No I am not interested in another Horner bashing trend. But what struck me here, in a score that actually made a nice listen, was a kind of sound that was similar to some other scores that came out of Spielberg's Amblin productions...including television's "Amazing Stories."

Some food for thought...before Dreamworks led to Media Ventures....Spielberg was already trying to create a defining musical sound for pictures with his attachment. The sound is a little more like a kinder, gentler Golden Age sound with the odd experimental score along the way.

Miramax

Miramax seemed to be aiming for a kind of streamlined sound for certain literary films when Gabriel Yared replaced Ed Shearmur on WINGS OF A DOVE soon after Yared won his ENGLISH PATIENT Oscar. Ironically enough, Shearmur's relationship with the director held fast, and his score was ultimately retained.

Another Miramax trend - the encouragement of popular artist compilation scores over original composer work on big epics like COLD MOUNTAIN (which is still predominantly a Yared score) and GANGS OF NEW YORK. Even ALL THE PRETTY HORSES could be argued to fit this mould of replacing original composer work (Daniel Lanois) with popular artist contributions.

Focus Films ?

Focus seems to be going after some of the more market savvy crossover scores. Each of the scores you mention has crossover appeal into another musical genre whether it is world music or classical.