The memoirs of Captain Charles Ryder who is stationed at Brideshead Castle during WWII and remembers his involvement with the owners of the Brideshead estate: the aristocratic yet Catholic Flyte family and in particular brother and sister Sebastian and Julia. 2008

The music for this spectacular new film version of Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel is by Adrian Johnston, performed by the BBC Philharmonic under Terry Davies.

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.

The conductor of this soundtrack, Terry Davies, is himself a composer, orchestrator and conductor with a wide range of credits in film, television and theatre. He has collaborated with Adrian Johnston on many occasions and conducted several of his scores, including the majority of the Poliakoff films.

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’.

The new film version of Brideshead Revisited is directed by Julian Jarrold (Becoming Jane) and the cast is led by Matthew Goode as Charles Ryder, Ben Whishaw as Sebastian Flyte and Hayley Atwell as Julia Flyte, with Michael Gambon and Emma Thompson as Lord and Lady Marchmain. Shot largely at Castle Howard, the film uses local extras, auditioned in York and Malton, in ballroom scenes and as soldiers, and hounds from the Middleton Hunt in the hunt scenes. The screenplay was written by Andrew Davies, who wrote the screenplay for Bleak House, and Jeremy Brock, who wrote the screenplay for the BAFTA-nominated film The Last King of Scotland.

1. Sebastian 2:12
2. Memory 1:42
3. Guilt 1:51
4. Oxford 1:57
5. A Crock of Gold 1:22
6. Arcadia 1:44
7. Gravely Injured 0:39
8. That First Visit 2:21
9. Faith 2:18
10. Wise Old Wine 3:18
11. Venice 1:58
12. The Lido 2:38
13. Carnival 2:05
14. Desire 2:03
15. Contra Mundum 1:24
16. Mid-Atlantic Jungle 2:54
17. Between Dreaming and Waking 1:45
18. Orphans of the Storm 0:57
19. Rex 2:05
20. Near Escape 2:19
21. The End of Our Day 1:34
22. Clouds Gathered 2:09
23. A Small Red Flame 1:37
24. Always Summer 2:29

Total Album Time: 47:21