Merlin [Series 1] (Soundtrack)

I only discovered Rob Lane's music late last year when watching Merlin on BBC1. I found the music on the show very fun, comical and exciting. Since watching Merlin I then tried to find out more about who Rob Lane was. After finding out that he also did the music for the 2008 BBC1 mini-series Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, I decided to watch this as well. I was so glad that I did as Rob's score was just beautiful. I also found out later that he did the music for the 2007 BBC4 mini-series Fanny Hill, which after watching I also felt had a great score.

I was pretty convinced by now that anything this man could write, I would like and whilst I really wanted a soundtrack release for both Merlin and Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Merlin was the only one to actually get one. Nevertheless, this was still good news as television soundtracks rarely get released.

However, overall I found the soundtrack performs quite averagely. There are a few stand out cues of which my favourite has to be "Meeting Arthur / Helen Possessed" simply because of the waltz. But unfortunately I found that the music doesn't hold up as well off screen as it does on screen. I think there are too many suspense building/tension cues, or suspense building/tension moments within cues, and it seems that every track has one of these moments, which doesn't make for a great listening experience. I feel that the soundtrack would have benefited much better having had the music arranged for the soundtrack into suites and not simply the exact cues written for the screen. In my opinion a soundtrack release for Tess Of The D'Urbervilles would have been much more enjoyable.

Rob Lane currently only has one other soundtrack release and that is for the mini-series John Adams, which also features music by composer Joseph Vitarelli. He recently score the BBC television movie The 39 Steps starring Rupert Penry-Jones which aired last Christmas. His most recent score is for British film The Damned United, which was released on 27 March 2009. It is currently unknown whether The Damned United will get a soundtrack release.