The first third of Dario Marianelli's score for I Capture the Castle – the second film directed in 2003 by Cambridge Spies' Tim Fywell - goes for lighthearted, sometimes quirky writing – there's an amusing Yiddish-styled theme that recurs throughout, as in “Fragmentary Consciousness” – but the real meat of the score happens past the midpoint, when the story switches gears and enters more dramatic terrain.

That isn't to say the album's first third is fluff – Marianelli's writing is some of the freshest among the current wave of new composers that are pushing their way into big-budget productions like V for Vendetta – but even in films like Vendetta, Marianelli recognized vital points when the audience must care for a specific character, or when an event is more than a major plot juncture; the music that underscores Natalie Portman's ‘conversion' saves the film because Marianelli addresses all the torment within the character, thereby helping us get through a series of jarring narrative jumps that affect that film's final half (beautifully grim as it is).

The music for Castle is more accessible in terms of the warm emotions Marianelli evokes with slow strings and gentle woodwind passages, and it provides a balance when he shifts moods in the saddening “Heartbreak,” later recapitulated with concertina in the lovely “I Knew It was Love.”

Recorder and harp provide a delicate intro for “Cassy Gets Lost,” and disarm listeners when the cue shifts to a hastened pace, with high, ascending strings and spiraling notes from clarinet. Marianelli adds a bit of dissonance in “I am Going to Stay Here,” but the overall mood is pensive: the meter isn't locked, tonal shading shifts between darkened bass and more melodic fragments in the second half, and the strings slowly propel the cue towards a decisive thematic conclusion by whipping up the tempo and recapping fragments from prior cues, like the spiraling woodwinds in “Cassy Gets Lost.”

Two jazz source cues and Marianelli's own solo piano rendition of Debussy's “Clair de lune” close the album, but the best track is the final dramatic cue, “I Let Everyone Down.” It's a skilled portrait of seething disappointment that triggers veering mood swings – from unsettling stillness to bursts of emotions and tears – and is beautifully orchestrated and performed by the modest orchestra.

Often it's the small films that test a composer's ability to capture drama, subtext, and character without drawing attention to the music, and Marianelli's skill really shines in this well-produced album that's available as a downloadable MP3 album and on CD.

© 2007 Mark R. Hasan