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The Blue Planet
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Composed, Conducted, and Produced by:
Orchestrated by:
Geoffrey Alexander
Performed by:
BBC Concert Orchestra
The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford
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LABELS & RELEASE DATES
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BBC Music
(November 7th, 2001)
Koch Records (January 27th, 2002)Silva Screen Records (March 23rd, 2018)
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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The BBC album of 2001 was released in the United Kingdom and Australia, available
as an import in America for $22 before the Koch Records re-issue of 2002 normalized the product
globally. Both editions fell out of print within ten years. The 2018 album from Silva Screen is
primarily a European release, again available in America as a higher priced import.
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AWARDS
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Winner of an Emmy Award and nominated for a BAFTA Award.
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ALSO SEE
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Buy it... if you seek the impressive symphonic score that inspired
George Fenton's glorious music for the subsequent nature productions
Deep Blue and Planet Earth.
Avoid it... if the lighter, acoustic side of The Blue
Planet, far more prevalent here than in those subsequent works,
fragments the listening experience too badly to justify the purchase of
material that was improved upon for Deep Blue anyway.
BUY IT
 | Fenton |
The Blue Planet: (George Fenton) Wildly popular in
the United Kingdom, this eight-hour long series of shows by the BBC
Natural History Unit aired in 2001 after its crew spent years collecting
breathtaking original footage to create one of the most comprehensive
ocean wildlife films of all time. The ambitious project offered a look
into nearly every element of marine life, and its spectacular
cinematography earned it both respect and popular success on the BBC. It
was among the first of a new generation of incredible wildlife
productions for television that arguably culminated in Planet
Earth later in the decade. Three years prior to the debut of The
Blue Planet, as the film was being assembled by teams of
photographers from around the globe, the producers approached one of the
foremost British composers of television and film, George Fenton, to
compose the lengthy mass of music required for the episodes. The event
allowed Fenton the opportunity to write for a magnificent scope that
would be expected for an IMAX project, leaving no instrument unused in
his effort to adequately compliment the expansive and diverse elements
of the sea. After the completion of the score, the BBC Concert Orchestra
and the Choir of Magdalen College in Oxford were so impressed and
enthusiastic about their own performances of the score that a live
concert of music from the show was arranged by the composer. On October
13th, 2001, both performing groups assembled with Fenton in the Royal
Festival Hall to present highlights from the score while the show's
David Attenborough narrated passages from the program projected onto a
giant screen in the hall. The spectacle was followed, naturally, by a
highly anticipated CD album of the music. Nobody could have expected
that Fenton's music for The Blue Planet would introduce a musical
style that was destined to dominate his career in the 2000's. As
impressive as this score seemed at the time, Fenton elaborated on the
same ideas for the Deep Blue big screen adaptation of the show a
few years later and, eventually, take the concept a step further for
television's Planet Earth.
It's often been the case that large-scale nature shows,
whether they exist on IMAX screens or television screens, offer
composers a chance to write magnificent themes and action passages of
considerable length that they would otherwise not be able to expand upon
for a feature film full of rapid synchronization points. What Fenton
produced for The Blue Planet is not really much different from
what you'd expect from the usual large-ensemble, massively epic score
for an IMAX venue. Collectors of Fenton's works who clamored for his
occasional outbursts of immense melody and orchestral power were finally
given the opportunity to hear the five-time Academy Award nominated
composer explode with lengthy renditions of several accessibly tonal and
immense full-ensemble motifs, recorded with careful attention to both
treble and bass contributors. The ensemble's most powerful passage,
"Killer Whales," features ultra-slow tempos and ambitiously resonating
tonality of relatively simple but satisfying force. Like all nature
programs, though, there are extremes between cues for large vistas and
those for microscopic organisms. In this case, the difference in the
styles within Fenton's score exists, in the most general sense, between
the jelly fish and surfing snail kind of silly animals and the deadly or
serious shark and whale variety. Whereas the impressive species are
accompanied by ripping, complex layers of epic proportions usually
reserved for fantasy and adventure scores, the smaller, "cuter" species
are accompanied by a Mediterranean pop-like lounge sounds, and your
ability to sift out the program sequences that interest you will
determine how much you enjoy this album. The modern acoustical rhythms
in the fluffier cues are tolerable, though weak compared to the power of
the fully symphonic material. The slightly ethnic flavor in "Spinning
Dolphins," exhibiting a Latin style that is strangely reminiscent of
Jerry Goldsmith's Silver Age material for Latin settings, stands apart
from the otherwise understated, electronic rhythms of a light rock
variety that provide a bubbly underscore for the less intimidating
species. It's likely that film music fans will quickly skip these parts
in favor of the more robust orchestral and choral cues, and rightfully
so. While the diversity speaks to Fenton's talents, the album's biggest
detriment is the basic inconsistency necessitated by the show's various
topics.
