Buy it... if you seek arguably Mark Isham's best career achievement, a gorgeously pretty, pastoral effort of unashamed harmony that is one of the most effective scores of the 1990's.

Avoid it... if the score's rarity in album form isn't worth music that is more loveable than it is technically impressive.

Isham

Fly Away Home: (Mark Isham) Every once in a while, you get a combination of director, cinematographer, and composer that works so splendidly that the resulting beauty on screen captivates audiences of all ages. Fly Away Home is one such production, with the 1996 film offering the rewarding tale of a girl who has lost her mother and regains her vitality by adopting a flock of geese at her estranged father's large property. With the geese refusing to migrate properly (because of course, the little girl doesn't get up and fly south herself), the girl and her father use an ultralight plane to teach the young birds how to fly and begin their migration. It's a semi-true tale that culminates in the exhilarating journey through a flight at the end of the film that is saturated with wholesome sentimentality (in the days before American homeland security would chase them out of the air). It's an ultimate feel-good story, and composer Mark Isham plays his role in extending the warm and fuzzy feelings throughout his music. The orchestral score, rich with the pastoral styles of small-town Americana, utilizes instrumentation that plays straight to the expected tones of nature and the birds themselves. Woodwinds creatively chirp out the sounds of young birds, specialty string instruments and a harmonica bring back memories of the farm, and tapping percussion present the adversity that the birds face along their course of maturation. Heightening the score more than anything, of course, is the melodic heart of Isham's effort. The opening and closing titles, along with the momentous flying scene, are scored with a gorgeous solo string theme backed by a spirited symphonic ensemble. The performance, which features the familiar strings of a usual orchestra, has the feel of a fiddle, further accentuating (along with a solo flute) the picturesque beauty of the landscape. Isham spares no dramatic element in Fly Away Home, with even a solo voice inserted for a poignant, mournful cue of remembrance. The score could, at its outset, possibly espouse the kind of falsely positive Americana spirit that, in its deeper moments, fails to inspire the majority of modern score collectors. But although Isham is criticized for sometimes failing to produce a strong theme when one is really needed, there is no such flaw in this work.

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The thematic grace that exists from start to finish in Fly Away Home has a spirited personality that distinguishes itself from Isham's other music. So harmonically rich is the foundation of this entire score that it combines the wholesome melodic grace of the prettiest portions of Racing Stripes with the same determination (though less obviously bold) as Isham's famous fanfare for the U.S. Army's many television recruitment commercials. Both of these efforts came far later in his career, however, and many film score critics have correctly argued that Fly Away Home is the strongest score of Isham's first dozen years of major film scoring. While the score's constructs and instrumentation might not alone win over curmudgeons, its simply gorgeous renderings will touch the heart of even the most cynical enthusiasts of the minor key. Isham reaches out to embrace the same kind of rhythmic enthusiasm and thematic constants that draw Rachel Portman fans, but with a different character. The tragedy of this romantic score is, of course, that it completely fell through the cracks when the time came to release it on album. It is rare that a score of this immense, lasting popularity in the mainstream receives no release at all, raising questions about the kind of studio mishaps that lead to these unfortunate situations. A promotional CD meant for awards consideration was released with nine cues amounting to a little over half an hour of music at the time that Fly Away Home came up for a possible Oscar nomination. After this promotional album quickly disappeared, bootlegs began surfacing with regularity, and one in particular (under the false "Fly Away Records" label and featuring a handful of cues from other Isham works) took hold and worked its way into many collections. When the ultimate edition of the film was released on DVD in 2003, fans cheered when they saw an isolated score advertised as part of the product. Unfortunately, it was one of those "commentary" tracks during which Isham analyzes his work over some of the important moments, including the beautiful opening and closing cues. Thus, the DVD still isn't the answer for fans of the score. While those devoted to the film represent the most desperate seekers of the bootleg, all film music collectors should take a moment to explore this beautifully lovable and uncomplicated score. *****

Bias Check:

For Mark Isham reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.93 (in 15 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.06 (in 6,616 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.