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Becoming Jane

Original Film Score - CD

Becoming Jane Adrian Johnston CD
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  • Artist: Adrian Johnston
  • Format: CD
  • Year: 2007
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • UPC: 886971042924
  • Item Number: SNY104292
  • Release date: 07/31/2007
  • 1. First Impressions
  • 2. Hampshire
  • 3. Bond Street Airs
  • 4. The Basingstoke Assembly
  • 5. A Game of Cricket
  • 6. Selbourne Wood
  • 7. Lady Gresham
  • 8. Advice From A Young Lady
  • 9. Laverton Fair
  • 10. To The Ball
  • 11. Rose Garden
  • 12. Mrs. Radcliffe
  • 13. Goodbye, Mr Lefroy
  • 14. Distant Lives
  • 15. The Messenger
  • 16. An Adoring Heart
  • 17. Runaways
  • 18. A Letter
  • 19. The Loss Of Yours
  • 20. To Be Apart
  • 21. Deh Vieni Non Tardar [From: Le Nozze di Figaro]
  • 22. Twenty Years Later
  • 23. A Last Reading
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Becoming Jane by Adrian Johnston on CD


Adrian Johnston's score for the film Becoming Jane starts out with intentions similar to scores for hundreds of other costume dramas, that of simulating and/or re-creating music of the era. Johnston consulted music books that belonged to the Austens to choose melodies that he quotes in some of the tracks. "The Basingstoke Assembly" and "Laverton Fair" are small ensembles -- including horns and a drum -- playing Johnston's lively arrangements of tunes from those books. His construction of "Bond Street Airs" is similar to an early Romantic, good-natured piano concerto, say by Hummel or Cramer, but with a lusher, fuller orchestral sound that blends with the more English Pastoral sound of some of the surrounding tracks. By the second half of the score, where the heart of the film's story comes out, Johnston's writing becomes even more orchestral and more like so many other dramatic film scores of the early twenty-first century: unremarkable. It fulfills its purpose of underscoring the emotion of the story by being moody and slow to change melodically and harmonically, and by using many pregnant pauses and minimalist-leaning repetitive figures. Heard by itself, the latter half could be accompanying this fictionalized story about Jane Austen or a documentary about a year in the life of grazing sheep. There is nothing in it to draw attention away from the film, which to some directors and producers is how a score should be, but it is unfair to a composer. If Johnston had at least been allowed to be more stylistically consistent throughout the score, it might have been easier for him to make it more distinctive and able to stand on its own while still satisfying its duty as one of the aural components of the film. ~ Patsy Morita, Rovi
  • Artist: Adrian Johnston
  • Format: CD
  • Year: 2007
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • UPC: 886971042924
  • Item Number: SNY104292
  • Release date: 07/31/2007
  • Label: Sony Music Distribution
  • Genre: Stage & Screen, Classical
  • Style: Opera, Soundtracks, Original Score, Contemporary
  • Album Time: 47:00

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  • Becoming Jane Adrian Johnston CD
Becoming Jane Adrian Johnston CD

Editorial Reviews

The title Becoming Jane should be taken fairly literally. Viewers with an academic interest in Jane Austen's craft, expecting a Georgian-era Shakespeare in Love, are bound to find Julian Jarrold's film lacking. But those eager to witness the molding of an uncompromising feminist, who refused to marry for financial comfort at a time when loving your husband was considered irrelevant at best, are sure to understand Austen's principled pain by film's end. Becoming Jane starts out a bit tediously, going through the familiar motions of a costume drama in which the lead happens to be one of literature's great talents. Screenwriters Kevin Hood and Sarah Williams aren't interested in winking allusions to the future plot points of Pride and Prejudice; instead, they give us a standard "courtship" between Austen (Anne Hathaway) and Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy), a commoner lawyer dependent on a capricious uncle, in which initial comic friction morphs into passionate love. But as the film leaves behind its frivolous beginnings, it really engages the dilemma faced by the young Austen, whose convictions have consequences beyond her own well-being. Her whole family depends on an advantageous match elevating them from poverty, since the literary aspirations of a woman appeared to have no possibility of accomplishing that, and in fact provoked derisive laughter from those who heard the plan. Austen's tragedy was that she would in fact develop the skills needed to prosper in this way, but not soon enough to facilitate the marriage she truly wanted. Hathaway is more than passable, but not particularly memorable, as Jane; the same goes for McAvoy as the rakish lawyer-pugilist, who gives Jane a taste of the life experience needed to become a good writer. Becoming Jane is both handsome and thoughtful, but not enough of either to constitute a major achievement. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide