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Posted: |
Jul 27, 2017 - 5:00 AM
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By: |
johnbijl
(Member)
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Recently I finished the entire series The Good Wife, scored by David Buckley. What a great piece of tv-scoring that is. Lush, vivid, theme-driven scoring in a versatile baroque-flavour. Often ditching the main theme for a motif in line with the story of this episode.
Listen for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fru7I9ZJvn4
The show is likeable. The first few seasons are very well written and brilliantly acted. Although the acting always stays on parr, later scripts get sloppy (odd character decisions, louse ends, non-recurring events...) -- which is annoying but never below a point that make the show lose its momentum.
One of the aspects that made me keep on watching though, was Buckley's terrific score. Musically, a show like this doesn't give a composer a lot to work with. Especially on tv. Especially in this day and age.
The series balances between court room, political and crime drama -- all very 'talkie' genres. Usually these require the more subdued scores. When in 50-minute episodes, with shorter scenes, there isn't a necessity to add a lot to do with, they're sparsely spotted -- although I adore the short scores like A Few Good Men, Class Action and City Hall had. Nowadays, where stand-out themes are unwanted by film makers, the room for a composer to do his job is narrower than ever before.
Not for The Good Wife.
Buckley devised a language and voice for this show. Using baroque as a starting point he was able to bring actual emotional music to the show. Often creating a new theme per storyline and even replacing the title theme with it. When there is an episode on political campaigning, it gets a rousing sting, when there's personal drama the main theme is a heartbreaking adagio.
More often than not, the background scoring seems like a emotional canvas for the series. Something which is well transcribed to the hour-long album, which unfortunately only is available as lossy download.
However well worth your while. Let the half hour-long suite posted above speak for itself.
I dearly hope that some label (MV?) will get to the point to deliver more of the extremely enjoyable and effective music Buckley provided. Lossless.
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John, thanks for posting this. I haven't followed the show, and your post makes me want to try it out. Nor did I know there is a digital score album, which I've just added to my list on Spotify. That doesn't help your desire for a box set, but it sure works well for me!
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John, I've now watched the first two seasons (and agree, it's a strong show, lots of great actors and so far plots that make sense). But I don't hear anything like the music on the album on Spotify - so far, not a hint of the Baroque flavor. And it's been David Buckley for a while.
When does this approach begin in the show?
EDIT: Actually, I find that the show soundtrack (on Spotify for me) is mostly from season 5, so that answers my question.
http://ew.com/article/2014/06/02/the-good-wife-soundtrack/
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