Search - Rachel Portman :: Oliver Twist [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

Rachel Portman
Oliver Twist [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
Genres: Pop, Soundtracks

Track Listings (18) - Disc #1
1. Streets Of London
2. The Road To The Workhouse
3. A Kind Old Woman
4. Oliver Runs Away
5. The Artful Dodger
6. Fagin's Loot
7. The Game
8. Oliver Learns The Hard Way
9. Watching Mr. Brownlow's House
10. The Escape From Fagin
11. Prelude To A Robbery
12. The Robbery
13. Toby And The Wounded Oliver
14. Nancy's Secret Journey
15. The Murder
16. Wanted: Bill Sykes & A Fierce Dog
17. The Death Of Bill Sykes
18. Newgate Prison

CD Details

All Artists: Rachel Portman
Title: Oliver Twist [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
Members Wishing: 0
Total Copies: 0
Label: Sony
Original Release Date: 9/30/2005
Re-Release Date: 9/20/2005
Album Type: Soundtrack
Genres: Pop, Soundtracks
Style:
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 827969650622

Synopsis

Amazon.com

Listening to Rachel Portman's score, you find yourself wondering if she misread the assignment sheet and thought she was working for an adaptation of the Dickens classic made by Masterpiece Theater, not one by troubled, thoughtful cinéaste Roman Polanski. The music here is lovely. Portman, whose other works include Nicholas Nickleby and Emma, is very skilled at evoking 19th-centure ambiance without falling into pure mimicky of that period's classical composers. But "lovely" isn't necessarily what one might expect from Oliver Twist. It's all very quiet. How could something titled "Escape from Fagin" be that subdued? And yet so it is. "The Murder" reprises similar themes with the same results. The Prague Philharmonic (a popular orchestra who's recorded everything from Dr. Strangelove: Music from the Films of Stanley Kubrick to the heavy strains of black metal band Dimmu Borgir) does its best, but one wishes for more depth throughout. Polanski is never afraid to stare straight into the darkness; Portman should have felt empowered to do the same. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

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CD Reviews

One of Rachel Portman's Best Works

Josh L. Bizeau | Wyoming | 12/03/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Pay no heed to the reviewer below. Any references found to themes from The Godfather are entirely coincidental (there are MANY three-note themes that sound similar; doesn't mean a thing. . . I mean, it's three notes!!) and, in fact, you could point to Portman's music leaning a bit toward sounding like more like Wojciech Kilar than anyone else and that's quite understandable due to director Roman Polanski's affiliation with that composer for quite some time.

What we have in Oliver Twist is pretty much the Rachel Portman we've always known, only now she's reached into unfimiliar territory for many of her listeners: dark, brooding themes and lots of minor key tonal centering. The score features a few notable themes, but only two are central to the score: Oliver's Theme and Fagin's Theme. Both of these themes are juxtaposed against one another effectively to create quite the wonderful English-sounding musical backdrop to Dickens' dark yet quirky character tale.

Portman's sensibilities towards strings and winds remain as strong as they ever have been, only this time she relies much more on use of the double basses and lower wind instruments to create carefully brooding textures for the more gloomy sections of the score. Her rhythmic action motifs are repetitive but effective and the simpler portions of the score are exquisitely well done and precisely orchestrated.

Overall, this is one of the biggest film score surprises of the year and I heartily recommend it to all Portman fans and especially to film music fans who have been disappointed in the 2005 film score year on the whole. This is a score to be long remembered and one to which Dickens himself would, I believe, give his approval."

Good but somewhat repetitive

Molly | 01/12/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I think the soundtracks great, but the same melody seems to be carried out through almost all of the songs. It's great to listen to kind of in the background, but if you want to listen to something to actually LISTEN to it, it's not the most intruiging."