAS...REST IN PEACE!!! YOUR ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT MUSIC WILL ALWAYS STAND THE TEST OF TIME!!!!! DOC
Always loved seeing composers conduct their own music. Knowing that's how *they* wanted it played.
Yup!
After listening to this music, I have the sudden urge to dig an escape tunnel.
+mjarail Sorry I'm a bit late, but count me in. I have a spoon if that's any help !!!!
+Sam F Right behind ya'.
Does anyone have a trowel?
+mjarail I got a few hunks of rope. Let's move!
...You haven't even started your's??
Elmer and Leonard, two brilliant contemporaries, two of my heroes.
So many absolutely great American and British actors in the movie. And a great movie, as well. Mr. Bernstein could have rested on his laurels after this piece and Magnificent Seven. Cheers.
Amazing how this kid from New York somehow managed to capture British sensibilities in music.
I bought the album soundtrack about 40 years ago. Still have it. Genius transcends time.
Britain has really taken this music as its own. They love it.
I was there - at his 80th. Royal Albert hall London. At the end Michael Aspel walked in and said "Elmer Bernstein, this is your life!". We said -" Can we come?"
The Harmony and Rhythms are out of this world..SO BEAUTIFUL.. Pure Greatness.
Perfect ; simply Perfect ; and the Conductor made it look as if it were so easy to conduct it.
After you listen to all the other conductors, then you realize how Great this is; and cannot let go.
“ the Great Addiction” to this Great escape.
Beyond thrilling! Thank you Mr. Bernstein for sharing your gift with the world!
Absolutely brilliant - as was theme from The Magnificent Seven!
A-MEN!!! ONE OF THE GREATEST WWII THEME SONGS EVER RECORDED!!! DOC
When I listen to this I think of the Fifty !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Never to be Forgotten !!!!!!
My favourite picture since I was a child....
I played this song in my band class and it’s literally my fav song out of all the ones I’ve played
This is amazing! When the whole crowd starts whistling is great!
One of the most evocative movie sound tracks!.., Nuff said.
It's always great to see a "film" composer come out from behind the screen, so to speak, and find proper public reward - and how right it should be at the greatest music
festival in the world...the BBC's annual Proms!
A lovely clip of a top man in his field enjoying his place in front of an audience - thanks!
God ... I wished I could of been in that concert whistling to this theme also, I love it !!
Goosebumps!❤
2:02 That woman in the light blue/green dress was feeling the music lol
Ever I heard this song I see Bronson, Coburn, Attenborough, Garner, and and and - and Steve McQueen - love it
To the fifty. I salute you.
...
Another vet.
You the Vet?
Jonathan Pinckney I da vet!
Observ45er Thanks for serving.
Jonathan Pinckney I was one of the lucky ones. They didn't cash the blank check for my life that I gave them when I enlisted.
Thank you.
My father would not watch the movie because of what the Germans did but,he became a 1st lieutenant in the Medical Core when he got OUT! GOD BLESS YOU DAD!
Elmer Bernstein sure was the John Williams of his era.
…And the Cooler King returns to his cell. To the 50. RIP
Fl. Lt. Wally Floody from Canada was one of the tunnel engineers and technical advisor for the movie a good man.
I watch this one every few months. Amazing!
What a great man! What a composer!
Screenwriters for "The Great Escape" did not miss out on adding dashes of American bravura to the script, for engaging audiences in the States and ramping up a defiant tone: Kommandant Von Luger: "Are all American officers so, ill-mannered?" Captain Hilts: "Yeah, about ninety-nine per cent"
Thank you so much for sharing this. It was thrilling to be present at the event at London's Royal Albert Hall in, I think July/August 1999. Corrections on the date more than welcome.
I now realise it was actually August 14yth 2001.
Great movies deserve great music... just like this.
i thought it was a delightful touch to include The Great Escape theme in the Lunar Module design episode of FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON.
Saw this TWICE - at the theater! On the Big Screen. It's hard to sit through the whole movie on a TV now, but for this marvelous score and the great acting....
In the series "From the Earth to the Moon", about the Moon program, they used this toon in the episode on the LEM. Every time they had a glitch designing it, the boss of the company contracted to build it went outside and threw a baseball at the side of one the buildings, always losing the ball while this tune played. By the end of the episode, the LEM was completed and there were hundreds of balls on the roof. Always thought that was a great tribute to Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.
Few other renditions capture the energy and aura of Elmers direction.
I just can’t help but smile Elmer Bernstein’s jolliness is infectious. Also does anyone think he was inspired for The Great Escape theme by The Bridge Over The River Kwai?
Glad I'm NOT alone in thinking that. At first I thought it was my mind playing Tricks, so it's nice to know that someone else is thinking along the SAME lines.
i find myself whistling this tune almost everyday
This is wonderful. Thanks for sharing. Audience participation is a sign of joyful engagement with the music. The idea that one must sit in somber silence at a performance is relatively new and not, to my mind, a particularly healthy custom.
Sitting in Solemn, Sorrowful Silence ? At FUNERAL ▪︎ YES
However for almost
every other occasion ▪︎ CHEERFUL, LIVELY Alive & ENJOYABLE.
My favorite song, ever, and I would love to transport myself to that time, place and audience, so fun!!
