Film Scores I Love, Part Two

     Okay, it's not a feature film -- rather, they're not feature films -- but Hagood Hardy's scores to Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Green Gables, the Sequel (formerly titled Anne of Avonlea) are so wonderfully winsome, touching, humorous, romantic, and just downright perfect for these mini-series, I just had to include them here.

     Unfortunately, the CD is out of print and extant copies, both new and used, are outrageously expensive (at least from what I saw on Amazon). Shame. At least we still have this beautiful music on YouTube.

     One of my favorite film composers is Thomas Newman, whose most recent credits include The Help, The Iron Lady, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. But it's his score to the 1994 Little Women that I love best. The titles theme is unabashedly American, almost Copland-esque, with its broad brass and sweeping strings, a perfect musical evocation of this quintessentially American novel and its atmospheric film adaptation.



     Another of my favorites is Patrick Doyle. Who doesn't love the music in the final scene of Sense and Sensibility ? All the music in this film is wonderful, particularly the songs sung by Kate Winslet and, over the end credits, the platinum-voiced Jane Eaglen.



     Speaking of Jane Austen films, I particularly love the songs Jeremy Sams wrote for the 1995 Persuasion, both of them in Italian and both so lovely (though the second one is incomplete), I wish they were available on sheet music. Those of you who have seen the film undoubtedly know the scene where Anne and her family attend a salon concert (" ... to be given in Italian," said Mr Elliott contemptuously ). The first song is repeated over the final credits.

     I couldn't write a post about favorite film scores without including this scene from The Holiday, in which Jack Black, playing a film composer, tells Kate Winslet's character -- in a most descriptive way -- what his favorite film scores are. (Fastforward to about 4:00 for the scene I'm talking about.)