I imagine Michal Pavlicek will be a new name to virtually everyone reading this, though as the extensive (and shoddily proof-read) insert notes reveal, he has had an accomplished career in both rock and orchestral music in his home city of Prague. This has ranged from huge sell-out rock gigs to ballets and symphonies, as well as a stint on TV presenting a show which seems to be the Czech equivalent of Jools Holland's Later. He would seem to be an odd choice of composer for the BBC's revival of The Scarlet Pimpernel, but then it transpires that the series was shot in Prague, the music performed by 'The Prague Philharmonics' (surely some close relation of Silva Screen's favourite ensemble, The City of Prague Philharmonic?) with the Choir Angelus, and all falls into place. The album contains an astonishing 57 tracks, though many of these are sequenced seamlessly together, from the three TV movies screened to-date. The fact that the score is 'arranged' by the composer but has three orchestrators suggests that rock musician Pavlicek handed over MIDI files for orchestration, and may explain why the music lacks a certain individual character. This is essentially 'bread-and-butter' scoring, action and suspense writing with some wit and flair, but nothing in the way of memorable tunes, though Pavlicek does contribute some nice acoustic guitar playing to the more reflective moments. Given that the BBC promoted the series as The Scarlet Pimpernel for the James Bond age, the score might best be summed up as "million dollar Mickey Mouse music", and taking inflation into account, that's really not too impressive. Right now, nobody does it better than David Arnold. Reviewer Gary S. Dalkin	Reviewer Gary S. Dalkin Reviews from previous months Reviews carry sales links but you can also purchase from:
			Return to Index