July 2, 2014

  • Gentle Romantic Score from William Ross

    A couple of young people toss some coins in a fountain and have a week to make their dreams come true as they seek the perfect romance in this Hallmark Channel TV movie.  In My Dreams was directed by Kenny Leon whose work on a remake of Steel Magnolias garnered some attention.  In both cases, the films bear musical support from William Ross.

     

    The “theme” that opens the presentation features a gentle piano idea with arpeggiated guitar and warm string support harmonically.  As the score progresses, the two halves of this idea will come to be connected with the two main characters of the story.  The music is quite beautiful and slight shifts in woodwind colors lend the music perfect color.  “First Dream” moves into the sort of understated scoring that is fairly common for romantic comedies.  Ross’ style allows there to be a bit more classiness through the motivic fragmentation and assignment to certain instrumental colors that appear over the string drones.  The woodwind colors will be slightly altered for “Second Dream” and “Third Dream” as well.  All are beautifully scored and there is enough variety to make each work on its own as the thematic material recurs.  One can also hear some of the more reflective hopefulness and romantic undertones in places like “From the Heart” and “Sleepless Nights”.  The final track, “This is Real” provides for a nice gradual build of underlying excitement as motivic ideas are allowed to repeat and build and gradually more percussion add an extra edge.

    In My Dreams is in that classic romantic film score genre with subtle underscoring that is informed by thematic development.  The thematic material is beautifully scored and given plenty of fine touches that one has come to expect from Ross; easily recommended to the composer’s many fans.  The score is available as a digital download with more information at: www.momentumrlp.com.