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CHILDREN OF MEN – John Tavener
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
If you had asked me at the beginning of 2006 to name the working composer least likely to score a film during the year, I would have probably said Sir John Tavener. 62-year-old Tavener is as profound and well-respected a composer as can be, a darling of the classical set, a man seriously dedicated to his art, and whose deeply-held Orthodox Christian religious beliefs are the cornerstone of the 300 or so works he has written since the mid 1960s. This is the man who was chosen by the British government to write the deeply spiritual and moving music for the funeral of Princess Diana. The idea of him being hired to score a Hollywood film was about as likely as, say, Steve Reich scoring the next Spielberg movie, or Karl-Heinz Stockhausen scoring Scary Movie 5. His music has been featured in films before, but never has he written anything specifically for one. But yet, here he is, scoring Children of Men for director Alfonso Cuarón, whose last movie was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The world is a strange place indeed. Read more…
GORMENGHAST – Richard Rodney Bennett and John Tavener
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Gormenghast is one of the largest and most ambitious television productions ever mounted in the United Kingdom, the BBC’s lavish adaptation of Mervyn Peake’s celebrated fantasy novels Titus Groan and Gormenghast. Directed by Andy Wilson and featuring an all-star cast including Ian Richardson, Stephen Fry, Celia Imrie, Fiona Shaw, Christopher Lee, Zoe Wanamaker and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Gormenghast is the tale of madness, treachery and double-crossing in a corrupt and decaying monarchy. Set in an ancient mythical kingdom in a far away land, it charts the rise to power of a young scullery boy named Steerpike, who lies and cheats his way into the confidence of the royal court, but soon begins political machinations to overthrow the monarch and his heir, the new-born Titus, 77th Earl of Groan. Read more…
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