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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Craig Armstrong/A.R. Rahman)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you're eager to be slapped across the face by a ballsy
and accessible score of immense size, a surprisingly engaging merging of
techniques from two respected composers from completely disparate
backgrounds.
Avoid it... if you expect to hear either anything stylistically new from Craig Armstrong or enough of A.R. Rahman's far more darkly seductive music for the collaboration in the film or on its album.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Elizabeth: The Golden Age: (Craig Armstrong/A.R.
Rahman) Attempting to continue the success he enjoyed with his highly
acclaimed Elizabeth of 1998, director Shekhar Kapur assembled
leads Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush for a sequel in 2007. The plot of
Elizabeth: The Golden Age continues the narrative of England's
Queen Elizabeth in the 16th Century, carrying her through continued
failed attempts at courtship, the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, and
the assault of King Philip II upon her country via the Spanish Armada.
Several substantial liberties were taken with the facts of this period
of history, including Elizabeth's age and a multitude of issues
surrounding the secondary characters seen in this largely artificial
narrative. Despite continuing many of the successful production aspects
seen and heard in Elizabeth, Kapur was greeted with negative
reviews and lower grosses at the box office for Elizabeth: The Golden
Age, mostly due to drawn-out romantic interludes and the simple fact
that the costumes, sets, and music are all so immense in the picture
that these technical elements vastly overshadow the acting performances
(with the exception of Blanchett, of course, who seems to excel in this
role despite her surroundings). The music was initially a source of
significant curiosity, the assignment split between contemporary
Scottish composer Craig Armstrong and Indian Sufi music legend A.R.
Rahman, the latter not yet a truly international name (Slumdog
Millionaire debuted a year later). Gone were the sometimes painful
attempts in the previous film by Australian composer David Hirschfelder
to emulate 16th Century music structures to ensure authenticity, a
technique that was sometimes impressive but oddly cold and disjointed in
its sum. While Kapur is Indian and some may assume that he sought Rahman
primarily for Elizabeth: The Golden Age, he was reportedly
persuaded into employing the composer for the project at the insistence
of Blanchett, an enthusiast of his music. Taking primary credit for the
score, however, is Armstrong, who housed Rahman in Glasgow and recorded
the score at his own studios. The two worked amicably together despite
their distinctly different musical backgrounds and approaches to the
religious aspects of the story.
One certainty about Elizabeth: The Golden Age is the familiarity of Armstrong's writing style. He had already passed his height of international success with scores like Moulin Rouge and Love Actually and, to his credit and potentially his demise, his musical style is extremely consistent and readily identifiable. If you casually observe that Elizabeth: The Golden Age sounds like a typical Armstrong score, then you'd be mostly correct, but that's likely a result of the fact that he contributed more of the music that made the final cut of the film and, consequently, the album. That album presentation is comprised of about a 70/30 split between Armstrong and Rahman, respectively, and in the years since this score debuted, it has been revealed that Rahman was primarily responsible for all of the darker cues in Elizabeth: The Golden Age. In 2009, Kapur stated that it was extremely regrettable that much of Rahman's material was cut from the film and album, maintaining that it is impressive enough to be featured as the centerpiece of a future project that the two will undertake. Avid film music collectors and those familiar with Rahman's Bollywood activities will recognize the composer's four cues on album because of their distinct applications of exotic instrumentation and voices. The composer has always had a knack for layering interesting vocal tones in his music, even in something as silly as his American debut, Couples Retreat. In Elizabeth: The Golden Age, he assigns seductively cold female soprano solos to "Mary's Beheading," "Battle," and "Divinity Theme" and shifts Armstrong's typically high range ensemble vocals to the depths of the male range in "Philip" and "Battle." His instrumentation is also vastly more eclectic, including duduk, dilrubi, chimes, tasteful synthetic pulsations deep in the bass, and standout percussion. He also offers one of the score's three main themes, arguably its strongest. He addresses (ironically, when you think about the fact he converted to Islam) the religious aspect of the story, writing an overwhelmingly powerful melody of elegance and dread summarized in "Divinity Theme" and referencing it in eerie and ominous shades at the ends of "Philip" and "Battle" while using fragments of its progressions (and its instrumentation) for the challenging "Mary's Beheading." Casual enthusiasts of the score will likely keep coming back to these Rahman cues, for they convey the villainous portions of the soundtrack that are both the most powerful and the most refreshing. The Armstrong music in Elizabeth: The Golden Age is solid but rather stagnant in parts, especially when compared to Rahman's portion. The Scot's tone for this score is not much different than the melodramatic flair heard in his Baz Luhrmann collaborations, and he seemed so limited in his melodic structures by the late 2000's that his music tended to sound less effective with each passing slight variation on the same idea. Then again, everything in Elizabeth: The Golden Age is blown out of proportion, so at least you get to hear his style in full glory. His instrumentation is heavily centered upon strings and high choral tones, and listeners familiar to his career will even recognize his contemporary acoustic guitar and synthetic rhythmic loops in a handful of places here (the latter in "Bess to See Throckmorton"). Fortunately, he keeps this contemporary edge restrained in performance and mix, and only for portions of "Horseriding" do you think you're listening to Love Actually once again. He provides two themes and one secondary motif to Elizabeth: The Golden Age, all three repeated several times. The romantic melody in "Love Theme," "Smile Lines," and "Immensities" is a leftover of the equivalent in Moulin Rouge. Far more engaging is Armstrong's "Destiny Theme," the basis for the "Opening" and "Closing" tracks; the "Opening" in particular exhibits some lovely violin figures that dance around the theme with elegance. The secondary motif in "War" and "Horseback Address" is a descending series of phrases extremely typical to Armstrong's career and, when combined with the full choral performances, as in "Storm," another self-tribute to his highly popular "Escape" cue from Plunkett and Macleane (a common trailer track). The morbid beauty of "Walsingham Death Bed" is a clear Moulin Rouge moment. His tense material is not as engaging as Rahman's, though the latter composer's female vocals do make cameos in the appropriately ominous "Bess & Raleigh Dance" and a couple of other places. Overall, though, such quibbles with lack of originality will not bother most moviegoers, and Armstrong's stance here is stronger than in his usual output. Rahman's influence on the score helps push it further into the category of clear winners, however. There could have been a bit clearer narrative arc to the entire score, but given the two artists contributing to its disparate parts, Elizabeth: The Golden Age does quite well in the cohesion department. The "Divinity Theme" cue by Rahman highlights several very strong cues in a score that demands respect because of its accessible tones and ballsy immensity. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 48:31
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes short notes from the director and both composers about
the collaborative process.
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