SOUNDTRACK
Walking with Beasts


Composer: Ben Bartlett
BBC
RRP £13.99
WMSF6046
Available now


The music for Walking with Dinosaurs was one of the most stirring works to be heard on terrestrial television. And Benjamin Bartlett quiet deservedly won a BAFTA for his efforts.

Walking with Beasts sees Ben (as he now likes to be called) champion once again with a truly wonderful soundtrack. Borrowing cues from some of the all time great composers (check out Gentle Giant and you will be reminded of some of Bernard Herrmann's excellent work for Hitchcock). His music is stirring and he could easily be described as a 21st century Elgar.

However, and this is a huge disservice to Bartlett, whoever compiled this CD made a hash job of it. Only half of the tracks are from Walking with Beasts. The other half are taken up by tracks from the Ballad of Big Al and Walking with Dinosaurs. While the Ballad of Big Al tracks are welcomed the Walking with Dinosaurs tracks are remixed (and joined together) tracks from the original CD. Surely anyone that was that bothered about the soundtrack to Walking with Dinosaurs would already possess it - I do.

It's not as though there were no other tracks that could have been used. For a start there was a particularly moving track that accompanied the fourth episode in the series - why was this absent?

If this had been put together properly it would have been one of the greatest soundtracks available - an easy 10/10! However as there is so much missing it will be a large disappointment to fans of the series.

Bartlett is a genius and it is a shame to see his work treated this way.

Darren Rea

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