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| The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe | 
 enlarge | Artist: Harry Gregson-williams
Label: Buena Vista Pictures
Category: Music
List Price: $24.98
Buy Used: $6.18
You Save: $18.80 (75%)
New (34) Used (20) Collectible (1) from $6.18
Avg. Customer Rating:  32 reviews
Sales Rank: 39707
Format: Soundtrack, Limited Edition, Special Edition
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 5 x 0.7
MPN: 861373
UPC: 050086137374
EAN: 0050086137374
ASIN: B000BCE8RI
Release Date: December 13, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: *****SHIPS FIRST CLASS MAIL 3-5 DAYS FOR ARIVAL /***CD ONLY ***NO CASE ***NO ART WORK INLAY*** NO INSERTS *** JUST CD IN PAPER SLEVE MAILER ***CD ONLY* CD ONLY* CD ONLY * GUARANTED TO PLAY
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| Tracks:
| • | The Blitz, 1940 Score | | • | Evacuating London Score | | • | The Wardrobe Score | | • | Lucy Meets Mr. Tumnus Score | | • | A Narnia Lullaby Score | | • | The White Witch Score | | • | From Western Woods to Beaversdam Score | | • | Father Christmas Score | | • | To Aslanās Camp Score | | • | Knighting Peter Score | | • | The Stone Table Score | | • | The Battle Score | | • | Only the Beginning of the Adventure Score | | • | Wunderkind Performed by Alanis Morissette | | • | I Canāt Take It In Performed by Imogen Heap | | • | Winter Light Performed by Tim Finn | | • | Where Performed by Lisbeth Scott (new age artist) |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Not to be confused with the collection Songs Inspired by the Chronicles of Narnia, this album is Harry Gregson-Williams' instrumental score for the movie. Marking the composer's third collaboration with director Andrew Adamson (after both Shrek movies), this score also is one of the more mature offerings from Gregson-Williams, best known for his work on family films. The music is lush and assured, if a bit predictable. Indeed, it fits squarely in the current style popular for big epics--even using (on a few tracks) the vocals of Lisbeth Scott, which fall halfway between those of Enya and the Cocteau Twins' Liz Fraser (both of whom, uncoincidentally, appeared on the Lords of the Rings soundtracks). The CD concludes with four songs, with Gregson-Williams cowriting "Where." On "Can't Take It In," Imogen Heap's vocal acrobatics eerily recall those of the Cranberries' Dolores O'Riordan, while Alanis Morissette's "Wunderkind" is an inspirational, almost girl-powerish track written from the point of view of the movie's Lucy. But the best of these songs is "Winter Light" by Tim Finn, four minutes of understated, piano-driven melancholia. Look for it tucked near the very end of the CD. The second disc in this special edition package is a DVD that includes galleries of film stills and concept art, a featurette about the recordings of the score and a making-of featurette. There's also a segment in which the (mostly) Christian bands involved in the Songs Inspired by... album talk about their contributions to that project. --Elisabeth Vincentelli
Album Description
The special edition includes the soundtrack and dvd (with over 45 minutes run time) DVD Includes: Film Art Gallery Concept Art Gallery Behind the Magic of Narnia - Featuring the Score with Harry Gregson-William The Story The Director Visual Effects Sets & Locations Models & Costumes Theatrical Trailer Music Inspired By the Film
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| Customer Reviews: Read 27 more reviews...
 Wonderful score, poor package: save your money and buy the regular edition March 30, 2006
42 out of 46 found this review helpful
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Score = 5 stars
Bonus Songs = 0 stars
DVD content = 1 star (for the interview with composer Harry Gregson-Williams)
Packaging = 0 stars
This is a very poor package, something knocked off at the last moment in Disney's marketing department and unworthy of such a wonderful score.
There is precedent for creating special edition releases of soundtracks to major films that are truly special. The soundtrack to the most recent Star Wars film, "Revenge of the Sith," included a DVD with one hour of original content made specifically for the soundtrack release, an audio and video montage of Williams' work from all six films with introductions by one of the film's main actors. The first of the most recent Star Wars films, The Phantom Menace, also saw a special release that featured the entirety of the film's score on a two-cd set.
