Manuscripts (scores and sketches) of film music, both documentary and feature films.
Most have been catalogued and are on iDiscover - idiscover.lib.cam.ac.uk.
In 1936 Alwyn composed his first film score. He had spent a few days recording the score for the film The future’s in the air. A casual drink after work with the film’s director led to a request to compose a score a day later when it was discovered that the soundtrack was faulty, and that the original score was unusable as the composer had gone abroad, was uncontactable, and, most importantly, had taken the only copy of the score with him. Alwyn stepped in at very short notice and wrote his first film score for The future’s in the air.

Composing for films was to become an enormous part of his life for the next 30 years. He wrote the scores for over 100 documentary films, and around 70 feature films. He worked with some of the great directors and actors of the day, perhaps most famously collaborating with Humphrey Jennings on Fires were started, and with Carol Reed on The fallen idol and Odd man out.

The archive contains most of the scores for the documentary films. There are also many scores and sketches for the feature films, although the scores of some of his most famous films including Odd man out were destroyed during a fire at Pinewood studios, so the score we have for that is only partial. As well as original scores, sketches, and, in some cases, parts, the archive also has a number of photocopies of manuscript scores held elsewhere, and of the reconstructed scores arranged by Christopher Palmer and Philip Lane from scores and recordings for cd recordings of Alwyn’s film music. Some of these reconstructions also include parts. Most of the material relating to the reconstructions have been placed at the end of the film music sequence, however there are one or two instances where the original manuscript score was interleaved with material from the arranger, in this case the manuscript score has been placed in the main sequence.

All scores have been catalogued, and records are available on iDiscover.