March 12, 2015

  • The Mistover Tale

    Harry Tapan Heher has given The Return of the Native a modern twist in his debut feature film. Set on Martha’s Vineyard, The Mistover Tale sets up a disastrous love triangle between its main characters Cliona who is forced to marry another man only to keep up her affair with her lover, Ned Luce, himself having been forced into a shotgun marriage.  The score is by Jerome Leroy who has served as an orchestrator primarily for William Ross, John Frizzell, and Brian Tyler over the past decade.

     

    The opening “Overture” begins with a harp idea that is then slowly passed along to a throaty alto flute version where it gets a bit of mystery, a more folk-like violin idea follow with the flute and harp returning.  With “Sunrise”, these ideas continue to fill out more with an added female vocalise floating through this texture.  This haunting sound will recur in the score, most tellingly in “Setting Sail” where the various threads of the music seem to converge.  “Cleona’s Apparition” provides an equally appropriate chill later.

    Each idea tends to further set off the sense of isolation of the setting and characters with very subtle suggestions of Celtic inflections (“Island Lovers”).  “Wedding in Nature” provides another beautiful thematic statement for violin with harp that does not get as much chance to fully develop as one might like.  The score is populated with these brief thematic gestures for different solo instruments each adding their own unique character to these often restrained (“Henry’s Mother Dies”), always somewhat sorrowful and beautiful backdrops.  A bit of electronic ambient material also appears for added effect in “Mushroom Trip.”  But this is short-lived and the final track brings some resolution with equally beautiful flute and string writing (“Henry Wakes Up/The Mistover Tale”) as thematic ideas too seem to offer new hope.

    The Mistover Tale is a nice demonstration of Leroy’s subtle orchestral use of distinct instrumental sounds with excellent thematic development in often quite beautiful music.