Track Listing

1. O Verona (Pete Postlethwaite) - Romeo & Juliet
2. Escape - Plunkett & Macleane
3. Main Theme - The Quiet American
4. One Day I'll Fly Away (Nicole Kidman) - Moulin Rouge
5. Rise - The Negotiator
6. The Balcony Scene (Clare Danes) - Romeo & Juliet
7. Glasgow Love Theme - Love Actually
8. The Ball - Plunkett & Macleane
9. Will You Come Back To Me - The Quiet American
10. Rebecca - Plunkett & Macleane
11. This Love - Cruel Intentions
12. Della's Theme - Ray
13. Main Theme - The Clearing
14. Main Theme - Orphans
15. New York City - The Bone Collector
16. Nature Boy (Ewan Mcgregor & David Bowie) - Moulin Rouge
17. The Final Scenes - Romer & Juliet / Moulin Rouge
18. Clair De Lune - Chanel No. 5

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3496 in Music
• Released on: 2005-10-24
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Soundtrack, CD+DVD
• Running time: 63 minutes

CD Description
Film composer and musical arranger Craig Armstrong has had an eclectic career in pop, jazz, electronic, and experimental music fields. This compilation of selected highlights froma decade and a half of his film scores showcases his musical imagination in pieces from movies as disparate as THE QUIET AMERICAN and ROMEO AND JULIET. The composer flirts with sentimentality on Nicole Kidman's "One Day I'll Fly Away", andEwan MacGregor and David Bowie's "Nature Boy", both from Baz Luhrmann's lavish production of MOULIN ROUGE, while AMERICAN's blend of acoustic piano and electronica displays a spare melancholy that impeccably matches that film's dark mood. By turns majestic and minimalist, FILM WORKS is an impeccably assembled collection from a master craftsman.

Customer Reviews

Startingly Good - stands as excellent music for its own sake
Excellent compilation of Craig Armstrongs film music.
Armstrong truly is a rare talent in film music scoring - these days, each composer whose name you might recognise has their own tricks that crop up time and again. Hans Zimmer has the 'soulful voice as instrument and Wagnerian epic themes', Jerry Goldsmith has the 'lush string sound with simple effective meolodies', Vangelis has the epic soaring themes market cornered...
But Craig Armstrong truly uses a large repertoire of tools to achieve whatever is needed for a certain film. This album contains romantic soft melodies gently played (Love Actually Glasgow Love theme), Driving modern dance style beats ('Ball' from Plunckett and Maclean), epic Carl Orff style choir and orchestra theatrics - (Romeo and Juliet - 'O Verona'), plus others which are intimate piano pieces, soulful solo violin motifs - basically, anything a musician can use to get the desired effect. And the beauty is, it is all original, and all instantly memorable.
Much film music can become quickly tiresome, but Armstrong is so inventive and memorable, that this CD bears repeated listening - indeed, you have almost certainly heard many of the tracks before and not realised who the composer was.
Armstrong has achieved that rare thing, of creating film music that stands squally proud by itself without the film. But for sure, this CD will both make you want to go and watch the films again paying more attention to the nusic, and secondly make you want to go and discover more of Craig Armstrongs work.
You wont be disappointed on either count. Highly recommended for lovers of both film music, and music for musics sake.

As good as he always is...
Having heard quite a few of his albums over the past few years, I knew roughly what to expect of this CD. However, I have to admit, even I was suprised at how good it really is. There are tracks on here that some people will recognise, either from the films themselves, or from Adverts & TV programmes (such as BBC's Top Gear). My particular favourites are "Escape" & "The Ball" from Plunkett & Macleane, a film I didn't know he scored.
I'm not disappointed with this album, and neither will you be. It's a good starting point to sample some of his best works, before going deeper into his Discography, which won't disappoint either.

Good........but not great
Never really heard about Craig Armstrong until I heard a piece of his music on Classic FM. Overall it's not a bad little compilation of work, but can't really stand up to the grandeur of say John Barry for example.