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NEW MOON
Lovely romantic score for tale of vampires and werewolves
 A review by JAMES SOUTHALL

Music composed by
ALEXANDRE DESPLAT

Rating
* * * *



Performed by
THE LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
conducted by
ALEXANDRE DESPLAT

Orchestration
ALEXANDRE DESPLAT
JEAN-PASCAL BEINTUS
SYLVAIN MORIZET
NICOLAS CHARRON

Engineered by
JONATHAN ALLEN
ANDREW DUDMAN
Music Editor
GERARD MCCANN
Produced by
ALEXANDRE DESPLAT

Album running time
72:11

Released by
WARNER
Catalog number
5051865715122

Album cover copyright (c) 2009 Summit Entertainment, LLC.; review copyright (c) 2010 James Southall.

I have some news that will, I fear, dash the hopes of many of my loyal readers - I am not a teenage girl.  (It was time to come clean.)  As a result, I have no real idea what all this Twilight business is all about, with frighteningly large amounts of money being made from books and films which seem to have almost universally scathing reviews from critics.  But this is the second film of the series - Carter Burwell scored the first, with his music slipping under the radar of many film music fans (like me) and Alexandre Desplat has stepped into his shoes for the first sequel, New Moon, teaming up again with The Golden Compass director Chris Weitz.  And if you head over to the customer comments on this album at Amazon, you'll note an element of dissatisfaction (putting it mildly) from the teenage girls surrounding the decision to change composers.

Desplat's relationship with Weitz is an interesting one - his two films for the director are among the few he's done which are commercial Hollywood products rather than more serious films.  He is obviously pretty picky at what he works on - perhaps simply waiting for films which allow him to apply his elegant, refined sensibilities to a broader canvas.  That's what he does here - it's no surprise to find him taking a classical view of vampires and werewolves, with an unabashedly romantic take on proceedings.  This is best heard in the wonderful main theme, heard frequently on this album, into which Desplat has injected an impressive sense of romantic longing.  It's a satisfying piece, used well in its various guises throughout the score, though sadly this album doesn't feature the standalone arrangement heard on the song album for the film.

Elsewhere the music mostly stays in that romantic mood with another couple of romantic themes and the gorgeous standalone "Dreamcatcher", where Desplat keeps his music elegant and restrained in a way not often heard in a film of this type.  But there's nothing restrained about the action music - there isn't a great deal of it, but when "Wolves v Vampire" comes along, you certainly know about it, with a piece of furious intensity pretty reminiscent of The Golden Compass.  Desplat writes that type of music rarely (especially for his American films) - but so well.

New Moon doesn't have the thematic diversity or richness of The Golden Compass and struggles to sustain a 72-minute album as a result - 20 minutes could have been chopped off to give a far more satisfying listening experience - but it's still an impressive piece of work.  I love the fact that Alexandre Desplat is able to bring his attitude to film composition to such a large blockbuster film - going off in completely the opposite direction to the brainless Zimmerised approach which has so dominated Hollywood film music for so long.  Who knows - maybe it isn't a sign that the tide is turning (more likely just a sign that there is someone somewhere who works at a film studio who still understands what film music can do for a film) but that these tasty morsels can still get tossed to us starving film music fans is very sweet.

Tracks

  1. New Moon (3:22)
  2. Bella Dreams (2:06)
  3. Romeo and Juliet (2:52)
  4. Volturi Waltz (1:24)
  5. Blood Sample (1:16)
  6. Edward Leaves (5:07)
  7. Werewolves (4:29)
  8. I Need You (1:42)
  9. Break Up (2:09)
  10. Memories of Edward (1:47)
  11. Wolves v Vampire (4:34)
  12. Victoria (2:08)
  13. Almost a Kiss (2:15)
  14. Adrenaline (2:26)
  15. Dreamcatcher (3:33)
  16. To Volterra (9:19)
  17. You're Alive (2:16)
  18. The Volturi (8:48)
  19. The Cullens (4:35)
  20. Marry Me, Bella (4:07)
  21. Full Moon (3:20)
    22.