(The following donated review by Timothy Turner was moved by Filmtracks to this comment section in June, 2007)

Moll Flanders: (Mark Mancina) Moll Flanders is a 18th century drama about a girl named Flora who is on her way to meet her mother, Moll, for the first time. She is read her mother's diary by Hibble, a long time friend of her Mother's and she learns the type of life her mother has lived, such as being an orphan and involved in prostitution. You would think someone would score this 18th century movie such as George Fenton, who has done so many period films such as this. But instead, Mark Mancina was called in for the job. Now since the film had a low budget, Mancina was not given the chance to work with a large orchestra as he had hoped. Rather, he had to use his expertise in synths mixed with about 10-12 authentic instruments, including acoustic guitars, woodwinds, violins, cellos, fiddles, Irish drums and female solo vocals by Karen Harper.

The score starts off with the main theme "Moll of Flanders," and is performed by strings and woodwinds; it is very beautiful and lyrical, and one of the highlights of the entire CD. Then it moves on to "Molls Jig," which is an uplifting piece performed on acoustic guitars and fiddles that have a nice celtic feel to it. In fact, the entire score has a celtic style to it. The second highlight of the score is the love theme "We Are One." It's just as beautiful as the main theme, and sounds really nice when played on woodwinds.

Another good track is "Sparrows," which starts of with the mixing of a electronic choir and real female volocals, which builds into a good little action piece with fast paced Irish drums and riviting fiddles, with the choir fading in and out. I really wish that this score was actually scored with a large orchestra because it is really full of beautiful themes and nice passages, but Mark Mancina did an ecxellent job working with what he had. This also shows his talent and demontrates that he is capable of more than just loud action music. I hope he does something like this again, and this time with a large orchestra as originally planned.

After Mancina's score follows a song by Sarah McLachlan called "Full of Grace" --it's a nice song and compliments the score very nicely. Following that is a collaboration of classical music from composers such as Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi, just to remind us of the time period of the film. They only add to the value of this CD. If you want to hear something different from Mancina or are one of those people that think that no one from Media Ventures can right non-action music, well you have to listen to this. I recommend to all film music fan. *****