Brave [Soundtrack]

For those of you looking for the song by Julie Fowlis that plays during the officer Brave movie trailer, it is on the album called Mar A Tha Mo Chridhe (As My Heart Is) and is called Tha Mo Ghaol Air Aird a' Chuan.

The album is located here: Mar a Tha Mo Chridhe (As My Heart Is)
The single is located here: Tha Mo Ghaol Air Aird a' Chuan

Let me start of by say Pixar has done it again. BRAVE is a wonderful film, with a charming story line that really captures the beauty of Scotland. This is not a twee (cheezy) film that mocks Scotland like Brigadoon, but captures both the attitudes (good and bad) of the people, the feeling of the landscape and heart of the music without pandering to stereotypes. The voices are alive with the accent, albeit the accents have been softened a bit to be understandable (for an American audience). The rich colors of the countryside occasionally look cartoon-ish, but for someone who lived there for 10 years and traveled highlands, lowlands and islands extensively, believe the colors are real. Patrick Doyle dug deep into his roots growing up in Uddingston Scotland (just outside Glasgow) and brought in some stellar Celtic musicians to give the film an authentic feel.

From the tin whistle right as the opening credits begin, to the long sustains of the Celtic fiddle when the sun comes up on the standing stones (near the end of the film) the music grabs you, transports you and never lets you forget you are in a land filled with magic and wonder. The pipers from "The Red Hot Chili Pipers" lend their expertise to the film, but are never over stated. Celtic harp, tin whistles, bag bipes, bodhrans, dulcimers and uilleann pipes all make appearances on the soundtrack, but are highlights rather than base. The London Symphony Orchestra provided rich foundation for the Celtic instrumental coloring. James Shearman conducted and orchestrated the film.

The film is animation, yet I can't remember a film that recreated the feeling of Scotland and its sense of mystery as well as BRAVE.

I listened through this album twice when I got it. The first time, I listened through the album exactly as it's presented upon purchase, with the three non-score tracks first, then the orchestral score following; I thoroughly enjoyed the vocal tracks "Touch the Sky" and "Learn Me Right"; the "Into the Open Air" is nice but didn't resonate with me personally as the others did - the "Touch the Sky" is especially outstanding, of the three - just pounding with energy and emotion. I found that the three vocal tracks at the beginning convey a rather different overall mood than the score - not necessarily a bad thing, but I was initially expecting the integration of some of the themes from the vocal tracks at the beginning during the orchestral score, as has been the case with Pixar movies in the past, such as "Up" and "Ratatouille" which had fun vocal tracks that utilized melodic content from the main score - these first three tracks don't do that, but they are very fun to listen to, and I find the "Touch the Sky" uplifting and inspiring; it leads me to want to go running through the woods and mountains, or something similar to that. On my second listen through I went and restructured the album so the three vocal tracks at the beginning were at the end of the album and the orchestral score was first. I enjoyed the score more the second time through with this play order, with the vocal tracks by Julie Fowlis and Birdy/Mumford and Sons as punctuation to the score, rather than introduction to it.

Patrick Doyle's score has some of everything you'd expect to be associated with a movie like this: there are the exciting Scottish reels and dance-like pieces, plenty of ethnic instruments throughout that help center the feel of the music geographically, slow sweeping melodies, powerfully energetic action tracks, and a few tracks where cast members from the film sing, which are all solid offerings - whether silly, in the rowdy "Song of Mor'du" or beautiful, in the gentle "Noble Maiden Fair (A Mhaighdean Bhan Uasal)".

Overall, the score has a lot more subtle moments than I expected before listening, but they play well with good melodic content and so on. There are a few tracks that seem to be the almost inevitable "background music" that probably plays under quiet scenes in the movie where there isn't much going on, but there are plenty of stirring moments to be found - both on the exciting and the impassioned side of things that keep the listening enjoyable throughout the album.

There are 15 out of the 20 tracks that are outstanding; four of the remaining five tracks are score tracks that seem to be mostly filler music, and the other track of the five non-outstanding tracks is the vocal piece "Into the Open Air" that doesn't resonate well with me. All in all, there is no reason why you shouldn't purchase this whole album, as there are enough outstanding tracks to justify paying for the whole album. I really enjoyed this recording, and it's been a while since a good-quality Celtic-flavored soundtrack was released.

I'm looking forward to seeing "Brave" to make associations of these lovely themes and the atmosphere of the album with the particular scenes they were designed to accompany; until then I'll be enjoying this lovely soundtrack album from Patrick Doyle and others.