2014 is the centenary of the birth of the celebrated Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. In 1953, Dylan Thomas went to New York for the last time, his marriage a wreck, his drinking out of control. He was on his way to meet Stravinsky and to wallow in New York acclaim. Debbie Wiseman's score was composed for the BBC production, set in New York and Laugharne and starring Tom Hollander tells the story of the last days of a great poet...

Debbie Wiseman's score for A Poet in New York is a fairly subtle affair, with the piano and guitar being the instrument of choice for the majority of the tracks. There are also a handful of jazz based tracks which inject a little energy into what would otherwise be a rather melancholic album.

I'm not personally a fan of poetry, it's never really appealed to me and I find it a rather pretentious, and oddly lazy form of expressing oneself. So, the fact that some of Thomas's poetry makes its way onto this recording turned me off it a little. I'm never a fan of scores that include quotes over the music. For me, the whole point of a score is to be able to enjoy the music outside the confines of the medium it was created for. Thankfully this only affects a couple of tracks and the music played in the background appears to be music that is included elsewhere on the album.

The album contains 18 tracks (43 min, 39 sec). Personally I didn't feel that there were anywhere near enough themes here to make it worth picking up - there are way too many variations on the same theme. In addition the guitar based tracks reminded me a little too much like Lennie Niehaus's score for Unforgiven (1992).

It's an enjoyable enough score, just not something that I can see myself revisiting in the near future.

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Darren Rea