Today I'm going to share one of my absolute favorite soundtracks with you, that for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), which is one of the most beautiful scores I've ever heard. It contains both original music composed by Iva Davies, Christopher Gordon, and Richard Tognetti and classical pieces by Mozart, J.S. Bach, Boccherini, and others. Why the mix? Because the two main characters, Captain Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) and Dr. Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany), play the violin and the cello.
(In the books the movie is adapted from, they first met at a concert, where Aubrey annoyed Maturin by tapping his toe and waving his hand to the beat -- Maturin dismissed him as a gauche musical naif, only to discover that Aubrey was actually a gifted violinist. Not only that, but Aubrey was in command of a ship about to sail that needed a surgeon, and Dr. Maturin was in need of a job, and so an unlikely friendship was formed.)
Here's a scene from the movie where they play a song that's on the soundtrack, part of Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3:
(Both actors took music lessons so that they would at least look reasonably proficient at playing their instruments, though their performances do not appear on the soundtrack.)
And here's one of my favorite written-for-the-score tracks, "Into the Fog." A lot of the music for this movie is very militaresque, as befits a movie about a British warship that involves a healthy number of naval battles. Lots of drums, some strings, some fifes and other wind instruments. I love listening to it in the morning, when I need to get myself motivated to make breakfast, etc.
And here's one final song, which also happens to be from the end of the film, a snippet of Boccherini's "La Musica Notturna Delle Strade di Madrid No. 6." Or, as I call it, "the song where Aubrey and Maturin pretend they have guitars."
I consider this movie to be one of the finest book-to-film adaptations ever, and I've always been so happy that it has a splendid soundtrack to match.
You can read my review of this movie here, and a Femnista article I wrote about Aubrey and Maturin's friendship is here.
(The bulk of this review originally appeared here at J and J Productions on June 9, 2015.)
One of the best fictional friendships ever!
ReplyDeleteI haven't listened to the original score (besides hearing it while watching the film), but I HAVE listened to that final Boccherini song a bunch of times. It's so fun!
Eva, it is! Their friendship goes through a lot of ups and downs and gets pretty dramatic sometimes, over the course of all the books, but it never quite snaps. And it ends strong.
DeleteThe Boccherini is one the funnest of fun classic songs. I love it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZDIiQtgMi4&list=PL0gLsdfoYX-VJowLZeTqrqyigmqFiUKiq
DeleteThis is my absolute favorite version of the entire peice by Boccherini.
Anonymous, thanks for sharing! Definitely a charming rendition :-)
DeleteLovely to see such nice comments. I also love the film. And the score. The final scene where the guys swap the violin and the viola is brilliant. I’m not an expert on classical music by any means. In fact I’m a novice. But that scene has always intrigued me. And now to see this email thread and see who the composer was etc. thank you x
ReplyDeleteX, I'm no expert on classical music myself, but I love listening to it, and I love how Aubrey and Maturin's friendship revolves around their shared love of music and the joy it brings them, both in the movie and in the book series it's based on :-) The scenes where they play music together are some of my favorites in the film!
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