Amazon.co.uk Review
Putting the (quite glorious) excess of
The Phantom Menace behind him, for Alan Parker's
Angela's Ashes John Williams has created an epic pastoral romance that's more in the tradition of his scores for
Born On The Fourth Of July and
Seven Years In Tibet. The music has prominent solo roles for oboe, violin, cello and piano, while massed strings carry the burden of the thematic material. In places it's reminiscent of his work on
Jane Eyre way back in 1971, which has long remained one of the composer's own favourite scores: note the long-breathed melodic lines, the arpeggiated harp figures and the racing pizzicato strings for example (in both scores the spirit of Vaughan Williams is a benign influence). Despite the Irish setting, Williams resists the temptation to indulge in "Oirish"-isms (which were given full rein in his exuberant music for Ron Howard's
Far And Away), opting instead to accentuate the poignancy of the story, where despair, crushing poverty, disease and death are never far away. Despite proceeding solemnity, the music reaches a positive conclusion as Williams lifts the atmosphere with "Back To America", before the stirring main theme is reprised. Overall, this is a heartfelt work from a composer who is supremely adept at pouring his heart into his work. Two period source music cues (from Nat Gonella and Billie Holiday) interrupt the flow--they could easily have been sequenced at the end of the disc or omitted altogether. --
Mark Walker