James Peterson's score for The Red Canvas will blow fans of big, orchestral movie music away. This is a score that is inspired by the legendary Miklós Rózsa - Peterson has written an interesting soundtrack for orchestra, which incorporates several beautiful themes. Composed for large orchestra with an emphasis on brass (eight french horns, six trombones, four trumpets, two tuba) and a large string section (60 pieces). As a bonus, this CD (which is over 66 minutes in duration) features Peterson's eight part concert work Moving Images Suite, a delightful orchestral ode to film music...

Being a huge fan of contemporary classical orchestrated scores, I was in heaven listening to James Peterson's soundtrack to The Red Canvas.

Apart from the obvious homage to the work of Miklós Rózsa, James Peterson also manages to squeeze in quite a few other segments that sound as though they were inspired by well known film soundtrack composers as well as the odd nod to classical composers.

'Grease Monkey Prelude' reminded me very much of Sergei Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet ballet music.

There's a very obvious homage to Gustav Holst's The Planets suite (in the opening to 'Battle for Brawlers'). In fact it's 'Battle for Brawlers' in which this soundtracks most impressive music surfaces - and at 11 and a half minutes in length it's a pretty fine slice of music. In places this track also reminded me of Benjamin Bartlett's work for the BBC's Walking With Dinosaurs/Walking With Beasts music, as well as John Williams's score for the early Star Wars movies.

And if the score isn't enough for you, there are an additional eight tracks (making up roughly 20 minutes of music) which form Peterson's Moving Images Suite. This is a beautiful celebration of various soundtrack genres from classic Hollywood movies. Basically what Peterson has tried to do (and succeeded quite magnificently) is to capture the feeling of certain aspects of Hollywood cinema.

So we have tracks like 'Americana', which evoke feelings of how American is portrayed in the movies - especially the Wild West. We also visit sci-fi with 'A Quirky Machine', which sounds like a cross between Jerry Goldsmith's score for Twilight Zone: the Movie and Alan Silvestri's Back to the Future overture. And the whole suite is wrapped up with all the ceremony and pomp you'd expect from the closing of a classic MGM movie.

Whether you are a fan of orchestrated film soundtracks, or classical music, you should treat yourself to this beautifully emotive score.

10

Darren Rea