Reflecting on 2009's scores

I put my thoughts in order for a similar thing over at mmuk. Here are the scores that have stood out to me. No particular order, although the better ones do skew earlier.

- Mao's Last Dancer (Gordon)
- Cheri (Desplat) - Desplat's best theme yet is the waltz from this score. The film is a bit of a mess, the music and photography its real saving graces. Desplat seemed to be doing the Goldsmith thing of scoring the best version of this film that could have been.
- Amelia (Yared)
- Broken Embraces (Alberto Iglesias)
- Baaria (Morricone)
- 'Daybreak' from Battlestar Galactica Season 4 & the Season 4 album in general (Bear Mccreary)
- Tetro (Golijov) - tango, argentinian melancholy jazz, and a new orchestral ballet by Golijov
- New Moon (Desplat)
- Home (Armand Amar)
- A Single Man (Abel Korzeniowski) - the biggest discovery for me this year among new composers. A light, neo-classical chamber score... moving and melodic.
- Un Prophete (Desplat) - so restrained, so clever. One of those scores where every note counts.
- The Red Canvas (James Paterson) - the other biggest discovery for this year
- Coco Avant Chanel (Desplat) - Desplat's best-spotted film this year? The thinking behind the scoring is so clever, from the first cue to the last. Some of it is the typical stuff, but the cues that bookend the film alone are reminders of how clever this composer is.
- Public Enemies (Goldenthal) - great to have him back, even if his wings were a bit clipped here
- Coco and Igor (Yared) - Coco Chanel collected two top scores this year. This is the darker of the two, and Yared must find his own way amidst extensive quotes from Stravinsky, but he does it well, and finds a darker, more complex passion than Desplat has to in the other Coco film.

Special mention also to Adoration (Danna), Un Homme et son chien (Rombi), Agora (Marianelli), In the Electric Mist (Beltrami), Julia+Julie (Desplat), Fantastic Mr Fox (Desplat).

Extra special mention to James Horner's spotting in Avatar. He's among the best at achieving the classical relationship between film score and image these days... our emotions turn when he wants them to. And he's so much more at home in this sort of film than in the more dramatic works he has favoured lately. I just wished he tried as hard as other composers clearly do to come up with new ideas for a new score.

I haven't yet heard any of the Johan Soderqvist's many scores from this year, and I'm sure there'll be some good new material there.

And was any score as rich and eloquent as Andrey Siegle's Alexandra, released by Movie Score Media? But the film came out in 2007, so go figure. It's also the best film I've seen of any on this list, although the fact that nothing really happens in it will be an understandable turn off for many.

I need to go back to Up (Giacchino). I never saw the film, which I suspect would have cemented my love for it, but on its own I haven't quite gotten into it as much as I did for - say - Ratatouille.

And my favourite musical moment in a film this year? As the strains of 'Labor of Love' fade away, and we see a wide shot of escape pods trailing away from Nero's supersized ship, a snazzy allegro builds up across the orchestra for a fantastic main title reveal in Star Trek. I can't say I went on with the rest of the score - (even within the end credits suite, I get tired of the main theme by the end, let alone listening to the whole score) - but that was a moment of movie magic.

Gordon's Daybreakers doesn't count for this year, but will be among the best of next year.

Overall, it must be said: the art is alive and well.

PS. A question: What happened to Philip Glass? A couple of years ago, he was scoring half the prestige films of the year.