Great concert, always the best Elmer!
magnificent.
Boy, that escape. It sure was good. One might even say it was great.
My all time favorite movie.
Did we just become best friends?
The Great Escape, Top Gun, Bridge on the River Kwi, all the Spaghetti Westerns Best soundtracks Ever🇺🇸
I love the part in the the middle of the theme, Hilts theme full orchestra! Yeah! The entire film score is Great!
This song is based on "The Peat Bog Soldiers". Listen to Paul Robeson's version on RUclips.
In Bernstein's version, it combines a Revolutionary War Fife and drum part in a major key, with "The Peat Bog Soldiers" in a minor key. The Peat Bog Soldiers portion represents imprisonment, and the drum and fife part escape and freedom.
Awesome piece that made the movie!
He is so energetic throughout; which must make the music so powerful. The motion he uses to signal the syncopated beat at 2:28 just gets me. I think I can see him mouthing bum, bum, bum, ...bum,... ba-bum...
However, I also think it is difficult, to some extent, to separate the apparent emotion in the music from the emotion of the actual event. Great music none-the-less.
Fabulous. Five stars all the way. The best clip I've seen on RUclips.
A great piece appropriate for a great movie about the greatest generation.
WWII ARMY PACIFIC THEATER DAUGHTER SALUTES YOU! FANTASTIC! THANK YOU! If anyone here does NOT know the TRUE story of those brave men in the REAL Great Escape, PLEASE go research and share with all you know. God bless all.
Nance, my late father was in the Belgium, Czech, France, Germany theater and in his honor I salute those brave swashbuckling men also, some of who paid the ultimate price.
Today marks the 100th birthday of Maestro Elmer Bernstein (April 4, 1922).
READ AND LEARN A LITTLE BIT SOME MORE ALL ABOUT HIM!!!
= D. E.T. (Baltimore /// Thursday - February 2nd, 2023)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Bernstein
The Great Man. Long live his music.
@scottnoris106 Courtesy of the BBC Proms archive: Prom 32 (The Great Escape - Hollywood's Golden Age) of 2001 season. Held at Royal Albert Hall, London on Tuesday 14 August 2001. BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Elmer Bernstein.
This is even better than his score for Animal House.
The world has lost some great talents & here is one of those talents
Elmer Bernstein dirigeant sa propre musique légendaire de La Grande Evasion ,...incroyable ...BRAVO et MERCI
@nermid Point, mate. The Radetzky March with the clapping on New Year's came to mind as the ony one I can remember... Loved this video, really.
I feel like grabbing a basball and mit then locking myself in a hot tool shed or garage.
vxenon67 ROFL
Hilts "The Cooler King" ... Steve McQueen: Mr. Cool
I was about to say it a very Proms feel to it. Turns out it was.
An awesome piece of music! Thanks a lot for sharing :)
I saw him conduct this at the albert hall many years ago, so i was in the auidence !
What year was this
Class! no more needs to be said.
Great tribute to those lost !!
Una de las grandes películas de guerra con una banda sonora excelente del maestro Elmer Bernstein en concierto.
PERFECT...FROM GREECE AND LOVE
Love this movie.
Will be played at my funeral
Interesting John, I have requested the same thing at my funeral as the casket is being rolled away.
The most famous march in movie history.
The whistling part moist my ears
Will never forget the FIFTY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NEVER
NEVER
Oh my, thanks so much for sharing this with us. If only I could have been there too :)
Well done, Maestro, performers, and audience!! A salute, a smile, greetings and gratitude from Chicago!😄😄👍💛
Fantastic Film Fantsstic music
I got goose bumps just listening to it.
This man, genius only won one oscar you have to be kidding !, my god West side story(the greatest musical of all time), On the town, the magnificent 7, the great escape could not win !
West Side Story and On the Town was by Leonard Bernstein (spelled Burn-Stine) while this was Elmer Bernstein (spelled Burn-Steen)
Capt. Hilts: I haven't seen Berlin yet. From the ground, or from the air. And I plan on doing both before the war's over.
Otokichi786 Lead Officer: Are ALL American officers so ill-mannered?
Cptn. Hilts: Yeah, About 99%.
Lead Officer: Then perhaps while you are with us, you will have a chance to learn some... 10 days, Isolation, Hilts.
Cptn Hilts: ... Captain Hilts.
Lead Officer: 20 Days...
Cptn Hilts: Right.
Sorry...I'm Spanish Woman.!!! But Elmer is Elmer !! And the music is gold!!!!!!!
The clapping during the performance wasn't unnecessary. The whistling however, sounded pretty awesome!
Excellent music
El pueblo se expresa cuando algo le gusta y le llega al corazón, yo también aplaudo !!!!
Love the whistling, hate the clapping
Outstanding...
I am South Korean middle school student and this song is on our music book
I could totally play in the low brass section without all the rehearsals. I listen to the song that much.
ADORABLE!!!
Comme j'aurais aimé y être. 😢
Ecouté ca!!!!!!
Brigada de fusileros paracaidistas México gracias por la composición mr elmer
不屈の精神
大脱走マーチは世界の宝物です
Some people have all the luck! I wish I could have been there!!! :)
A classic!
This is so good