CD REVIEW - Flicka


Flicka
Music by Aaron Zigman
Advance Music
21 Tracks 50:39 mins

On 21st November, Varese Sarabande will release Aaron Zigman's score for this updating of the 1943 film My Friend Flicka. Now just Flicka, the film stars Alison Lohman, with country music star Tim McGraw as her father.
Those expecting a suitably Coplandesque musical score will be disappointed, as this is music more in the style of Basil Poledouris' Lonesome Dove and more contemporary westerns of that ilk, with a little Thomas Newmanesque Americana thrown in. If nothing else, it shows the versatility of composer Zigman, whose more recent projects are of a more urban nature such as ATL and Akeelah and the Bee.
I actually have a lot of time for his score for Flicka, with its oft-times rousing orchestral action music, and occasionally more folksy, piano-lead fare. There's a strong theme for Flicka, which appears in variations throughout, and a more melancholy one, often voiced by piano, for Lohman's Katie. Along the way, there's sensitive, warm scoring, sometimes featuring guitar prominently, and some more disturbing sounds where appropriate. But ultimately it's the composer's handsome wide-open spaces music, often featuring the main Flicka theme at its most inspirational, and purposeful action scoring, that registers strongest.
I have no details of the Varese Sarabande release, but imagine much of the music on this disc will feature, though some of the more brief cues that make up the latter part may be omitted. Whatever, it's one of the more enjoyable Hollywood scores I've heard in a while.