ADRIAN JOHNSTON

This is the soundtrack, composed by Adrian Johnston and performed by the BBC Philharmonic under Terry Davies, for the spectacular new film version of Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel Brideshead Revisited.

Adrian Johnston scored his first feature film – Jude – in 1996 and has subsequently composed music for more than twenty other features, most recently Becoming Jane, Kinky Boots, Isolation and Lassie. He has received BAFTA nominations for his music for the television productions The Lost Prince, Tipping the Velvet, Perfect Strangers and Our Mutual Friend. For his score for Shackleton he won an Emmy. His collaboration with Stephen Poliakoff has been especially fruitful, with superb scores for Shooting the Past, Friends and Crocodiles and many more.

Adrian Johnston has said of this project, ‘I was thrilled to have an opportunity to work with Chandos – a label whose philosophy I have always liked, and whose CDs of Philip Lane’s fine film score reconstructions I have particularly admired. Hearing the recording of Richard Rodney Bennett’s glorious music for Lady Caroline Lamb while I was driving forced me to steer off the road and sit mesmerised till it had finished. I know that to release a “non historical” film score was somewhat of a departure for the label, but I hope that Brideshead Revisited can somehow exist as a Chandos product, and perhaps open up the way for future film music collaborations’.

Johnston’s appealingly tuneful music beautifully reflects the drama of the story. The film, already released in America, will be opening in the UK on 3 October.

Directed by Julian Jarrold, Evelyn Waugh’s novel, Brideshead Revisited receives its first cinematic adaptation this summer with a cast which includes Academy-Award winner Emma Thompson, Michael Gambon, Matthew Goode, Hayley Atwell and Ben Whishaw. The screenplay is written by Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies.

Brideshead Revisited follows the memoirs of Charles Ryder and his involvement with the Flyte family who own the Brideshead Estate. It relives the hedonistic days of 1920s Oxford University and tells an evocative story of forbidden love and the loss of innocence with particular focus on Charles’s relationship with brother and sister, Sebastian and Julia and their mother, Lady Marchmain.

Chandos is delighted to have been given the opportunity to record Adrian Johnston’s soundtrack, the first original film score on Chandos Movies. Having won both BAFTA and Emmy Awards for his scores, Adrian Johnston has had an impressive career in television and film to date including Becoming Jane, Kinky Boots, The Mayor of Casterbridge and White Teeth.

Adrian Johnston writes of the Brideshead Revisited recording “I was thrilled to have an opportunity to work with Chandos – a label whose philosophy I have always liked, and whose CDs of Philip Lane’s fine film score reconstructions I have particularly admired. I know that to release a ‘non historical’ film score was somewhat of a departure for the label, but I hope that Brideshead Revisited can somehow exist as a Chandos product, and perhaps open up the way for future film music collaborations.”

The BBC Philharmonic is conducted by Olivier Award winner Terry Davies who has a wide range of credits in film, theatre and TV including Shakespeare in Love, Becoming Jane, House of Mirth and A Midsummer Night's Dream.