The story is truer than true, recalling the real-life moment British cello virtuoso Beatrice Harrison took her dignified instrument to her garden, and a songbird joined in. “At first she couldn’t believe it, so she started playing a sonata, and the nightingale accompanied her.” One night she was playing a scale and a nightingale joined in. “In the summer evenings she used to practise in the garden. “There’s a wonderful cellist called Beatrice Harrison,” Peggy says. There’s a wonderful scene in which young archaeologist Peggy (Lily James), tells Rory (Johnny Flynn) of the time a cellist inadvertently played a duet with the nightingales inhabiting her garden. Is the story of the cellist and the nightingale real? After serving fifteen years for murder, Callahan returns home to find Sean, his victims father searching for the body. Read more: Soprano sings jaw-dropping Handel aria from church pulpit >

We’re also treated to some wonderful Handel at the garden party scene near the end, when a fanfare moment from the English composer’s Music for the Royal Fireworks is played out by a brass band, in celebration of the historic local findings. Sweeping strings and sounds from the natural world speak beautifully to the film’s British setting, with melancholy moments on the piano painting a picture of nostalgia for pre-war times and moments of wonder and discovery amplified by driving timpani lines. It embraces moments of silence and does not dominate, rather providing a melodious support for the film’s outstanding acting and script, and breathtaking Suffolk landscapes. Gregory’s music for The Dig is soft and subtle.

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