Customer Reviews

Richard III: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Album

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

 

 

This soundtrack is worth the buy if for nothing else but the second track. "Come Live With Me" is the first line of a popular love poem "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love" written by Christopher Marlowe, a contemporary of William Shakespeare. Trevor Jones has masterfully adapted a majority of the verses of the original poem to a 1930s-era big band ballroom song, and he even included one verse from Sir Walter Raleigh's "The Nymph's Reply To The Shepherd", a poetic response to Marlowe's piece.

This blend of Elizabethan verse with early 20th century atmosphere is a perfect fit for the movie, and it serves as a brilliant accompaniment to the scenes leading up to Richard's first soliloquy.

I loved the movie, from the big band song at the beginning to the Al Jolson at the end and I was captured by the dialogue. It was such a great movie that I was glad to get the soundtrack.

Yes, great soundtrack, perfect adaptation. I ask: can someone tell me whether I am imagining things, but . . . the background music to the final battle scene: the future Henry VII chasing Richard III at Bosworth Field . . is that not an adaptation of Isaac Albeniz's "Asturias" from the Iberian Suite? Thanks!

I got this for the terrific big-band take on Christopher Marlowe's "Come Live With Me and Be My Love" sung by Stacey Kent and played under an early scene (actually two versions are on the disc--even better). Most of the tracks are speeches from this filmed version of the play, which is set in the England of the 1930's but with a (non-constitutional) monarchy worth fighting civil wars over. Many Americans are familiar with this period now, it being the time between the world wars and the crisis surrounding Edward VIII's abdication recently portrayed to such good effect in "The King's Speech". Placing the Richard III story into a recent context with familiar actors like Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Robert Downey, Jr., Kristin Scott Thomas, Jim Broadbent, Nigel Hawthorne, Maggie Smith, with a nice early role for Dominic West (later Det. McNulty in the excellent HBO show "The Wire") made for a terrific show. This is a fine soundtrack to a fine movie. WARNING: listen to track 1 (non-musical) at very LOW volume the first time--if you turn it up you may blow out your ears and speakers forty or so seconds in!!!

oh god...I dunno, it's kind of an album uuhh... with....um...songs on it and stuff......It's very possibly not the worst thing I've ever heard but don't hold me to that ok? um....ciao for now