Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album scored by Wallace & Gromit series composer Julian Nott for the film of the same name and released by Varèse Sarabande on 11 October 2005. The soundtrack won the Annie Award for "Outstanding Achievement for Music in a Feature Production".
Contents
Background and production
Julian Nott served as the film's composer for Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, having previously worked with Park on the three short films. Nott considered the score as the "biggest, most colourful score" blending traditional themes with gothic elements, along with choirs and pipe organs to provide horror elements.
The original theme for the film was a last minute improvisation for eleven hours. He wrote the theme hours before the recording and composed it within a single session. Since Wallace often lacks control over chaotic situations, he didn't have a specific theme while other characters had distinct themes. Especially for Feathers McGraw, one of the antagonists, had simple musical motifs to suggest underlying cunningness and menace using a Bernard Herrmann-style chord.
Julian Nott steered away from utilizing traditional animated music that mimics every action and treated those characters as real people in high stake scenarios often seen in live action films, though he utilizes comedic music in every slapstick situations. He took inspirations from Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 for the romantic moments, traditional British heroic styles reminiscent of Edward Elgar and William Walton to depict Gromit as a hero, and Thunderbirds as another inspiration for the gadget-heavy sequences.
Hans Zimmer served as the score producer, whose musical team from Remote Control Productions associated with the production; this included Rupert Gregson-Williams, James Dooley, Lorne Balfe and Alastair King writing additional music and expanding Julian Nott's themes to create a more cinematic and orchestral sound.
Reception
Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks wrote "On the whole, however, this score is seemingly targeting the crowd of listeners that defend Chicken Run to the death, and to their pleasure, they will find Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit to be a generally superior and more consistent effort." Ian Lace of Music Web International described the soundtrack to be "ripping, racy and hillarious" and "never a dull moment". AllMusic wrote "Appropriately for the first full-length Wallace and Gromit feature film, the soundtrack is a sumptuous affair, all traditional British orchestral pomp and circumstance, with the accent on brash brass sounds for the action featuring our cheese-addicted hero Wallace and his faithful dogsbody, Gromit, and sylvan strings to herald the object of his affections, the delectable Lady Tottington."
Personnel
Credits adapted from liner notes: