Though John Barry achieved popular recognition for the swinging, loungey, noir-ish soundtracks he composed for the James Bond films, he moved to the front rank of film composers with his score for 1966's BORN FREE. Stylistically, the music of BORN FREE is miles removed from Barry's Bond soundtracks, though the composer's fondness for brass fanfares, stirring strings, and lush, intricate charts with stunning dynamic range is still intact. On the whole, however, the music to BORN FREE has a playful, innocent quality, evoking the nature of the wild animals at the film's center. As the movie is set in Africa, Barry employs a range of African percussion instruments, and sections of flute music (which often seem to echo the sounds of birds or other creatures). The arrangements are expansive and sweeping, giving rise to the sensation of open plains, and Barry's recurring musical themes parallel the film's action (the track titles indicate plot events). The score is, for the most part, surprisingly subdued, with occasional bursts of energy (mirroring tumultuous events onscreen) and its stirring title theme the exceptions. Barry won an Academy Award for the score in 1966.
Composer Gabriel Yared crafts a romantic, emotional backdrop with his score for 1999's Message In a Bottle. The beauty and problems of love are expressed through pieces like Sail With Me Tonight and Last Letter, all richly emotional and masterfully performed.
First time on CD. Composed & Conduted by the legendary Legrand including his "Picasso Suite". This nostalgic coming-into-manhood fantasy features a gorgeous Oscar-winning score by Michel Legrand ("Yentl", "The Thomas Crown Affair"). Director Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird) evokes the period with double-dip ice cream cones, paddleball, saddle shoes, packages of Fels Naptha and the mist of memory in which the hero's thoughts are enwrapped. Herman Raucher's screenplay is a discerning and appreciative translation of one boy's trip along a trajectory of psychological and sexual change.
The rare sequel that improves upon its predecessor, Rocky II expands on the uplifting approach exemplified by Bill Conti's immortal "Gonna Fly Now" to create a score that's both more cohesive and more emotional. Writer/director/star Sylvester Stallone affords Conti a wider emotional berth this time around, allowing for poignant, melancholy themes like "Vigil" alongside fist-pumping anthems like the climactic "Overture" – as before, Conti employs little more than solo piano, a small string ensemble, and a potent brass section, and it's to the composer's enormous credit that he can forge such larger-than-life music from relatively few instrumental elements. "Gonna Fly Now" even reappears, this time with a children's choir in tow, and sounds better than ever. Not even Frank Stallone's "Two Kinds of Love" can torpedo this one.
Listen to the Movies! Musical memory of cinema! Angélique, Marquise of Angels / Michel Magne Soundtracks of the five films in the series Angelica (1964-1968) in 1964, Michel Magne is a talented young composer shaggy, revealed by his collaborations with Roger Vadim (The Rest of the Warrior), Henri Verneuil (A monkey in winter, Melody in the basement) and Georges Lautner (Les Tontons flingueurs). The Christmas 64 years will further consolidate it's status, with the inauguration Simultaneous two successful series: Fantômas and ngelique. This adaptation the novel cycle of Anne and Serge Golon give the actress Michele Mercier opportunity to interpret the role of his life… and that of writing five Magne large orchestral scores, halfway between Baroque music and romantic, worn by a big lyrical theme in the form of portrait of the heroine. " It is a theme that tells Angelique, said the composer. That is to say a woman who is fighting desperately for his love. "Thanks in particular to TV replays, the Angelique among the most famous scores Magne… but, paradoxically, had never been fully edited.