The Woodlanders

Product Details
Audio CD (October 14, 1998)
Original Release Date: October 14, 1998
Number of Discs: 1
Format: Soundtrack
Label: Debonair Records
Condition: Used (Very Good)
Rating: #####
Availability: In Stock
Price: RM28.00


Track Listings
1. Prelude
2. Opening Credits: The Woodlanders
3. The Seed Dance
4. Melbury's Timber Yard
5. Grace Comes Home
6. The Woodland
7. The Party - 'Enrico'
8. Fitzpiers And Miss Melbury
9. Making Cider
10. "Plead For My Own Husband?"
11. Bittersweets
12. Things Unsaid
13. Neither Wife Nor Widow
14. Grace Runs Away
15. "Gone To Work"
16. Getting The Doctor
17. Giles' Death
18. Leaving The Woodland: (End Credits)


In 1995 Virginia Astley was planning to write a musical of the Thomas Hardy story to follow her album "All Shall Be Well".In the end all that survived was a few songs and a title given to her next CD which was originally called "Woodlanders". In other words,yet another unfinished Virginia project. A few copies of the CD with its first title remained in Japan but it was retitled "Had I The Heavens" after the Yeats poem she set to music. By that time film composer George Fenton was working on the score which starred Rufus Sewll and Polly Walker and which came out in 1998. The music is excellent,changing images with every emotion with the era recaptured in its similarity to Vaughan Williams or Elgar, and is performed by an orchestra led by the strings contractor on "Had I The Heavens": Gavin Wright. The first item though is by the Mellstock Band and Singers,of a traditional hymn known as Psalm 128 and who turn up again for a scene called "The Party". Divided into 16 further sections its another perfect soundtrack for Summer Day.


Average Customer Review: #####