George Fenton
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Kev, you should know that — even though I don’t partake there anymore — I monitor your EVERY MOVE on FSM, including you mentioning that you’re currently in a Fenton phase. 😉
As it happens, he’s one of my favourite composers too. And he needs a thread here anyway.
What are everyone’s favourites of him?
He never was in my top league somehow. I do like COMPANY OF THE WOLVES and GHANDI or newer ones like DEEP BLUE amd PLANET EARHT. Have lost track a bit after that… I only have a few scores digitally I haven’t listened to a while (as usual…). I know more movies with his scores and heard a few more (FISHER KING was fitting) but don’t have them.
Hahaha!! You’re like It Follows, Thor 😄
I first discovered Fenton via High Spirits, then A Handful Of Dust soon after, all on CD.
A lot of people my age found him via A Company Of Wolves a few years earlier, but that score never fully connected with me like it did for others.
He was on a roll late 80s/early 90s.
Some really great scores he was whipping up.
I was always fascinated by how he never had any kind of signature voice or style.
I’m usually quite good at picking up on a composer and their individual style, but Fenton never seemed to have one, other than solid orchestral or adapting to the period style.
I lost him for a bit thereafter, but absolutely fell in love with his scores to In Love & War and The Crucible, and I have a nice collection of his stuff on CD.
I went off him a bit when I found out he was a die-hard Man Utd fan (he’s scored a number films and docs about them) but I shouldn’t let that spoil his music 😉I watched many of his movies and the music never really caught my attention. I discovered him much later on album when classical romantic score went out of fashion and I looked for composers representing the good old times.
My favourite score of his is probably FINAL ANALYSIS.
But as I said, I am not very familiar with his work. Got some albums to explore him more like SHADOWLANDS, ANNA AND THE KING, DANGEROUS LIAISONS and THE CRUCIBLE. All fine works.My favourite is easily ANNA AND THE KING. But he has so many good ones. I have 22 of his scores, and I’m by no means finished. In 2015, I had a chat with him, and I think the 53-minute programme covers his career pretty well.
While the lush orchestral style is what we associate with him (and I love him for it!), I find it interesting when he branches out into other things. He even tried a little bit of synth work on Terry Gilliam’s THE ZERO THEOREM, which I hadn’t heard from him before.
Yes, ANNA & THE KING is very good, though not my favourite.
HERO is a bit of a mish-mash, but the good parts are VERY good. Heroic and dramatic.
SHADOWLANDS is wonderful.
Other highly recommended scores are DANGEROUS BEAUTY (aka A DESTINY OF HER OWN/THE HONEST COURTESAN), GREY OWL, EVER AFTER, VALIANT and STAGE BEAUTY.
I have a CDR of his Disney Nature doc BEARS that I still need to play.“He even tried a little bit of synth work on Terry Gilliam’s THE ZERO THEOREM, which I hadn’t heard from him before”
A lot of his early TV work in the 70s was catchy, light pop themes and small, but effective scoring.
He embraced the much more orchestral/symphonic stuff in the late 80s, around the time of CRY FREEDOM and HANDFUL OF DUST.My issue with ANNA & THE KING is, that its main theme is based on this title song which I don’t like at all.
My issue with ANNA & THE KING is, that its main theme is based on this title song which I don’t like at all.
I think it’s the other way around. Fenton wrote a theme, which was then turned into a song. Like TITANIC or ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES.
Do I like the song version of the theme? No. I’ve actually programmed it out on my iTunes version (on my CD, I just use the ‘skip’ button). But I don’t mind it. Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate the composition itself, in cases like these, and don’t really mind the existence of the song version. The core melodies of “My Heart Will Go On” and “Everything I Do (I Do It For You)” are still great, for example, even if the song versions were saccharine and overplayed.
A lot of his early TV work in the 70s was catchy, light pop themes and small, but effective scoring.
Yeah, I need to check out more of that.
Of course, the bluesy BERGERAC theme from the early 80s is a huge nostalgic favourite, as the series was massively popular in Norway. Used to watch it with my mom on Fridays.
Ah, how could I forget about that one! (Wonder if the remake series pays some homage to it as they sometimes do)
Not sure if it was really big but at least I watched it. But I watched a lot 😉 Fun side fact: My parents were great fans of the series MIDSOMER MURDERS which had the same lead actor. But for years I didn’t realize that 😉
Yes, my mom loves MIDSOMER MURDERS too. I’m sure the John Nettles connection has something to do with it, but she’s a sucker for those traditional British crime shows. I’m not so much.
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