For good reason, the title theme for The Blue
Planet is what attracted the most attention to Fenton's score. As it
graced the opening of each program, viewers were treated to a
resoundingly superb statement of the theme with magnificent choral
depth. The pulsating strings over the opening half of the theme are a
remarkably effective method of addressing the movement of water. Being
the choir's only performance on the album, the title track stands alone
as not only the highlight of the show and album, but among the best of
film and television music for all of 2001 as well. The composition may
be relatively simple in its construction, but what it lacks in
originality is more than compensated for by its overwhelming size.
Fenton rearranges this theme's phrases of descending pairs for several
cues, but he utilizes it with arguably better results in Deep
Blue. Three other tracks, sans choir, exhibit notably powerful
performances from the full orchestral ensemble. "Sardine Run," "Blue
Whale," and "Emperors" also offer some of the best action sequences of
2001 on album, with explosive brass performances that bounce off the
walls with enthusiasm. Together with several impressive orchestral cues
of lesser volume later in the album (including the ethereal "Frozen
Oceans" late in the presentation), there are fifteen to twenty minutes
of extremely engaging orchestral material to be heard on the product.
All of the ensemble performances are easy to digest, and although the
acoustic and synthetic cues with modern rhythms may be tougher to enjoy,
those fifteen to twenty minutes of orchestral majesty more than justify
the price of the album. The only significant failing of the lighter
sections on album is their odd mixing; the sound quality begins rather
muted and picks up in both gain levels and clarity in later passages.
The initial 2001 album was pressed by the BBC itself and therefore
demanded a higher import price for Americans who stood no chance of
finding it in retail stores. (An American re-pressing in 2002 with
different cover art largely solved availability issues.) The Silva
Screen label remastered the same contents in 2018 for a more widely
available product to join their release of the less organic, more
heavily processed Blue Planet II score led by Hans Zimmer, a work
disloyal to Fenton's precedent. While it's easy to recommend Deep
Blue as a better-rounded overall listening experience, the opening
track of The Blue Planet is still among the best performances of
the concept's main theme available. All these scores remain highly
recommended on any album. **** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
Bias Check: |
For George Fenton reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.64
(in 14 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.37
(in 16,304 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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Excellent score Sheridan - January 30, 2007, at 5:02 a.m. |
1 comment (2018 views) |
All Albums Tracks ▼ | Total Time: 55:12 |
1. The Blue Planet (2:49)
2. Sardine Run (3:29)
3. Spinning Dolphins (2:38)
4. Bluewhale (4:45)
5. Thimble Jelly Fish (2:09)
6. Surfing Snails (1:49)
7. Emperors (4:19)
8. Turtles (2:15)
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9. Sharks (3:43)
10. Stingray (2:02)
11. Baitball (4:26)
12. The Deep Ocean (6:27)
13. Elephant Seal March (2:36)
14. Frozen Oceans (1:23)
15. Coral Wonder (2:25)
16. Killer Whales (7:49)
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The packaging of the 2001 product is very unique. The entire jewel case is blue tinted
and has the title of the program printed directly on the exterior. The insert contains a note from
George Fenton along with performing and recording credits. Subsequent editions simplified the
packaging considerably. The following excerpt is taken from the 2001 album's insert and a BBC
interview with Fenton from the same year:
"Three years ago when I was asked to write the music, I imagined footage which
would be awesome, terrifying and magnificent. It is all of these things, but my
lasting impression and for me the greatest achievement is that the remarkable
films Alastair Fothergill, Martha Holmes and Andy Byatt have made, actually
manage to make the oceans feel as natural a habitat as the land. They have
achieved this by a spectacular mix of scientific knowledge and dramatic flair.
They love what they do and it shows. The same is true of David Attenborough. His
commentaries are distinguished in their understanding, love of the subject and
luckily for me, their musicality.
Because the visual image isn't rich, because there's nothing out there, on the
screen you see one thing, there's nothing behind it, or in front of it, or
around it. You can't write around the back of anything, as it were because
there's nothing there. I kind of became unstuck with this peculiar world, it's a
strange world the deep. From a musical point of view you tend to write music
that is about what it would feel like to be in that submarine going down that
deep. It would feel dangerous, it would feel dark, it would feel courageous. You
need it and want it to feel specific to the film it's for.
I never would have imagined using an orchestra to play in the deep. And I
suppose its because the curious thing about the deep is it's a film made in the
part of the ocean where no-one can get out with a camera. That precludes hearing
any sound out there which to me felt like it should also preclude hearing
anybody actually playing. If you heard anybody actually blowing a trumpet or
sawing away at a cello it would almost seem like it was impinging on the
atmosphere of the deep. There is no available way to explain to anybody what 300
times surface pressure sounds like because no-one has ever heard it. It needs to
be explained and David Attenborough explains it very well, but I think that even
he should feel like a visitor. Less people have been down there than have walked
on the moon."
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