Being Julia

Who'd have thought that Mychael Danna would start seeing his way to be the next Patrick Doyle or George Fenton? Well, pretty well nobody a couple of years ago I would suspect, but with this and his superlative work on Vanity Fair, his period drama credentials are building all of the time. If Being Julia doesn't quite match up to Vanity Fair in scope and ambition, it's more a matter of the brevity of the music on disc than any actual deficiency in the composition itself as Being Julia is another winner. The seemingly generous number of tracks is unfortunately divided down into some extremely short score cues - the majority well under a minute - and most of the longer ones are period songs.
Danna grabs you from the get go with the chugging strings of Curtain Up and his wonderful main theme. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the score is essentially monothematic, but the melody is so delightful and put through enough moods and variations in the brief running time that its repetition is welcome rather than tiresome. Another ingredient that increases the dynamism are the violin solos of Stephen Sitarski - good of Varese to name him as his contribution provides a virtuoso flourish to the radiant and flamboyant passages. While much of the mood is sunny and optimistic, the introspective cues are equally fine and the gentle I Saw the Light On and Avice Takes a Bow take the cheerful main theme in convincingly melancholy directions.

After a run of short tracks, the final pair are a touch longer and Quite Alone starts with a flourish, but concludes with a touch of introspection. As a Varese release, the album presumably contains all of Danna's score and the songs were added to extend the running time. While appropriate to the period, they do break the mood somewhat (the production is rather Thomas Newman-esque in this regard; lots of short tracks and some arguably inappropriate source cues) and Danna's music is better appreciated as a continuous 22 minute suite. Many tracks do segue together, although that does beg the question of why a few weren't simply combined. Still, if you can accept the brevity of Danna's contribution as a given, a score easy to wholeheartedly recommend.