This special edition of the Narnia soundtrack features only 50 minutes of the original score, about half of what was composed (according to information from an interview contained in this set's DVD). Four "bonus songs" are appended featuring insipid performances by vocalists ill-suited for creating music for this style of film - Alanis Morisette, Imogen Heap and Tim Finn. The one vocalist with the appropriate pedigree, Lisbeth Scott, who has performed on Paul Schwartz' "State of Grace" neo-opera projects and on films such as Mel Gibson's "The Passion," is forced to sing beyond her range in a performance that is painful to listen to.
The bonus DVD is a collection of edited versions of behind-the-scenes films likely to appear on the extended DVD version of the film. There's a 10-minute interview with composer Harry Gregson-Williams, followed by 3-minute versions of featurettes such as The Director, The Story, and The Special Effects. You also get a trailer for the film, a photo gallery, and an art gallery, plus an extended television commercial for the Music Inspired By cd, featuring pop-rock dreck from artists you've likely never heard of (and never want to hear of again). If you plan to purchase the extended DVD package there is likely nothing in this Soundtrack Special Edition that won't be replicated in more detail there.
The packing for this special edition is nothing special - no leather, no metal studs, no book format, just a typical cardboard digipack that someone along the way apparently screwed-up. Either the original plan was to have the back panel be blank, or an error was made in the contents of the package. The back panel is now a vinyl sticker affixed to the cardboard.
If you want to purchase this soundtrack, stick to the standard release. You get the same score (plus the same insipid "songs") for approximately $10 less.
 Fantastic score, but missing a key song December 28, 2005
17 out of 22 found this review helpful
I have no need to elaborate on how fantastic I feel that this soundtrack is, as other people have already done so quite eloquently. But I do want to mention that the jazz song that plays when the children play hide-and-go-seek is missing from the CD; however, you can get this song off of iTunes for 99 cents if you want it. It's called "Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh!" and it's by Glenn Miller and the Andrew Sisters.
Simply inappropriate! December 28, 2005
13 out of 30 found this review helpful
When I first listened to The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (from now on referred to only as "Narnia") I thought it was a fantastic score. After watching the actual film, this feeling hasn't changed at all: Narnia is a truly great score, just not for this movie.
Harry Gregson- Williams, rather surprisingly for me, delivered one of 2005's best scores with Kingdom Of Heaven, and if you're familiar with that score, you will instantly find yourself on well- known territory in Narnia. Gregson- Williams carried over the unusual solo instruments, like the duduk and the electric violin, as well as the ethnic percussion and plenty of Media Ventures drums, from his days as a Hans Zimmer- protegé;
add piano solos, flute solos and moments of brassy glory, and you have the sound of Narnia.
If you are looking for strong thematic material, you won't be dissapointed. The young composer gives us several beautiful themes that culminate in the final tracks "The Battle" and "Only The Beginning Of The Adventure". The children's theme, which gets introduced in "Evacuating London", is very calm and sad, and is primarily performed by woodwinds, while the hero theme, as can be heard at the beginning of "To Aslan's Camp", comes in a very bright, bold and adventurous manner with a sense of movement.
But where Narnia truly shines is when Gregson- Williams reflects the lyrical winter images and the magic of Narnia in his music; then he turns into a much more mature version of Danny Elfman and lets the light choir and the weeping strings fly.
Choral splendor isn't one of Narnia's weak points anyhow. It's very likely that you will find some of the best choral pieces of the year in "The Battle".
So many good things to say, so why do I give Narnia a pretty average rating?
Let me begin by responding to the many many reviewers out there, whose general consensus is "Harry Gregson- Williams did to Narnia what Howard Shore did to Middle- Earth". This is one of these rare instances in which a comparison actually makes sense. C.S. Lewis and Tolkien were close friends, and Tolkien often said that Lewis' writing was a little too inspired by his own.
I'm very sorry, but Narnia and Lord of the Rings can't be on the same level merely because of the composers' attitude towards the films they had to score.
Howard Shore spent months and months preparing himself for the project by studying Tolkien's themes, their historical and mythological background and Ring mythology specifically, just to begin to comprehend what he had to capture and translate into music.
Gregson- Williams just "gave the theme a historical touch" to "hint" at "some historical background" (quotes from the DVD). Wow, I guess THAT was a painstaking process, huh?
