Music from the movie ‘Pride & Prejudice’
– Dario Marianelli (composer), J Thibaudet (piano) & English Chamber Orchestra (UCJ label)
Friends of mine are getting a bit worried about me because when most blokes were watching the World Cup footie final down the pub, I was home alone watching the recent girly-flick, Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightley (nice of her to pop round). What an enchantingly lovely movie! Never having read the book (being something of a bloke really) I was so relieved it had a happy ending – and wow, what a score! I refer of course to the soundtrack, and in no way to ‘copping off’ (if that’s the right blokey expression?) with Ms Knightley – or the outcome of the fußball for that matter.

Listening to the final refrain as the credits rolled I knew I was going to have to buy the CD. Why was it that I found my soul touched so much more deeply by Dario Marianelli’s soundtrack than by most of the allegedly ‘spiritual’ music I receive for review here at Kindred Spirit magazine?

Movie music is a strange kettle of kippers. With a few notable exceptions (Bernard Hermann’s Psycho violins, etc.), the vast majority of movie scores rarely remain for long in the conscious memory of the vast majority of film lovers, yet moment by moment the soundtrack can be absolutely pivotal as to whether each scene really impacts, and consequently the success of the movie as a whole. But on the other hand, how often can a movie score really stand alone in its own right? Also, although Marianelli’s music for Pride & Prejudice brings me to tears with its tender yearning, is that because the movie had me weeping too, and its memory is for me imprinted on the music?

Marianelli’s brief was to emulate music of the late 18^thC that Jane Austen would have been familiar with, but he has exceeded this so much, so effectively and so necessarily. During the 19^thC, a deeper, richer emotionality was added to the language of classical music, plus the Impressionists added so much more colour to its palette, and I feel Marianelli was correct in availing himself of these advances that enable contemporary audiences to emotionally engage with the characters more fully. To have had the actors adopt a modern parlance would undoubtedly have ruined the character of the film and been a crime against Ms Austen, but to evolve the music beyond the Classical to the Romantic was profoundly effective and beautiful.

Would I recommend you rush out and buy the soundtrack, whether or not you have seen the movie? I’m not sure. It is brilliant, and has a depth, maturity, quality and sheer skill of execution that is rarely found outside the classical genre, but because the CD includes music from all the scenes, even including the ‘fife and drums’ heralding the arrival of the regiment, the required flow of a successfully balanced work is disrupted to some extent.

See also - John Field Nocturnes

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