Tony Banks’ ‘other’ life – that of an orchestral composer, as opposed to keyboardist, songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist and a founding member of rock band Genesis – began in earnest in 1983. That was when director Michael Winner asked Banks to write the score for his remake of the classic 1945 swashbuckling tale of highwaywoman Lady Skelton, The Wicked Lady, in which Faye Dunaway reprises Margaret Lockwood’s original role, opposite Alan Bates (standing in for Lockwood’s James Mason). Tony Banks’ score for The Wicked Lady (orchestrated with Christopher Palmer) was first released on CD in 2013 on Fugitive Records, along with a suite of Banks’ original demos before, finally, the film itself received its first-ever DVD release only in 2016.

Banks had always been fascinated by film music, and cites John Barry as an influence, let alone Mahler – as introduced to him in Visconti’s classic Death in Venice. And from Mahler it’s a short step to a number of other great early 20th-century composers that continue to influence Banks, including Rachmaninov, Ravel, Satie, Holst (arguably his Suite, The Planets is the most influential single score for film – science fiction specifically – ever composed), Vaughan Williams, Shostakovich and Sibelius (the Fourth Symphony in particular).

Some twenty years after The Wicked Lady – and after his three-decade career in Genesis (1967–1998) † – Banks reignited the orchestral bug. He was hitting his half-century and felt that before he bowed out of music, he wanted to do something that had always been in the back of his mind. Hence the release of Seven – recorded in 2002 by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Mike Davis, with orchestrations by Simon Hale – which was released in 2004. Eight years later, also on the Naxos label, Banks released a follow-up, titled Six, played by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra with orchestrations by conductor Paul Englishby.

Now, a new orchestral project Five marks a move to BMG. Nick Ingman came on board as orchestrator and conductor in October 2016, travelling down to Banks’ house and listening to the demos and quickly agreeing. “Let’s do this” he said. The recording was built up over various sessions, the first in London’s Angel Studios where solos and percussion were recorded before a transfer to Prague for a week in March 2017 – a concentrated set of three sessions a day from 9am to 7pm with the orchestra and at the final session the choir – recording section by section. Using a process of recording an album that is the norm in the pop/rock / film world to produce an orchestral disc may seem unorthodox but afforded Banks and his collaborators a level of creative control unlikely to be matched in a normal orchestral recording. As Nick Ingman says: “The pop discipline [recording in sections] works partly because you can nail each section, concentrating solely on that, and partly from a sound point of view, as you get really good separation. It’s better to have separate control” and Banks chips in “the concept sounds artificial but it isn’t – in the rock and film world that’s how we do it all the time.”

Banks continues to enjoy working with top musicians. Saxophonist Martin Robertson – who Banks has known for years: “I knew he was going to be a good musician when he was very young, when he could whistle the solo I play on In the Cage on The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway album, which is quite fast and very difficult to whistle, that’s for sure!” – is back on Five as he was as a soloist on Six. In Ebb and Flow he takes over the theme from the oboe on both alto and soprano sax and, in Renaissance, Robertson swaps his saxophone for a Armenian duduk, immediately recognisable with its overtly reedy timbre, here memorably melded with the ethereal choir. Nick Ingman brought trumpeter John Barclay to the project, shining particularly in the martial fanfare motifs of the second movement Reveille (also on piccolo trumpet) as well as harpist Skaila Kanga. The flautist and principal violinist in Prague get special mentions too.

The impetus for Five was a commission for the 70th Cheltenham Music Festival in 2014, for which Banks composed the original version of what now appears as the opening track of the new recording, Prelude to a Million Years. Then it was entitled Arpegg and received its world première on Saturday 5 July 2014 with Maxime Tortelier conducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. The following year, in an online interview on www.genesis-news.com with Christian Gerhardts tied into the release of the box set A Chord Too Far, Banks was asked whether – after Seven and Six – Arpegg would form the basis of a new orchestral album called Five. Banks laughed and said: “I hope not.” But when considering a further three pieces to join Arpegg on a new album he and his regular producer Nick Davis realised that it didn’t quite work as a foursome, it needed a fifth piece. For a long while this was simply called ‘The Other One’ but its final inclusion on the album meant that the overall title was as obvious as it was unavoidable. Banks explains “This is the closest to Prog Rock – the end especially is like a song; it could have been a Genesis song, although we’ve treated it orchestrally.” And, indeed, the inspiration was very much from an earlier piece, composed during Genesis days. In this Banks is following in a time-honoured tradition which can be traced back to Baroque masters Bach and Handel, that of self-borrowing , and the trigger was Ingman’s suggestion of using a choir. Davis chips in “It’s a good way to end the disc.”

The final naming of the individual pieces has come only recently but confirms a distinct feeling of a journey. The organically developing overture, Prelude to a Million Years, leads to youthful bravado in Reveille, complete with virtuoso trumpet solo (Shakespeare’s fourth ‘act’ from All the world’s a stage perhaps).* A more settled existence – perchance marriage and family life – necessitates Ebb and Flow, where the oboe and saxophone offer a mellower gloss, before leading to Autumn Sonata, a time for reflection, and the choral apotheosis that is Renaissance. Each of the pieces can stand alone, but they also work as a cohesive whole. And, while on Six Banks had been happy to stand back and offer no instrumental contribution at all (“it had always been an ambition of mine to have an album of my music on which I’m not playing”), here on Five listen carefully for the piano parts as they come directly from Banks’ original demos, skilfully incorporated in the final orchestral sound mix.

Nick Ingman remarks that “Tony’s demos were really good and really precise. The tempos which are crucial were already fixed and to quite a fine degree – sometimes to four decimal points! The opening of Prelude to a Million Years – played completely in free time on Tony’s demo – we needed multiple time signatures changing nearly every bar. And for his extended rallentandos we had to click them out. We also used two string sections – same players which we then overdubbed – with the second providing the motor – the active rhythmic part, which gave an impetus, a forward motion to the music.”

The arpeggio-inspired Cheltenham piece opens with C major chord which isn’t a C major chord, as it is without any third (i.e. neither major or minor). The seventh that goes against it gives it a Blues feel. Banks had toyed with a couple of different ideas for the movement before choosing one, but he didn’t waste the other idea, as it became the basis of Ebb and Flow , which follows after the more combative Reveille. Autumn Sonata is almost completely diatonic (the piano’s ‘white notes’) – Ingman detects an overt English idiom here – which contrasts with the eastern influence of Renaissane, composed in Dorian mode, with a low drone to start and both the cor anglais and duduk colouring the choral contribution.

Will there be more? Might the album countdown continue? Coming up to 68, Banks is making no promises, but he still enjoys the process of composition and remains fascinated by harmonic changes that propel his music and the intricacies in working the music out.