This is the earliest BBC NHU score that I know of: a fully synthetic original score written by BBC Radiophonic Workshop member Elizabeth Parker, who has provided scores for a other documentaries and for the Doctor Who episode “Timelash” (as Liz Parker). Her last credit was in 2004, for the TV film documentary Animal Games.
The music of “Timelash” is often dissonant and percussive, filled with industrial-like clangs and drums akin to tambourines and toms.
The Living Planet is completely different. Though the score is wholly synthetic, it also manages to sound wholly organic. One synthetic flute sound, in particular, is programmed absolutely stunningly, such that it truly feels like a performance.
“The Frozen World” stands out for its gorgeous evocation of a cold and frigid landscape, while “Seas of Grass” manages to achieve grandeur. “Worlds Apart” is the most fun piece of the album, with a solid tropical mimickry performed entirely with synths – it’s a delight! That said, not every track is so successful – whatever the cause, my inclination is that it’s the limited synth palette used – the other tracks are not always so good at evoking their associated landscapes, though they are, divorced of extramusical concerns, never less then beautiful.
All in all: a beautiful, atmospheric, austere soundtrack which would’ve made a solid electronic album in its own right.
The Trials of Life | 1990 / George Fenton
We skip forward a decade and one of the technological innovations made in the intervening years was the sampler, and it is that noble device that, alongside synths, creates the distinctive sound of this series, which is also Fenton’s first nature documentary score. Now, on Spotify, an interview with Fenton is included, through which one learns that this wasn’t a budgetary choice but an artistic choice.
It’s interesting to note that this score was apparently quite controversial in its time! Viewers wrote in complaining about “The March of the Lobsters.” It was overscoring! From my vantage point, though, this is a brilliant choice. Nature’s fauna is given the same drama and grandiosity as human dramas – it is, quite possibly, the invention of the modern documentary score: colorful, jubilant, dramatic almost to excess and a willingness to gently riff on other genres within the framework of the symphony orchestra.
The rest of the score continues along those lines. “The Pirates – Frigate Birds Attacking Tropic Birds” is almost absurd in its drama, and I’d especially like to point out the clanging percussion that features in part of it. “Tiger Shark Attacking Baby Albatross” is not quite as successful, in my opinion. It’s a little too thin, though the contrasts between the winds, the thudding low piano, and tremolo strings are interesting.
Some other highlights: the restrained yet quietly energetic “Young Elephants;” the ragtime influences in “Finding Food,” one of the most delightful and fun tracks, and quite possibly the invention of another nature documentary staple; the warm romance of “Shrimps Courting (O Mistress Mine);” the quite charming waltz of “Aerial Pas de Deux.”
Yes, this score is a touch dated in terms of its synths and samplers and occasionally stylistically. For those who have heard videogame scores, the sounds here will be familiar: I’m convinced that I recognize the Roland Sound Canvas being used here, and that, of course, is the sound of retro vgm. (That said, it could easily be some other Roland. My ears could even be lying to me and it might be Emu or something.)
But in so many other respects, it dates very well. It’s
completely listenable, and it’s interesting to see the invention of so
many nature documentary staple styles. Yes, it’s unrefined in that
respect, but one shouldn’t hold that against it. Well worth a listen.
Land of the Tiger | 1997 / Nicholas Hooper
And we leap forward many years once again, seven years, to one of the earliest scores of a composer whose reputation has been utterly decimated in the wake of his first and second, and only, major soundtracks. Yes, it’s Nicholas Hooper, the composer for Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince, two soundtracks for which the most could be said that “actually, there’s some rather good ideas here,” even if the execution disappoints.
Still. Let’s consider the soundtrack on its own merits. And, judging it by its own merits, I can only conclude that this is exactly the sort of thing that those of you who love the marriage of non-Western instruments and stylistic tics to an otherwise Western sound and style would enjoy.
That said, I enjoy it also! I am not completely sure how much of the music here is sampled v. performed, but whichever it is, it’s well-handled. (I do not, for example, believe for a moment that the harp in “Baby Turtles Take to the Sea” is real.) Gorgeous strings sections, soloists both of ethnic strings and of a vocal soloist.
“Opening Titles” introduces, on such an ethnic string soloist, the slightly dance-like main theme of the score, which returns in “Elephants Swimming” (among others) alongside gorgeous horn work and somewhat eerie drones (in the Eastern, instrumental sense). “From the Mountains to the Sea” is another lovely highlight, with more Eastern scalar work. It’s worth noting that it’s not in-your-face with exotic scales – it’s subtler then that. A mood, if you will. No, there’s no fooling this with genuine ethnic music. “Waterfalls” is another lovely track – I especially took note of the way the flute and oboe traded an arpeggio back and forth, all against strings con moto, percussion, and a horn melody for most of it.
If there’s one central problem with this score, it’s restraint – and not the kind that lead to the tragic mediocrity of the HP scores. No, this seems restraint of a composer that is reigning himself in and not quite going all out. Perhaps it’s the work with Eastern instruments, perhaps it’s the director, perhaps it’s that this is one of his earliest, perhaps it even is that the album is too long: there’s just too many tracks here. Perhaps all of the above.
If you enjoy fusions of Western styles with Eastern scales and
instrumentation, then this may well be worth a listen for you.
Otherwise, this one can be safely skipped.
Next time: Ian Butcher and Steven Faux's The Life of Birds, from 1998, and Benjamin Bartlett's Walking with Dinosaurs, from 1999.
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