Tara's theme captures the romance

You realise just how much they contribute to the success of a film - and how many have been absorbed into the soundtrack of our own lives.

Hollywood's Golden Age was the theme chosen for this year's movie music Prom.

As the title suggests, the selection concentrated on films affectionately known as "classics" from a bygone era, the eldest being Taxi Driver from 1976.

Conducting was Elmer Bernstein who, as the composer and conductor of some of Hollywood's most famous scores, knew what he wanted from the orchestra.

Bernstein first led his musicians into the majestic sounds of Roman epic Ben Hur, composed by Miklos Rozsa.

Gongs rumbled, drums rolled and the evocative seductive strains of the wind section transported the audience to exotic plains and visions of Charlton Heston's dignified face.

On the same grandiose theme was Bernstein's own music to The Ten Commandments, also starring Heston.

Wilful yearning

Emphatically large sounds, interspersed with wistful flutes, artfully conveyed the heroism and humanity of the Old Testament.

Equally human was Tara's theme from Gone With the Wind, by Max Steiner.

Its now celebrated winsome motive conjured up the wilful yearning and romanticism of the film's heroine Scarlett O'Hara, played by Vivien Leigh.

Elsewhere, Dimitri Tiomkin's medley A President's Country jokily imitated horses hooves using empty coconuts.

Then, the programme took on a very different tone when saxophonist John Harle took over.

Sexy, sassy and hyper tense was the flavour of Harle's selection as he alternately blasted and winnowed his sax through the threatening themes to Herrmann's Taxi Driver and Raksin's Laura.

And you could almost smell the back-room whisky and cigarette smoke by the time Harle took on the dynamic, doom-ridden theme from Frank Sinatra's gambling thriller The Man with the Golden Arm.

Elated

Bernstein returned to cap the night's performance. He chose two of his greatest themes from The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape.

And the now elated audience whistled its way through the second.

Film music makes grand instant statements - it has to, to capture fleeting moods and images on screen.

In a concert setting, where one theme is backed onto the next, the effect can be unsettling.

Like on a roller coaster ride, your emotions are taken to a sudden high only to be left suspended and leaving you feeling incomplete.

The best way to overcome this sensation is to close your eyes and let imagination fill in the gaps.

But, eyes open or shut, it would be a difficult listener who was not left with a greater appreciation of music and the fantasy of film.