The Abduction Club

Apparently inspired by real life events in Ireland during the late 1700's, The Abduction Club tells the story of younger brothers who, discovering they will miss out on inheritance going to their older siblings, abduct wealthy heiresses to secure their financial future. You couldn't make this stuff up. Despite sounding like a promisingly light hearted period piece, the film failed to find an audience, but hopefully Shaun Davey's lively score will fair better. There are composers who are very good and well known for their period scores, Patrick Doyle perhaps being the best, but Davey seems a more than worth contender, less well known simply because he hasn't been attached to such high profile projects.
Being set in Ireland, the temptation would be to go all Uillean pipes and James Horner about it and while there is some pipe work (the boundary between an Irish and Scottish lilt being a little blurred), this is mainly a full orchestral effort and Davey seems to have fun inflating a folk style main theme to almost epic proportions. The catchy and athletic main theme is introduced in the titular opening track. After an unpromisingly opening of terse percussive hits, the melody bursts out and from that moment the level of interest rarely slackens. It is quite strange hearing a tune which seems like it ought to be on fiddle backed by a small ensemble, belted out by a full symphony orchestra, especially as Davey doubles the string parts with quite a lot of brass - that kind of melody is difficult to perform accurately on most brass instruments and it's a testament to the Irish Film Orchestra, under the baton of David Brophy, that they perform so well.

As it's such a vigorous main theme, it works especially well for the numerous action cues, particularly the bracing variations it goes through during the opening few tracks which do a splendid job of evoking masked bandits being whisked through some spectacular Irish scenery on horse back. Film music that gives a real sense of the onscreen action independent of the images is something of a rarity these days, but Davey does a commendable job. After the exciting opening, the middle section - perhaps a little unsurprisingly - slows down somewhat, as well as becoming somewhat less care free with minor key variants on the main theme and a few passages of quietly chopping strings that would do Patrick Doyle proud. Sad Dreams of Tomorrow is a particularly quiet moment of sobering flutes and strings, but is followed by the more serious finale which is also fitted out with a more dramatic style. The upbeat Farewell provides a quality finale, also welcome in an age where so many scores seem to just end without proper closure.

It could be argued that it's a touch repetitive at times and for all the inversions of the main theme, it does appear in its full orchestral arrangement a good number of times. Then again, it's one of those recklessly enjoyable melodies that rarely palls and it is also surrounded by enough good other material, there's also the thrill of the hero's fanfare about it. Kind of an Irish, period Raider's March. There isn't a great deal of subtlety, but then the film doesn't really call for it and when it seems so many film scores are often subtle to the point of narcolepsy, a film where almost every dramatic highlight is furnished with a vibrant, musical gesture is a most welcome one. Exciting, fun and highly recommended.