Shipwrecked is the only (?) one of his score that I don`t yet have, though should have soon. I heard of an album he released with music to some poem, anyone have this?

NP-East-West

Maybe you are talking about "The Thistle and the Rose"? This is actually 4 songs set to 4 poems (one of which is a poem by that title), for soprano, orchestra and chorus. If you like the Songs of the Auvergne you might like these, but the CD is long since out of print.
It is on a CD of a concert (along with works by other composers) given in 1990 called A BIRTHDAY CONCERT FOR MY GRANDMOTHER.

Or maybe you are talking about "The Face in the Lake"? This is the recent piece set to a children's story that is on the current Sony album, LISTEN TO THE STORYTELLER. (shares the disc with pieces by Wynton Marsalis and Edgar Winter)

I'm pretty fond of both of these. It would be nice if Sony gave him more commissions for original work - considering the fact that LISTEN TO THE STORYTELLER won a Grammy. Hey, it can't just be because of Wynton Marsalis... :-)

I also discovered Doyle via DEAD AGAIN in '91.
It was the first soundtrack recording I felt compelled to go out and get in quite a while. Then a couple weeks later, I heard the music for HENRY V and without knowing who the composer was, I went out and bought it (it being the *second* soundtrack recording I felt compelled to go out and get in quite a while).
HMMMMM... :-)

I'm also a Doyle completist, but it's funny how my valuations of his works differ from yours.

For instance, I would rate each of his Branagh scores above all of the others, in descending order: Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Dead Again, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The only other score by him that rates as highly as those do is Indochine.

So I'm left with ten or fifteen more average scores, which I'd bundle together. Some stand out a little more prominently, like Carlito's Way, A Little Princess, or Sense and Sensibility (which actually is not a Shakespeare score). Into the West, Shipwrecked, Needful Things--these are very even, too even almost, and aren't very gut-grabbing. But I couldn't resist buying each of them, mainly because I've fallen in love with the "Doyleisms"--the phrasings, the harmonics, and other stylisms that I can't technically identify.

Anyway, Doyle needs to score more films, give the man something like Battlefield Earth!

And there are other scores like Carlito's Way and Needful Things, Sense and Sensibility, for example, which don't quite achieve the same impact in the film for various reasons, but which are memorable music.

His later work for Branagh has not been quite as compelling, IMHO. That said, I think there are some interesting and effective things about Frankenstein and Hamlet. I do not have the CD of Love's Labour's Lost but I have heard the film's sound track (kind of a long story) and it sounds like it will be an enjoyable CD, mainly in a pastoral mode outside of the classic songs.

As for Doyle-isms - Take East-West for example, it's a pretty good Doyle score, but it's not a "great score." It takes a special kind of film and inspiration for that, for one thing, and those movies don't drop into one's lap every year (especially not if you're insisting on living outside of Hollywood).

I think Doyle's gift, and also disadvantage, is that he does have a very strong and distinctive sound and presence in a film. Sometimes it doesn't work. When it does work it's amazing and an incredible asset to the film. One of the reasons I like the Donnie Brasco score so much is because Mike Newell (the director) seemed to know what to do with Doyle's personality as a composer, there was a place for it in the film.

This used to be much more common in the old days, where you could hear two bars of Rozsa and know it was Rozsa, or hear Newman's strings and know it was him. These composers all had a full set of harmonic, melodic, orchestrational and compositional trademarks - a whole point of view to the way they composed, whether they were doing an epic or a square dance or a thriller or whatever.
They were like movie stars you didn't see, but sensed were there because you could hear it. Now of course we occupy the James Horner era of scoring where it's OK if the composer has no real voice and borrows everything from the same classical composers, as long as it sounds like "movie music."

Today's Hollywood sound tends to be kind of glossy and thin sounding. Hollywood orchestras all play it the same way -- very well, but it's all the same. People are so used to it that anything else in a film sounds too heavy. Doyle's sound tends to have more, how shall I say it, "crunch" and weight and energy. I suspect that's why many fans like to listen to his scores even when they're not "great scores."

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Originally posted by pietari:
Oh, just another thing. Is that fan page of yours for Doyle still running?

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As for weightiness: I agree with both of you--listen to Carlito's Way, and even the jazz selections contain tensions and muted anxieties. But his "pastoral work" (e.g., Sense and Sensibility, Exit to Eden) is as intelligently innocent as it comes.

So far I have, in order or purchase: "Dead Again", "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein", "Much Ado About Nothing", "Needful Things", "Hamlet".

"Much Ado" is maybe my absolute favourite film score. The whole things is as fantastic as the overture. And not only on CD, but it's also amazing when watching the movie (especially the "Overture" and "Take Her Back Again" - perfect spotting!). Like in the "Golden Age", Doyle is involved very early in Branagh's movies and composes the scores during filming. Thus, his songs are really used in the film, and also become major themes in the whole score.

"Frankenstein" is wonderful, but they criminally left off the source cues. In the film, the love theme is introduced very early, for the various dances when Frankenstein still is a child. And while "Wedding Night" is one of my favourite pieces of music, I miss the dance variations of the theme very much. Another favourite moment from the score is that deep brief statement of one of the themes (don't know for what it stands right now) during the thunderstorm sequence.

The other scores are very good, as well. "Hamlet" tends to drag a bit, but it's still a very beautiful work. "Dead Again" is very good, a highlight is of course the chorus track (with one fantastic "weird" note, I hope you know what I'm talking about). I've been looking for "Henry", but haven't found it so far.

