Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Usually when a film score is described as "effective" or "based on musical idioms rather than melody" you end up with a score that may work on the screen but is a disappointment as a soundtrack. When film director and composer also rely upon "source matertial" or classical excerpts the problem is generally compounded. The score for Peter Weir's "Master and Commander" is, however, something of an exception to all that. Here is a musical treatment by committee that succeeds by sailing against existing currents. The original orchestral music is by Iva Davies, Christopher Gordon and Richard Tognetti. But a good deal of "source material": Mozart, Vaughn Williams, Corelli, and Boccherini (on the soundtrack) is used especially since two of the main characters are musicians as well as sea-captain and ship's surgeon. In fact, it all works very well both as a dramatic score and as a soundtrack album. The original score does depend on idioms...Read more

The use of classical music in the "Master" soundtrack is inspired.

Yo-Yo Ma's playing of the first of J.S Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites seems perfect for the scenes on the Galapagos Islands. The snippets of Mozart's Violin Concerto # 3 and Boccherini's sublime "Musica Notturna" are well chosen as the music played by the captain and the doctor.

Those eager to hear more by Baroque composer Luigi Boccherini, whose swoon-worthy piece, "Passacalle," closes the movie, will find what seems to be the original recording of it on the CD "Respighi: Fontane di Roma, Pini di Roma," by the Berlin Philharmonic, directed by Herbert Von Karajan. The last five tracks are Boccherini's "La Musica Notturna Delle Strade di Madrid" op.30 No.6, including "Passacalle." That's the danceable, contemporary-sounding number at the end of the movie, the one in which Paul Bettany and Russell Crowe pick up their instruments and strum them like guitars, and Bettany (or his counterpart in the Berlin...Read more

As I sit here listening to this soundtrack, I felt I should really add my 2 cents here.

I'm not much of a soundtrack buyer, though there are exceptions. I absolutely loved a tribal song in "Thin Red Line," and bought the soundtrack based on that one song. It was a mistake though. The rest of the soundtrack was just slow & moody - effectively building the atmosphere for the movie but depressing to listen to. (In my opinion.)

All that said, I made the same decision again for this soundtrack. I loved the last movement they played in the movie & couldn't get it out of my head. Thus, I took a plunge & went for the soundtrack.

What I found was a true musical gem. It does have some of the mood building scene pieces that "Thin Red Line" and other soundtracks employ. However, interspersed with this are some old folk melodies & delightful bits of Corelli, Bach, & Boccherini (to name a few). I was delighted to learn how much I enjoyed...Read more