Customer Reviews

Earthsea

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Legend of EarthSea is a stunning collection of beautiful, thematic, fresh sounding orchestral music with hints of sounds from Celtic and Morrocan influences. At times grand, and others quiet, ethereal, moody, and even ambient. This CD is full of surprises that I have listened to over and over. An excellent addition to anyone's soundtrack collection or just into some very cool new sounds.

AS I sat down to listen to the main title on the official site, my jaw dropped. I had never heard a TV Soundtrack that was so good! The themes are wonderful and, unlike most soundtracks, it is hard to find one song that you don't want to listen too. This music to me compares to Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings soundtrack and in my mind better! Many songs in LOTR are great, but their are many in it that are annoying and rarely listened too. With Earthsea all the tracks are wonderful and hard to even skip songs. Many wonderful artists and exotic instruments are found in this and the music is utterly amazing!

Before launching into my review of the music, let us please accept that SciFi's adaptation of LeGuin's transcendant Earthsea trilogy is nothing short of an abortion, an atrocious abuse of a beautiful and dangerous imaginary world.

However, being a big fan of fantasy and film and TV scores, I had heard a few things I liked while watching, and decided to plunk down for the score.

Wow, am I ever glad I did. Jeff Rona's soundtrack is far better than the mini-series itself. In fact, it may have subconsciously kept me tuned in longer.

Rona does a masterful job of blending orchestra, ethnic instruments, and electronic sounds. His sense of theme and melody in this score is better than any of his previous work. His growth and increasing skill is evident in the way he provides the exotic mood, intensity, and drama without losing the thread of his themes nor the general sense of place he establishes from the first note.

Definitely an over-achievement and extremely listenable score.

This is one of most disappointing fantasy scores I have listened to. A lot of tedious filler cues with an occasional rousing trumpet solo in cues like "Sailing" to keep me from dozing off. Jeff Rona is a talented guy who can pull off way better scoring than this. Just check out his score Traffic: The Miniseries or Chicago Hope or White Squall if you can get that score. And what is up with all these positive reviews on the Amazon Earthsea page? Many of the critiques read off like public relations pieces with marketers pretending to be customers. That is not only dishonest and corrupt but illegal. >:(

Varese Records, Hallmark Entertainment and Sci-Fi Channel presents "Earthsea", from Ursula Le Guin's storytelling capturing the Medieval period and director Rob Lieberman's magic touch...the celtic soundtrack duties were given to the upcoming composer Jeff Rona...whose past scores "Chicago Hope" (television series), "White Squall", and "Traffic" (mini-series) met with fans approval.

Many musicians and artists makeup the driving force behind this compelling score...and they are Jeff Rona composer, flute, percussion and conductor...Azam Ali (vocals), Juliana Graffagna (vocals), Craig Hara (trumpet), Marni Houffum (oboe), Erin Kamler (celtic harp), Jen Kuhn (cello), Houman Pourmehdi (ney), Eric Rigler (uillean pipes), Isak Rona Seetar (vocals), Marissa Steengold (vocals), Katy Stephen (vocals), Martin Tillman (cello) and Loga Rarnin Torkian (rebab)...each member of the company shares their talent and gifts on this outstanding soundtrack.

Entire album is a winner...with some stand outs "MAIN TITLE", "SAILING", "THE CHAMBERS" "THE KARGIDE ATTACK" and "FOLLOW YOUR PATH", each cue has shades of Philip Glass, James Horner, Karl Jenkins and Howard Shore as every orchestration and arrangement is impeccable with soloist coming to the forefront with the gusto that makes this soundtrack one of a kind...film-score-buffs will savor every morsel...just the way we like 'em!

Total Time: 67:16 on 33 Tracks ~ Varese Records 66625 ~ (12/07/2004)