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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THE DECCA SOUNDTRACK FOR THE EPIC DRAMA
ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE
FEATURES ORIGINAL MUSIC BY CRAIG ARMSTRONG AND A.R. RAHMAN
** IN STORES OCTOBER 9TH **
September 27, 2007 (New York, NY) - Decca Records announces the exciting October 9th release of the soundtrack for Elizabeth: The Golden Age featuring original score by Craig Armstrong and A.R. Rahman. The movie was directed by Shekar Kapur and welcomes back the Award-winning, star-studded cast from the first installment of the historical adventure including Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush and Clive Owen. The Universal Pictures film opens nationwide to theaters on October 12th.
Craig Armstrong and A.R. Rahman bring a dynamic collaboration to the score that complements this epic story. Rahman is reunited with director Shekar Kapur, with whom he worked on the Broadway musical, Bombay Dreams. His previous work includes a host of various Indian films, including composing for Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India, which was nominated for an Academy Award® for Foreign Film. Mr. Rahman’s work has also accredited him with seven Filmfare Awards for his Music Direction and Background Score, as well as three Popular Awards and four Silver Lotus Awards, in similar categories.
Mr. Armstrong brings his mystifying and poignant composition experience, having worked on Romeo & Juliet and Moulin Rouge, which he was awarded a Golden Globe® in the Best Original Score Motion Picture category. He also acquired a Grammy for his work on the score for Ray Charles biography, Ray. His score on The Quiet American gained a nomination for a World Soundtrack Award for Best Original Song Written for a Film.
The music for The Golden Age is powerful and sentimental, and is as strong and vulnerable as Queen Elizabeth herself, making the collaborative score the perfect accompaniment to the film. It is mystical as it is melodic, and allows the listener to escape to the times and live through the scenes as if they were present in Elizabeth’s court.
Reprising the roles they originated in seven-time Academy Award®-nominated Elizabeth, Oscar-winner® Cate Blanchett (The Aviator) as Queen Elizabeth, Academy Award-winner® Geoffrey Rush (Shine) as Sir Francis Walsingham return for the gripping historical thriller laced with treachery and romance. Joining them is Academy Award® nominee Clive Owen (Closer) as Sir Walter Raleigh, a dashing seafarer and newfound temptation for Elizabeth. The film also stars Abbie Cornish as Elizabeth’s favorite lady-in-waiting, Bess and Academy Award® nominee Samantha Morton (In America, Sweet and Lowdown) as Elizabeth’s cousin Mary Stuart.
The Golden Age finds Queen Elizabeth I facing bloodlust for her throne and familial betrayal. Growing keenly aware of the changing religious and political tides of late 16th century Europe, Elizabeth finds her rule openly challenged by the Spanish King Philip II (Jordi Molla – with his powerful army and sea-dominating armada – determined to restore England to Catholicism.
www.elizabeththegoldenage.net
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For more information: cinemediapromo@yahoo.com
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'wonder why they didn't use Hirschfelder again? 'any clues?
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This score is absolutely intoxicating. I've always liked Craig Armstrong in the past, but this is a new height for him.
While this year may have been lackluster for new scores, this is surely one of the best and will probably be remembered as one of the best from the later half of this decade.
You're the first person I've heard that doesn't despise this score. 
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What a composer from another country who lived a couple of hundred years after Elizabeth has to do with an Elizabethan story is anyone's guess. The arranger also threw in some Sibelius, Vaughan Williams and Elgar for good measure.
Much as I'm not keen on the use of classics, the Elgar works all right. This film is British. Now you'll have to understand that Britain is not Hollywood, and US fantasies from the Anglophile angle are often stereotypes.
A modern British filmmaker of THIS type, will try to make a film as much about the modern world as the period it's set in. The idea here is that this woman's individual psyche and attitudes actually were formative in a very direct way, of all that came after her and shaped Britain today.
He's an Asian director, so he may well have insights about our views of 'goddesses' in modern Britain. There are layers here about Liz replacing Mary as an icon in a funny way, a way for example still around (if Thatcher wasn't working on an Elizabeth I icon fantasy then I'll eat my hat) and this film is about WHAT CAME OUT OF ELIZABETH as much as who she was. And Elgar was England and elegaic and the British Empire. He was also Catholic and this film js about a momentous decision she made re all that. How can you not get that?
As for the Mozart, it's now universal: Pasolini used it, so did Elem Klimov in 'Come and See'. Here it was about Liz saying farewell to men and sacrificing herself for the country. You need iconic music to do that.
You don't mention the Byrd, or the period pieces?
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It was all a mish-mash that was totally distracting to anyone with any kind of awareness of music of the period.
And some of the period music was used directly from early music CDs from other artists. – not even newly-recorded performances.
Those were old LPs of period music. Why use new recordings? Kapur was on a budget and worked miracles of an Orson Wellesian proportion in using quick edits etc. to make the thing look epic.
'Music of the period'? Modern British films are always about TWO periods... the historical backdrop and today. It's about icons, how they are made, how an individual woman's psyche affects history? Affects TODAY. Kapur as an Asian has his own take on goddesses and on modern culture. There's almost tragi-comedy in the bit where she transforms into the 'goddess'. This is not just some period piece. I'm not sure US audiences care about that angle, except in critics' circles.
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Using Mozart in a film about Elizabeth ! is about as appropriate as using Byrd's music for a film about General Custer. But someone out there could probably find a reason why the latter might be creatively cunning.
You've been listening too much to 'Letter from America'. You don't understand a British audience. You have the aesthetic of an interior decorator. Mozart is universal.
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Hmm... that argument might be the one they used to get all the rock music in A Knight's Tale.
Why would anyone compare a piece of junk like 'Knight's Tale' with 'Elizabeth'? And as it happens, the former film depended on rock-music as its bedrock, even its raison d'aitre, because it's a youth comedy.
You need to fine-tune. You're sounding like Gore Vidal impersonating Oscar Wilde.
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They probably wanted a score composed this time, not a lot of arrangements of works by the likes of Mozart.
Because obviously the producers and director would have blamed Hirschfelder for the catastrophic failure of the first film. In any case, I'm sure it was entirely David Hirschfelder's idea and influence that led to the importance of Mozart's Requiem in that film! (Has there ever been a case where a composer pushed hard for a piece of source music to replace their underscore?)
By the way, if you thought Mozart and Elgar were too modern for ELIZABETH, you're going to love it when the electronically-treated violin soars over the raga vocals in this one. Classic period authenticity.
(Incidentally, wouldn't that make all of Korngold's period scores glaring anachronisms, one and all?)
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