Buy it... if you seek one of the more engaging and thematically beautiful orchestral scores in the Western/Eastern crossover genre.

Avoid it... if nonstop melodrama and tragedy on mainly strings, ehru, and choir become a burden too heavy to carry on a relatively long album.

Pavilion of Women: (Conrad Pope) This relatively little known film by Yim Ho is a World War II account of the budding romance between a Chinese woman and Western man set against the horrors of the Japanese invasion and occupation of mainland China. Unfortunately, the film was critically panned for its overplayed sense of melodrama and it barely registered at the box office in May of 2001. Willem Dafoe plays the white priest visiting the woman's village, and the inevitable love story that results against opulent production values is broken tragically by the encroaching war. For the project, therefore, a composer with talents accentuating the mixture of Western and Eastern instrumentation was required, and veteran orchestrator Conrad Pope received the welcomed call. Known throughout the industry as one of the most talented and prolific orchestrators of film music, Pope finally ventured into his first compositional assignment with Pavilion of Women, causing enough interest to warrant an album release for the diverse artist. Pope's orchestration credits were already to be found on the scores of John Williams, James Horner, and Alan Silvestri throughout the 1990's, and his knack for precise balance of instrumentation is perhaps what caught the eye of the producers of Pavilion of Women. While dominantly Eastern scores had become more and more popular over a period spanning the late 90's and early 2000's, culminating in the Academy Award win for Tan Dun's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, that particular sound never proved to be the ideal choice for many filmmakers (or, for that matter, the ears of Western audiences). An approach similar to that of George Fenton's in his fantastic Anna and the King score from the previous year was sought, however, for Pavilion of Women, and Pope delivered a popular work that was great applauded by most film music critics.

As with the introduction of any new orchestrator-turned-composer's work, the listener often attempts to identify the stylistic choices and traits of the composer himself (as opposed to those inherent in his employer's styles). In this case, Pope can be most easily identified with John Williams and Basil Poledouris, both of whom used primary and secondary string sections in a fashion similar to Pope's technique here, producing a rich depth to the sound of the music. Without a doubt, Pavilion of Women is a score led through every cue by an overwhelming presence of strings. An even greater attribute of Pope's talents is exhibited by the masterful integration of the Eastern instrumental soloists and an 85-piece orchestra. The ehru, a violin-like instrument of choice for the representation of Chinese traditions and locale in many films, is melded with the orchestra here better than in most other scores in this highly specific genre. The zheng harp is a tad more obscure in its use, however it holds the "Eternal Question" cue with ease. Pope also takes a stylistic page from Williams' Empire of the Sun in his incorporation of a children's choir and adult chorus that are sprinkled throughout the score (in addition to a song adapted from Giacomo Puccini's Madame Butterfly). Very much like Fenton's Anna and the King, Pavilion of Women is extremely thematic, almost never resting from the statement of at least a secondary motif, and the theme for the female lead is that which shines as the highlight of the score. With the string use so heavy in parts, the score transforms into statements of adagios in the pivotal tracks near the end of the film and album. The crescendo in the middle of "The Embrace" is among the most poignant moments in film music during the strong year of 2001, using brass in Williams-like fashion to expand the soundscape beneath the strings' sugary harmony.

	Only $9.99

With a diverse composition and mostly crisp performances (a few errors are noticeable late in the work), Pavilion of Women was a very impressive debut on album for Pope. The sole weakness of the score is, ironically, the over-exertion of the melodramatic tone of the music. There is no break from the overtly tragic atmosphere, yielding a score with little deviation from the expected. Aside from three cues portraying rape, fire, and invasion, the score, while exhibiting no technical weakness, is somewhat redundant. Pope explains that the music was requested to be melodramatic, but in many places, he pushes the theme (and particularly the strings) too far without allowing the score to stop for a moment to breathe. Moments like "The Birthday," featuring a spirited duet of ehru and harp in a dancing rhythm, show a character that the score, as a listening experience, could have used a bit more of. After 45 minutes of its running time, as enjoyable as it may be, Pavilion of Women begins to weigh so heavily on the listener with its grand expressions of theme and suffering that it begins to lose some of the elegant style with which it began the album so well. The height of the strings and operatic voices may not wear on some listeners as much as others. For some, the over the top drama, which is at a level not heard in a film scoring but for a few times each year, is a tempting delight. For others, it might be a burden too heavy to carry. In any case, though, Pope created a magnificent body of music for this film, and more than proved his ability to compose for major feature films. His compositional career unfortunately did not launch into another gear because of this work, but the effective integration of Eastern and Western instrumentation in Pavilion of Women is enough by itself to highly recommend this album and will make many wonder why the career orchestrator didn't receive an increase in offers for mainstream writing assignments thereafter. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download