ADRIAN JOHNSTON: BRIDESHEAD REVISITED – ORIGINAL SCORE

Chandos is delighted to release the original sound track album for the new film Brideshead Revisited, the first such recording on the Chandos Movies label. Adrian Johnston has developed an impressive career in television and film over the years, his scores having won him both BAFTA and Emmy Awards. With a screenplay by Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies, Brideshead Revisited is the first film adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel, with a cast that includes Emma Thompson, an Academy-Award-winner, and Michael Gambon, best known as Professor Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films, together with the relative newcomers Matthew Goode, Hayley Atwell and Ben Wishaw. The BBC Philharmonic is conducted by Terry Davies whose previous film credits include Shakespeare in Love and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

This is the soundtrack, composed by Adrian Johnston and performed by the BBC Philharmonic under Terry Davies, for the spectacular new film version of Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel Brideshead Revisited.

Adrian Johnston scored his first feature film – Jude – in 1996 and has subsequently composed music for more than twenty other features, most recently Becoming Jane, Kinky Boots, Isolation and Lassie. He has received BAFTA nominations for his music for the television productions The Lost Prince, Tipping the Velvet, Perfect Strangers and Our Mutual Friend. For his score for Shackleton he won an Emmy. His collaboration with Stephen Poliakoff has been especially fruitful, with superb scores for Shooting the Past, Friends and Crocodiles and many more.

Adrian Johnston has said of this project, ‘I was thrilled to have an opportunity to work with Chandos – a label whose philosophy I have always liked, and whose CDs of Philip Lane’s fine film score reconstructions I have particularly admired. Hearing the recording of Richard Rodney Bennett’s glorious music for Lady Caroline Lamb while I was driving forced me to steer off the road and sit mesmerised till it had finished. I know that to release a “non historical” film score was somewhat of a departure for the label, but I hope that Brideshead Revisited can somehow exist as a Chandos product, and perhaps open up the way for future film music collaborations’.

Johnston’s appealingly tuneful music beautifully reflects the drama of the story. The film, already released in America, will be opening in the UK on 3 October.