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Monday, March 13, 2006

CD REVIEW - Enduring Love


Enduring Love
Music by Jeremy Sams
Mellowdrama Records MEL108 (U.K.)
13 Tracks 40:43

For Roger Michell's 2004 dark tale of obsession, the director turned to composer Jeremy Sams, who had scored his previous film The Mother. Sams is better known for his work as a stage director, lyricist, and translator of opera libretti, but has also written for TV, and won a BAFTA for his score to his first collaboration with Michell, Persuasion, in 1995.
Enduring Love was originally temped with music by such British greats as Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten, but I would liken Sams' score more to Richard Rodney Bennett, and in particular Far from the Madding Crowd, especially as it starts off with a fine pastoral, featuring solo violin. This music, although reprised throughout the score, is further developed in the strings, becoming the "Obsession" theme, which also features strongly. And a third major element is a "passacacaglia," which becomes increasingly turbulent, but ends in disturbing piano and strings. All these elements combine to result in a score, which has sparse beauty, amongst genuinely eerie and threatening moments.
Mellowdrama Records are to be commended for rescuing this music from obscurity and, as usual, have done a fine job of supporting the disc with an informative booklet, which includes a note from the composer himself.

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