Review Summary: A score that brings you right into the action.
Band of Brothers - based off the Stephan Ambrose historic biography of the same title - was the most expensive and successful miniseries ever created at the time of its first airing in 2001, costing over $110 million dollars to produce. After just collaborating on Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg (executive producers of the series) realised that they had done something special with
Band of Brothers, and that the series should continue on the Americans doing in World War II, and the idea was spawned of re-creating the immense battle that was
The Pacific.
Scoring
The Pacific was always going to be a major focal point for the series as the score for
Band of Brothers was highly emotive and correctly connected to the images that were being seen on the screen. So the choice of composer was always going to be a very important one. So, Hanks and Spielberg enlisted Hans Zimmer, Geoff Zanelly and Blake Neely to score
The Pacific, which turned out to be a fantastic decision. The great thing about Zimmer’s composing is the way that he can embody all the emotive sounds and textures of the brass and strings and bring them together to create a very haunting yet triumphed sound with differing timbres. Zimmer and co have created some extremely emotive pieces for
The Pacific as the depiction of war can be gradually underestimated in some TV series, yet the melodies and haunting harmonies that are created for the score make the listener feel every heartbeat that the soldiers would have felt.
The opening credits piece, “Honor” is about as grandiose as it gets, and with it being titled “Honor” it would need to be. The solo instrument, being a muted French horn is subtly accompanied by the large build of strings and flourishing brass which gives the listener chills as it interweaves with the woodwind, thus setting us the scene and sound that Zimmer was looking for, a sound that really wouldn’t belong in a battlefield, yet it digs out the emotion of a soldier so well. Another example of this sorrowful sound is “Memories of Home.” Full of sadness, the strings leave large space between slow chord progressions, and a solitary clarinet floats above the ambience with keyboard percussion laying out a mystic phrasing - you can feel the heart wrench in your lounge room. Though much unlike “Memories of Home”, “Iwo Jima” is scored completely different to the ferocious battle that took place there and a much brasher piece of composing. It is written very simply and contains subtle crescendos, which build from nothingness from the lower brass and slightly dissonant in its delivery including hardly any clutter, making it more haunting and disturbing than anything else Zimmer has done.
The Pacific is scarily well scored, containing sections of minimalism, tenacious orchestration, emotive brass and woodwind and clever timbre changes throughout the works. Zimmer and co can certainly score a war time epic as the music they have put to paper can bring a tear to the eye or make the heart race of anyone watching
The Pacific, as the lush sounds and spectacular cinematography make you feel a part of the battle, in one of the most special TV series ever created.
