“The Stone Table” begins mysteriously, with an electric violin and voice duet, forbidding Tibetan thoat-singing, and all manner of percussion effects, gradually building in intensity, until the whole thing explodes into “The Battle”, a 7-minute action cue for the full orchestra and choir. “The White Witch” includes some ominous choral sequences, “From Western Woods to Beaversdam” brings in some more of the faux-ethereal Enigma-style world music stylings, “Father Christmas” is a beautiful cue with charming seasonal orchestrations, and “To Aslan’s Camp” provides one of the fullest and most heroic statements of the main theme, but it is not until the final three cues on the album that the score really begins to reach its fullest potential. Tumnus” sound like they belong in another film, while the Armenian duduk clarinet and whirlwind vocals which together perform “A Narnia Lullaby” make it sound like a rejected cue from Gladiator, or Howard Shore’s The Cell. The lovely “Wardrobe” cue introduces the recurring theme for the land of Narnia, which reappears numerous times throughout the album, but many of the subsequent cues are unexpectedly odd – the unusually emotionless electric violin and grating synthesisers which headline “Lucy Meets Mr. Expectations and preconceptions are a bad thing to have when listening to film scores, but this interlude threw me out of the loop and almost completely spoiled the listening experience – so much so that getting back into the right frame of mind for the Narnia sequences was genuinely difficult.
This cue segues into an attractive, yet sorrowful string-and-orchestra cue as the children are evacuated from London, and all is well – until the pop beats kick in, Lisbeth Scott starts her mournful wailing, and all of a sudden we’re not in wartime Britain but in a dance club in Ibiza in 1999. The opening track, “The Blitz, 1940” is a perfect example of this – a fast-paced action and suspense cue with a definite Media Ventures sound, and even sampled Luftwaffe engine noises buzzing in the background.
Gregson-Williams’ score is actually surprisingly modern-sounding at times, making full use of a symphony orchestra, but also lots of synthesisers, electronic instruments, and modern rhythmic devices. The answer to that is, no, they don’t even come close – although, to be fair, Gregson-Willams’ approach is actually very different from the outset. In addition, much has been made of the obvious visual parallels between Narnia and Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, and many film music fans wondered whether Harry Gregson-Williams’ score for The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe would match Howard Shore’s work on the Oscar-winning fantasy epic. James has already been released to popular acclaim. Much has been made of The Chronicles of Narnia’s allegorical nature and parallels with modern Christian doctrine – so much so that, in order to capitalise on the burgeoning market for such things, an album of music by Christian pop artists such as Jars of Clay, Bethany Dillon and Rebecca St. When Edmund is captured by the Witch, the remaining three children set off across the landscape in search of Aslan (Liam Neeson), the good lion king, who agrees to help rescue their brother in exchange for them joining his war against the witch and returning Narnia to peace and democracy…
While playing hide and seek in the house one day, the children accidentally discover a doorway at the back of an old wardrobe, which transports them to a magical kingdom called Narnia, which is ruled by an evil White Witch (Tilda Swinton), and is in a perpetual state of winter. The story follows the adventures of the Pevensie children – Lucy (Georgie Henley), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), Peter (William Moseley) and Susan (Anna Popplewell) – who, having been evacuated from London at the height of World War II, are sent to the English countryside to live with their eccentric uncle, Professor Kirke (Jim Broadbent). Walt Disney, Walden Media and Shrek director Andrew Adamson have finally managed to right this wrong, with this lavish setting of the first part of the seven-book series, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Lewis’s tales The Chronicles of Narnia have been made into radio plays, audio books, and even an acclaimed mini-series made for British TV in 1988, but never before for the big screen. A beloved children’s fantasy for generations, C.S.