Troy: Music From The Motion Picture (Score)

I didn't buy the CD because in the film, the music sounded so dull and unexciting. I watched the trailers with "Music By Gabriel Yared" for 6 months and was excited to hear how he would compose the music for an epic. Then in the last trailer I saw "Music by James Horner". Although I love Horner's work a lot more than Yared, I was like "What the h___?" A month before the opening, they change the composer? I never understood why this happened until I've read it in Gabriel Yared's website. In the test screening the music was found too powerful and too classical and it has been rejected. He even says that Peterson loved the music and sang the main themes in the corridors of Abbey Road during the recording sessions. Over 2 hours of music was recorded and Yared gave a year to this score which he claims to be his best. Yesterday when I watched the film I paid much attention to the music and it was as predicted, the mix of previous Horner motives and themes and...Read more

When Warner Brothers decided to jettison the score Gabriel Yared wrote for the Wolfgang Petersen film "Troy" because of a supposedly bad test screening, composer James Horner was thrown into the breach a given a month to put together a new score. Horner kept Macedonian singer Tanja Tzarovska for the new score and worked in a song by Josh Groban for the end credits. All things considered, "Troy" is a pretty good as a score written in a month's time, but it really does not match the epic scope of the film and its revision of Homer's "Iliad" and the story of the Trojan War. Keeping Tzarovska was a good move in that she provides a sense of the flavor for the time and place, but for the most part Horner fails to take advantage of that and goes for something more conventional to American ear (to be fair, that appears to be what Warner Bros. demanded).

"Troy" is an epic story of love and war, and Horner's score does more justice to the latter...Read more

James Horner's score for Troy has many merits and for the most part can stand along the greats of the Epic genre of the past. The only thing I object to in the score is the inclusion of what I refer to as "The Wailing Woman of The Ancient World" motif. She first appeared in "Gladiator" by Zimmer and was fresh and effective there. But then she popped up in the dreadful T.V. miniseries "Cleopatra", from there this sound has appeared in almost anything post "Gladiator" that has a remotely ancient theme.
But wailing woman aside, there is some truly wonderful work done here by Mr. Horner. A particular standout is track two, "Troy". Here we get the full lush sound of the orchestra proclaiming all the pomp and glory of the magnificent city. The music soars and carries us up over the walls of Troy and into a splendid place where dwells the sprit of Miklos Rozsa, Alex North, and other famed gods of Hollywood's epic past.
In cut 3 "Achilles Leads The Myrmidons" and cut 9...Read more