'The Score' review — Brian Cox gives an impassioned, emotionally wrought portrayal of fading genius

Read our review of The Score, starring Brian Cox as composer Johann Sebastian Bach, now in performances at the Theatre Royal Haymarket to 26 April.

In 1747 Johann Sebastian Bach travelled to Potsdam at the behest of Frederick the Great, whose army was in the process of invading Bach’s homeland and rampaging through his home city of Leipzig. Oliver Cotton’s drama The Score, which premiered in Bath in 2023 and arrives in the West End replete with its star Brian Cox, examines this historic moment as a clear allegory for contemporary events.

The meeting of these historic figures is ripe with dramatic potential, though the play takes time to get to the meat of it. It opens with a fretful Bach arguing with his wife Anna (sympathetically portrayed by Cox’s real-life spouse, Nicole Ansari-Cox) over whether he should make the arduous journey to pay homage to such a rapacious monarch.

Even when the action moves to the royal palace, sumptuously evoked by Robert Jones’ ornate design, it’s a while before Frederick appears, as Bach talks with his son Carl (Jamie Wilkes), an underpaid court composer, and indulges a trio of admirers (Christopher Staines, Toby Webster and Matthew Romain) by playing their works by ear. When Frederick (Stephen Hagan) finally enters the fray, the drama moves up a gear as the king and his musical charges challenge the great man to improvise a fugue, and Bach strains to maintain his silence over the atrocities in Leipzig.

Cox – who also played the composer in 1984 film The Cantor of St Thomas's – superbly captures the sense of a genius constricted by convention, a brightly coloured but captive bird. The only real intellectual match for him is ebullient French philosopher Voltaire (Peter de Jersey), who privately advises that Prussia has become “not a state in possession of an army, but an army in possession of a state”.

The play offers an interesting study of the slippery role of patronage in the arts. Bach, like the court composers, must dance on the tightrope between honouring his overlords and creating work of integrity. Frederick, whose composition is the root of the fugue challenge, harbours musical ambitions of his own, though also recognises Bach’s towering abilities. There grows, if not a fondness, a mutual understanding between the two men, as the composer goes on to write a suite of works inspired by Frederick’s theme (The Musical Offering).

Trevor Nunn’s detailed, expansive production makes for a long evening (two hours 40 minutes) and there are several longueurs, particularly in the first act, that could be excised. But it’s a fascinating chapter of history that feels deeply pertinent in light of the current European conflict – particularly when Bach and Frederick argue over whether his military operation constitutes an invasion.

There are some fine performances among the 14-strong ensemble, notably Wilkes’s skittish Carl, who places a wager on his father’s talents to clear his debts, and Hagan’s frustrated Frederick, himself a captive of societal convention. There’s also a moving turn from Juliet Garricks as Emilia, a servant in Frederick’s court whose young son has been killed on the battlefield. But it’s Cox’s impassioned, emotionally wrought portrayal of fading genius that shines brightest.

The Score is at the Theatre Royal Haymarket to 26 April. Book The Score tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: The Score (Photos by Manuel Harlan)