The soundtrack for the BBC’s new television series based on Jane Austen’s Emma is composed by Samuel Sim. His orchestral score is elegant, witty, romantic, beautiful and delightfully rich in emotion. Sim uses his catchy theme in many different settings throughout the score, and also introduces a number of secondary themes. Beautifully orchestrated primarily for strings, woodwinds, piano and harp, Emma is high quality British television music at its best...

The soundtrack to the BBC's Emma is exactly what you'd expect from a period drama; beautiful, classical music performed by a full orchestra - concentrating mainly on the string section. The series's main theme, which we first hear in 'Emma Main Titles' is repeated a little too often throughout this soundtrack - although, to be fair, composer Samuel Sim does try to present it in numerous different styles and variations but it's easy to spot it's the same theme.

There are other beautiful themes too, like the one at the centre of 'Expansion Project' or the piece first heard in 'Knightley's Walk'.

Yes it's formulaic, and just what you'd expect from a BBC period drama, but it's still beautiful music - even if it's a little repetitive. And it's a million times more impressive than a lot of large budget movie scores that are released at the moment.

This is certainly a soundtrack that you'll get plenty of hours of entertainment out of.

8

Darren Rea