KeepMoving Records release Yuri Poteyenko's scores for both The Forbiddance and Earthly Eden on one CD. The Forbiddance is a tragic love story set during World War II when a young woman falls in love with an Italian soldier. When the Russian army arrives, they must seek refugee on a deserted island on Lake Ladoga. Earthly Eden is an adaptation of Aleksandr Vampilov's classic play Duck Hunt, transported into modern times as a young engineer named Zilov sees his life crumble around him with only the titular hunt bringing some relief to his conflicts...

Yuri Poteyenko's scores for The Forbiddance and Earthly Eden represent two very different approaches to scoring. While The Forbiddance is mostly comprised of classically inspired music, Earthly Eden is a Jazz influenced score. Both have their merits, and combined together makes for a beautiful listening experience.

The album contains 28 tracks (1hr, 05 min, 40 sec). Of this, 14 tracks (37 min, 20 sec) are taken from The Forbiddance, with the remaining 14 tracks (28 min, 20 sec) come from Earthly Eden.

It's strange that Earthly Eden isn't flagged up a little more on the CD cover as, personally, I found it to be the slightly stronger work. Both scores are beautiful, with highlights including 'The Meeting on the Island', which has a Bernard Herrmann quality to it; 'Under The Gun / Do Not Leave Me'; 'Hunting and Love', which is very John Barry-esque in its delivers; 'Despair'; and 'End Credits'.

The main theme running through The Forbiddance reminded me very much of John Williams's score for Schindler's List.

The CD comes with 8-page liner notes by Gergely Hubai discussing both films and scores. The album is only available on CD, with a limited print run of 300 copies, from KeepMoving's website (keepmovingrecords.com).

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Darren Rea