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Richard III (1990) Trevor Jones London 422-828-719-2 Trevor Jones was the man behind the scores for historic epics such as Last of the Mohicans, the Arthurian romances Excalibur and Merlin, and the fairy-land fantasies The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. Shakespeare's bloody tragedy Richard III would seem to call for a brooding, symphonic Mahler-like sound, but Ian McKellen's off-beat, WWII adaptation of the play offered Jones the chance to defy expectation by playing up the period setting. The album does get off to a questionable start with a first track consisting of noisy sound effects and the heavy breathing of Richard behind his gas mask. Fortunately, however, the CD settles into its second track when Jones sets Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" to a fabulous big band / vocal arrangement. The ensuing album is a blend of 1940s-style big band music, moody film noir saxophone wails, and snarling, militaristic brass punctuated by dialog snippets from the film. Normally, I abhor dialog on soundtrack albums but it is hard to protest in this case, for some of Shakespeare's strongest monologues are here, performed by not only McKellen, but also by other great luminaries of the English stage such as Maggie Smith, Kristen Scott-Thomas, and the late Nigel Hawthorne. An off-beat soundtrack no doubt, this CD is, nevertheless, a souvenir of a great movie and an unexpectedly clever blend of Jacobean drama and 1940s nostalgia. --Paul Andrew MacLean

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