Track Listing

1. Veni, Veni Emanuel
2. Words Of The Prophet
3. Nazareth
4. You Shall Be His Wife
5. The Annunciation
6. To Elizabeth
7. The Magi
8. Why Is It Me?
9. Corde Natus Ex Parentis
10. Return Of Mary
11. I've Broken No Vow
12. Census
13. The Journey
14. Give Me A Sign
15. The Shepherd
16. And Thou Bethlehem
17. Is There A Place For Us?
18. A Star Shall Come Forth
19. I Bring You Good Tidings
20. The Strength I Prayed For
21. The Shepherd's Gift
22. In Rosa Vernat Lilium
23. Silens Nox
24. Rosa Aeterna Floret

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18793 in Music
• Brand: Score
• Released on: 2006-12-05
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Dimensions: .19 pounds

Album Description
This score follows not only Mary and Joseph's journey to Bethlehem, but the centuries of musical reverberations thereafter. It plants its humble seeds in the Middle East where the gentle tones of Persian and Turkish ney flutes articulate melodic figures, and strident Roman horns and drums bind Herod the Great's soldiers to the military terminology of the age. The score then blossoms from these seeds, extending its tendrils across centuries of European traditions. Pre-Baroque instruments such as viola da gamba, vielle, harp, and recorders guide the score westward with the elemental sounds of strings and winds. The second half of the soundtrack covers Mary's isolation and her relationship with Joseph by weaving throughout the choral writing and knitting the work together into a dramatic, reverent whole.

Amazon.com
In the beginning, soundtracks to Biblical movies adhered to a Hollywood template with more fidelity than most people attend to the Ten Commandments. The first commandment of Biblical film scores was: "Thou shalt render orchestral grandeur unto the epic as did Elmer Bernstein on The Ten Commandments and Miklos Rozsa on Ben-Hur." Peter Gabriel's score to The Last Temptation of Christ, released as Passion, changed all that like the Second Coming. His mix of world-music elements, wailing singers, and otherworldly electronics prevailed, influencing countless film scores and emulated to almost plagiaristic perfection by John Debney's soundtrack for The Passion of the Christ. Mychael Danna departs from that path on The Nativity Story, the 2006 film interpretation of Mary's journey. His sound is more medieval and classical than Middle Eastern. Rather than blowing Turkish duduks à la Gabriel and Debney, he uses recorders and wood flutes. He likes building from simple folk themes to extravagant expanses where a lone flute segues into a sweeping string arrangement that morphs into slowly cascading voices. He taps into Gregorian chant and plainsong, and even when he uses Persian vocalist Azam Ali (from Vas and Niyaz), he has her singing an Abbess Hildegard-style hymn called "Nazareth." But this is a Hollywood Biblical epic and Danna bends to another commandment of the genre: "Thou shalt wring tears and awe-inspired wonder." You don't need to see the film to know that the heavens must be opening--as they only do in Hollywood--on "And Thou Bethlehem." Danna's The Nativity Story isn't a sea change like Gabriel, but it is a new tributary. --John Diliberto

Customer Reviews

CHILLING SCORE TO ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I SAW THE MOVIE AND I WAS BLOWN AWAY, BUT IT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN AS MEMORABLE WITHOUT A GREAT SCORE TO HELP CARRY IT. TELLING THIS STORY ALONE IS POWERFUL ALL BY ITSELF, BUT THE POINT OF THIS MOVIE WAS TO CAPTURE PEOPLE IN WAY LIKE NEVER BEFORE, THIS COULD NOT HAVE BEEN DONE WITHOUT THIS AMAZING SCORE. IT HELPED CARRY THE EMOTIONS OF THE CHARACTERS AND CREATE A HAUNTING MOOD FOR EACH SCENE. I WOULD NOT HAVE CRIED THE WAY I DID AT THE END WHEN JOSEPH IS CARRING MARY LOOKING FOR A ROOM IF IT HAD NOT BEEN FOR THE MUSIC SURROUNDING THIS SCENE WHICH SLOWLY TURNED FROM A MUSICAL PIECE TO CREATE SUSPENSE INTO A RIVITING VERSION OF CAROL OF THE BELLS. IT WAS SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL.
FROM THE MOMENT THE CREDITS OPENED TO THE ENDING CREDITS, THE MUSIC WAS INCREDIBLE INTENSE AND WORKED VERY WELL WITH EACH SCENE. SINCE THE MOVIE AND THE SOUNDTRACK, THIS MUSIC HAS LIVED INSIDE ME. THIS SOUNDTRACK IS ONE NOT TO BE MISSED. TRUST ME, YOUR CHRISTMAS MUSIC COLLECTION IS NOT COMPLETE WITHOUT THIS SCORE WHICH DOES AN IMMACULATE JOB OF REMINDING US OF THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD. BLESS ALL OF YOU OUT THERE, AND HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS. PLEASE GO SEE THIS MOVIE AND THEN GO BUY THE SOUNDTRACK.

Worth the price of the CD
This soundtrack has THE most beautiful version of Silent Night I've ever heard; it's worth the price of the CD just to get that track. (Since the choral portion of the track is sung in Latin, it's called Silens Nox.) When I heard it in the movie, I immediately thrilled to it--it was so gorgeous I wanted to close my eyes and just drink in that glorious music...Bravo!

Beautiful!
This CD is the actual movie score containing all the beautiful music you heard throughout! It's soothing to listen to even when it's not the Christmas season!