See, that's the difference: Shore translated, Gregson- Williams just accompanied the movie.
Even worse is the idea behind the score: "Narnia has no definite sound yet, so it was nice to be able to work with a blank canvas".
This one makes you wonder if he is familiar with a single line from Lewis' book. The first thing you do as a composer working on a literary adaption is to sit on your butt and get behind author, story and characters. If you, who reads this review, would do that and only scratch on the surface, you will find that the above statement, not to mention the music, is not only wrong, but almost insulting.
And even if Narnia did have a blank canvas, the laziest thing would be to litter it with pictures you've already painted.
Not to mention that the last thing I would do with Narnia is giving it an ethnic, eastern touch. It just bugs me that composers today develop a specific concept and then slap it on every movie they score, with a few tweaks here and there.
Alright, you can argue whether the sound of modern drum loops and percussion is the right flavour for Narnia, but it's non- debatable that outside of Narnia, the film's a period piece and would have required some period music. But Gregson- Williams doesn't even give us that, but with "The Blitz" a double- standard Media Ventures cue.
And the vocals of Lisbeth Scott, as great as they may sound, are so out of place that it's almost a crime.
The three songs at the end are another horrible example for the "popification" of a movie that is supposed to have some dignity (the last horrid example would have to be Harry Potter 4).
That the score even somehow resembles these songs should be an alarming signal for every film score fan.
So, the bottom line is that this score IS great, but you should totally black out the film, that's the only way to fully enjoy Narnia. This could have easily been a four or even five star score, but to totally ignore a film like Harry Gregson- Williams did is unforgivable.
Pure Magic! December 21, 2005
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
After seeing the movie I knew I wanted to buy the soundtrack. I absolutely fell in love with the score. I think it is one of the most brilliant scores I have ever heard. It is almost up there with John Williams score for Star Wars and it definately rivals some of the pieces from Lord of the Rings. But in this case the score is more magical and has a child-like innocence quality to it. And at the same time it has epic themes and pieces that really tug at the heart.
I am extremely pleased with this special edition soundtrack. It comes in a very nice package that has a strong Narnian feel to it. It comes of course with the soundtrack itself, which you can also put into your CD-ROM to access special internet features. And then it comes with a dvd that has several features pertaining to the making of the movie itself and also a special mini-documentary on the making of the score with the composer. In additon to that, it has two very cool art galleries and stills from the movie set to music from the film. And if that wasn't enough it also features the full-length trailer in excellent quality and sound and another featurette about the making of music inspired by the film. Finally, it also contains a 40-page souvenir booklet about the film that includes snippets of interviews pertaining to the movie and to the score surrounded by goregeous stills from the film itself.
This special edition soundtrack exceeded my expectations. I absolutely love it! I've listened to the score in it's entirety 4 times now, and I've only recieved it yesterday! I highly recommend it to all!
Wonderful score. Gregson-Williams gives Narnia a voice. January 21, 2006
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Besides seeing The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I was really looking forward to the original score, especially when I found out that Harry Gregson-Williams would be writing the music, especialy after his excellent score for Kingdom of HEaven. It is unquestionable that Gregson-Williams gives Narnia a beautiful voice on screen, and at firt I didn't think that the cd measured up to the film. But over the last month, I have found that The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is dominating the music I'm listening too. I simply cannot stop enjoying this music. There are several themes that go throughout the film, from the Nazi theme that is transferred to the White Witch to the Lucy/Tumnous theme which practically defines Narnia. There is also a heroic main theme, heard as the children first escape from the wolves on an ice flow and later heard with thundering effect in the battle track. There are only two disappointments, the four contemporary songs at the end of the cd are songs that I don't care for and I found that I wanted more of the score to be on this cd. I'm hoping a complete version is released, like the complete edition of Fellowship of the Ring, that was recently released, epsecially since this is a special edition collection of the soundtrack. The DVD included with the cd is cool and a nice little addition. Whether or not it makes the price worthwile depends on what you're looking for. Overall I would rate this score highly. Not as good as the Lord of the Rings score, but then again, it doesn;t have to be, because The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe score by Harry Gregson-Williams stands tall in its' own right.
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