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Musical Musings: Love Songs … Actually

If you are a fan of the Richard Curtis School of  (Romantic ) Comedy and its music, you will like this post. Released in 2011, Love Songs … Actually is a compilation of the music from Richard Curtis’ most popular comedies, including:

  • Four Weddings and a Funeral
  • Bridget Jones’ Diary
  • Notting Hill
  • Love Actually
  • The Boat that Rocked (Pirate Radio)
Whatever you may think of the films, this collection contains a varied array of songs that ranges from the some of the classics songs to the ‘latest’ pop confection (truth be told, I tend to steer clear of the latter). But with over 40 songs to choose from, I was bound to  find a couple of faves:

Unfortunately, there are some serious omissions from this two-disk set; most notable for me are:

  • Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides Now’ and The Beach Boys’ ‘God Only Knows’ (from Love Actually)
  • ‘Don’t Get Me Wrong’ by The Pretenders (from Bridget Jones’ Diary)
  • And several tracks from The Boat that Rocked.

In this case, your best bet may be to acquire all the individual soundtracks and create your own ‘master playlist’ for your listening pleasure. I have done so myself.

But for folks in the USA who will insist on having this single, abridged version set, please note that Love Songs … Actually is an import title that you will have to order a physical copy of, likely over the internet.

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Hitchcock and His Music

Even if you have not seen Psycho, this music must ring vaguely familiar. For me, this is the ultimate example of the importance of musical scoring in the motion pictures. And no more do I feel the impact of the score then when I watch the films of one of my favorite directors, Sir Alfred Hitchcock.

13 years ago (goodness, me!) I had the pleasure of visiting the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City and going to the Alfred Hitchcock exhibition, its arrival coinciding with the auteur’s centenary.

Among my mementos of the trip were a museum print and a compact disk, Alfred Hitchcock: Music from his Films. All these years later, the music from this CD still gets constant rotation on my iPod.

While the composer most closely aligned with Hitchcock is Bernard Herrmann, over his career he also collaborated with the likes of Miklós Rózsa, Franz Waxman and John Williams. Here is a really cool interview in which Williams talks about his collaboration with Hitchcock:

Although this music is not on the disk, I thought it was just lovely; it is a score by Neil Brand, which he composed to accompany the British Film Institute’s restoration of Hitchcock’s 1929 film Blackmail.

I close with the words of Bernard Herrmann himself, talking about music and its importance in cinema.

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