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Originally posted by Marian Schedenig:

So far I have, in order or purchase: "Dead Again", "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein", "Much Ado About Nothing", "Needful Things", "Hamlet".

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I'm kind of surprised at how many Doyle fans I come across, who don't have Henry V. Is it that hard to find these days, or do people just not know about it?

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"Much Ado" is maybe my absolute favourite film score.

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For some reason, although it would go on my 4 or 5 best list for Doyle too, I often forget it on my shelf! Can't imagine why, since it is really wonderful and one of his best; but I am often in danger of leaving it off such lists. <shrug> It is getting to the point now where he's done about 20 scores and so I can't recall them all off the top of my head any more. (Of course, 20 scores is absolute peanuts compared to the amount of scores by most other composers...)

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I'm kind of surprised at how many Doyle fans I come across, who don't have Henry V. Is it that hard to find these days, or do people just not know about it?

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Both. I haven't heard it yet, but I would still "risk" (doubt that it's a risk) to buy it. Haven't been able to find it, yet. I also haven't seen the film. From what I've seen so far, Branagh has become my favourite director, but they never play "Hamlet" or "Henry V" on Austrian (or German) TV. Heck, they even announced Zefirelli's "Hamlet" 3 times before they really played it!

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The transitions into the songs are handled very well (through both the music and the dialogue).

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I don't know "Love's Labour Lost" so far, but Doyle seems to be the master of underscore. To take "Much Ado" as an example, there's so much music in the film that complements the visuals perfectly. Just listen to the use of themes in "Take Her Back Again". Fantastic!

Really, though, despite my love of his work, I've hardly listened to any of it since I got the French release of Est-Ouest. But just a few weeks ago I updated my whole Doyle collection from cassette to CD. I was probably one of the few people in the world to have cassette versions of Dead Again, Indochine, Carlito's Way, Frankenstein, Quest for Camelot and Much Ado About Nothing. Unthinkable in today's world, but there was once a time (circa 1992) when a poor college student would choose a tape over the more expensive disc . . .

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Originally posted by JClark:
But just a few weeks ago I updated my whole Doyle collection from cassette to CD. I was probably one of the few people in the world to have cassette versions of Dead Again, Indochine, Carlito's Way, Frankenstein, Quest for Camelot and Much Ado About Nothing.

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Actually, I started off on cassettes as well, but not as many as you had. I still have them lying around here somewhere. I also had the pleasure of buying a CD of Shipwrecked way back in '92 when it wasn't going for $50 a pop...

My first exposure to Doyle came by way of the first edition of the Gramophone Film Music Good CD Guide (back in 1994). For some reason, I would find myself going back occasionally and rereading what reviews they had of Doyle's scores, even though I had never heard any of his music before. Perhaps it was their high praise of his music that drew my attention.

As some of you might remember, I have submitted several posts containing a phrase I like to call, in lack of better words, "subdued intensity". This refers to an intense sound, in which e.g. strings go from extreme crescendo to dimminuendo in just a few seconds and which might repeat itself for the entire track (read: Track 5 in FRANKENSTEIN, large portions of HAMLET etc.).

This intense way of scoring is made more intense by the fact that it is subdued (i.e. opposing the intensity of, for instance, a "dynamic", colourful and action-oriented Goldenthal score, which I DO like). Subdued because there's not much going on except the "breathing" of the instruments (socalled clusters?), if you get my point. I have the same trouble with composers such as Bernard Herrmann and Howard Shore.

I realize that all this is very fuzzy, but that's because I lack the proper technical skills to express myself.

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Originally posted by Aaron Hose:
I'll say this much...Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is definitely his best ever, period.

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The highlights of the album are definitely among his very best, but for me, VERY few scores (by whomever) can top "Much Ado About Nothing". And the "Frankenstein" album would still be so much better with the source cues they left out!

I love to see Doyle singing his own music in "Henry V" (the awesome Non Nobis, Domine) and "Much Ado..." (the delicious Sigh No More Ladies).

I think most of you guys have said it all about him...

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Originally posted by Andre Lux:

Patrick Doyle's a great composer.
My favorite is "Much Ado Abouth Nothing" not only because is a gorgeous score but also because it's the music that made my wife fall in love with me!!

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I think I should thank Pat Doyle for it!

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Originally posted by Andre Lux:


I think I should thank Pat Doyle for it!

If anyone here met him someday say thanks for me, ok??

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I think is a great composer. I like Frankenstein very much, but I think I like Great Expectations the most out of all the scores of his I have. Even more than Much Ado About Nothing and A Little Princess.
and I certainly think that Carlito's Way has the single best track. That elegy is SO emotion filled. you have to be heartless not to feel anything when it plays.

Indochine has a great theme I could listen to for hours and hours.
heck, I could listen to ANYTHING by Doyle for hours and hours.

BTW -- can anyone help me out in finding a CDR of Une Femme Francais? I have the Quest for Camelot isolated score and Into the West, 2 of his hardest scores to find as an offer.

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Originally posted by Ellen B Edgerton:
Why don't you write him a letter or card, he might get a kick out of hearing about it...

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I would love to do so... But how?
Anyone knows??

Thanks!

Thank you very much for the above sentence, Ellen. May I pass this on to the honorable Jack Smith? I'm sure he'd be delighted.

PS: There has not been a film score by Patrick Doyle that I did not enjoy.