ADRIAN JOHNSTON | Becoming Jane

Some films hint a lot right from the very beginning, before you even get to actually watch them. Becoming Jane - the Julian Jarrold directed biographical portrait of a pre-fame Jane Austen and her romance with a young Irishman in late 18th century, shouts from a mile away. Besides obviously being the excellent choice of movie for your beloved one and you to enjoy under a lovely romantic evening, its premise further pointed to a very possibly elegant and melodic musical accompaniment.

And how spot-on that presentiment was!


Not widely known but evidently greatly talented, British film composer Adrian Johnston scored his first feature film (Jude) in 1996 and has subsequently scored more than 20 other features, most recently Kinky Boots, Isolation and Lassie. Having also composed a lot for television, an area which awarded him an Emmy for his score to Shackleton, and also for diverse theatre companies, including the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, the RSC and National Theatre but for several award winning dance projects too, as well as having written and performed live music for silent films, Adrian is one case of younger film composer you won't regularly come across.


His musical score for Becoming Jane is heavily influenced by the work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart whose "Deh Vieni Non Tardar (From "Le Nozze Di Figaro")" is also present in the movie's soundtrack; such a strong influence is denoted intensely by Adrian throughout the whole first part of the score and becomes particularly evident in passages like "Bond Street Airs". This very first part is impressively constructed in musical terms through its lush and dense arrangements and vivid melodic movement, coming along as highly demanded by the aesthetic needs of the movie it accompanies. Adrian aids greatly into setting the tone of the era, as revealed by the opening cue "First Impressions" which is - unsurprisingly, a lushly classical waltz performed by the full orchestra and which manages to quickly introduce the listener to the afore-mentioned.


Although effective and - in parts, quite interesting, still the first part of the score as a whole comes along as somewhat impersonal and devoid of any strong sense of character or originality whatsoever, something that many period scores non-coincidentally seem to suffer from.


However, when Adrian is attributed the space needed for his own musical identity to evolve, this is where the musical wonders take place in a form of a big shift. "Mrs. Radcliffe" - found halfway down the album, indicates the very change. With its sweet melancholy and delicacy, it quickly leads flowingly into the remainder of the score, i.e. its true core of beauty and value. "An Adoring Heart" is one of the most pleasant surprises for instance, a small and intimate, fragile solo piano piece but with every single note packed with extreme passion and emotional tension, all in a rare fashion. The heartbreaking string-driven beauty of "Goodbye, Mr. Lefroy" and the brilliantly passionate piano and strings love hymn that is "Distant Lives" are two very important cues in the score, further leading to the excellent "Selbourne Wood" and "To The Ball". Moreover, from the beautiful piano and strings rendition of the touching waltz-main theme in "Runaways", and from the majestic couple of "A Letter" with its arpeggiated piano escort underneath a fragile, romantic and charmingly romantic violin-led theme, to the heavily dramatic and painfully emotional string writing of "To Be Apart" all the way up to the closing "A Last Reading" with the main theme in all its orchestral glory, Becoming Jane is a clear winner.


This is evidently a very colorful and romantic orchestral score, a musical work of beauty. An imaginative cross between the classical era's best, Jan A.P. Kaczmarek's Evening, Dario Marianelli's Pride and Prejudice and Nigel Hess' brilliant Ladies in Lavender, Becoming Jane is a hidden gem that will certainly echo to the passionate ones, those who love small-scale refinery, unstoppable romance and classical-colored elegance in their film music. Greatly recommended as one of the year's best.

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