Buy it... if you have longed for Christopher Young's return to straight-forward dramatic writing, in which case you'll be rewarded with an elegant, undemanding score with plenty of emphasis on harmonious meandering in the treble.

Avoid it... if you expect to be overwhelmed by any cue prior to the last one, for those concluding six minutes are a melodramatic gem that makes the rest of the relatively subdued score seem purely atmospheric.

Young

Creation: (Christopher Young) Even today, a decade into the 21st Century, a movie like Creation has difficulty finding a distributor in the United States because of animosity from interest groups perpetuating the outdated notion that mankind was created in six days by a deity. The British film was awarded the opening position at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival but failed to generate the kind of buzz necessary to propel such "thinking man's" films onto major awards consideration. The life of famous naturalist Charles Darwin is the topic of this somewhat fictionalized but basically biographical examination, focusing attention on the events just prior to his publishing of "On the Origin of Species." Darwin's work is encouraged by his ten-year-old daughter and shunned by his religious wife, and after the death of the girl, her supportive apparition and a reconciliation with his wife (played by lead actor Paul Bettany's real-life partner, Jennifer Connelly) eventually push Darwin to finish his text and send it dramatically in the final scene to be distributed. Mixed critical response and predictable resistance from active religious lobbies diminished the impact of the film in theatres, the plot not shying away from (or cleverly bypassing) controversy in its rejection of doctrine. Directed by Jon Amiel, Creation thus became an assignment for veteran composer Christopher Young. Best known for his vibrant horror scores, Young has rarely avoided the opportunity to write music for films unpopular with religious groups, though unlike the freakishly fiendish and highly respected score for Drag Me to Hell just prior, Creation is far more conservatively rendered. One of the long-standing wishes of Young's small but very loyal collecting base is his involvement in more projects like Murder in the First and The Shipping News. Such films give Young the rare chance to take the lyricism often morbidly conveyed in his horror scores' themes and extend those sensibilities out to melodramatic lengths. After balancing mostly between horror and hip, contemporary jazz scores in the last few years, Creation is a welcome return to the genre of drama for the composer. While not overwhelming in any regard, the score is still refreshing to hear from Young's sentimental side.

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Underplaying the dramatic impact of Creation seems to have been Young's intent; nothing in this music would underscore the important gravity of the text that Darwin was about to unleash upon the world. Rather, his score seems to concentrate on the man's relationships, comfortable in a tasteful role as pleasantly evocative but relatively simple atmosphere for conversational or contemplative scenes. The instrumentation is limited to a small orchestra with emphasis on strings and woodwinds. Piano is present as a frequent solo accent, and brass only comes into play in a few late cues (in a purely supporting, but vital role). The movement of the score often utilizes slight waltz rhythms, along with the use of a glockenspiel a subtle reminder of the era. A hurdy-gurdy effect provides slight torment to the environment when necessary. The thematic content of Creation is not spectacular, nor is it memorable, but it is passed between piano, violin, and oboe with ease. The tone of the work is rooted in the treble, often fluttering effortlessly with the help of harp, flutes, piano, and glockenspiel, creating the uplifting but dainty sound often associated with Alexandre Desplat's music at this time (though nowhere near as dense). A four-note motif on woodwinds is employed as an accent in several measures in the first half of the score; it's intriguing because it exactly emulates James Horner's equivalent in Sneakers (which, more famously, transforms in the minor into that composer's typical danger motif). Young affectionately adapts passages of music by Christopher Gunning and Arvo Part in two cues without attribution (outside of clever track titles), but these contributions enhance the listening experience. For most of its running time, Creation is a pretty, largely harmonic score that will likely fade into the background for most listeners. In "Knowing Everything I Now Know," however, the themes of the score begin to truly develop into the virtuoso violin performances that grace the conclusive "Humility and Love." This final cue takes the instrument as far from the deviant tone of Drag Me to Hell as possible and, upon being joined by the full ensemble, provides one of the single most redemptive cues of any soundtrack in 2009. Only as Darwin expunges his inner demons in "Humility and Love" can Young really allow the score to take flight, but this cue alone elevates an otherwise subdued and uneventful 50 minutes on album into a certain recommendation. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

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For Christopher Young reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.3 (in 23 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.99 (in 7,951 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.