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Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Jesus: The Epic Mini-Series: (Patrick Williams) No plot spoilers in the track listings of this one... For the television miniseries about the life of Jesus, our Lord and Savior, producers called upon one of the more seasoned veterans of television scoring. Over three decades, Patrick Williams has composed an eclectic variety of music for the television venue, and has been rewarded with numerous Emmy nominations and a handful of Emmy and Grammy awards won. Together with the series director, Williams decided to distance themselves from the more typical approach to religious scoring, avoiding the "grandiose choral and organ in cathedral" method. Instead, a more basic orchestral score is presented, with mostly modern, non-synthesized orchestrations. The most surprising aspect of this score and album will be its scope. I suppose that should come as no suprise given the subject matter of the film (Jesus Christ, after all, doesn't come around every day), but nevertheless it is rare to hear such bold and fulfilling performances for a television series. The title theme is an all-encompassing, accessible, and easily recognizable melody with traditional strings performing the theme with brass overlay. The underscore in between is less interesting when compared directly to the spectacular bookend themes, though there are a few highlights lurking. The fourth track has by far the best material on the album, with the title theme joined by a single, wordless female vocal --this would be the only such vocal in the score section of the album. Likewise, a momentous burst of theme and slight electronics announce the arrival of track six, and provides much of the notable action music on the album. The "Satan" track has some particularly interesting orchestration, too. The duo label combination of Angel and Sparrow Records has been pushing this album, as well as the song album, with great enthusiasm. Not to be confused with Patrick Williams' album, the song compilation contains "inspirational" songs in addition to two tracks from this score CD. One of the two tracks on both albums is Andrew Lloyd Webber's original "Pie Jesu" from Requiem, performed by Sarah Brightman. As a Webber/Brightman fan myself, though, I can think of many other collaborations of theirs that I enjoy more (strictly from a composition standpoint), but, of course, this selection is relevant. Its appearance here neither really helps or hinders the score. In summary, this is good music, but then again, I'm one of the people who loves massive choral and organ scores for religious epics, and just a little bit of such ambience (or a continuation of the female vocals heard in track four) would have been greatly welcomed by me. ****
The insert includes a note about the score, but no picture of the big guy himself. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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