About the Soundtrack "Lonsome Dove"
About the release:
Lonesome Dove - The original soundtrack to the popular "mini-series" by the renowned composer Basil Poledouris is now available on Sonic Images Records. Winning an Emmy in 1998 for best original score, the tracks feature orchestral ensembles ranging from seven to forty players that include folk instruments such as steel-stringed guitars, hammered dulcimer, fiddle, banjo, and accordion. The thematic core of LONESOME DOVE is derived from folk melody. "This was really the first time I was able to use a folk idiom in a dramatic picture," notes Poledouris. "I didn't want to use Copeland style Americana - that was too theatrical, almost too modern. LONESOME DOVE needed a strong mythology, and making the score sound like folk music, with simple structures and very tuneful melodies, would give it a reality, as if it was really music from the period."
About the composer: Basil Poledouris
Basil Poledouris has scored more than 60 feature and television films, from the mythological fantasies CONAN THE BARBARIAN and ROBOCOP to the science fiction extravaganza STARSHIP TROOPERS, family films FREE WILLY, and the remakes of LASSIE and THE JUNGLE BOOK, action films RED DAWN, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, and UNDER SIEGE 2, and sweeping dramas such as the recent non-musical version of LES MISERABLES. These scores are melodically rich, their lyricism often drawn from the simple phrasings of folk music.
It's this predisposition to folk music that has given Poledouris his greatest strength, and which continues to lie at the core of his musical sensibilities. Basil grew up listening to and performing folk music even during his classical training, and considers folk melodies to be at the root of much emotional film music. "To me, folk music is one of the great wellsprings of melodic material," he says. "It's the simplest expression of the human soul. It conveys a complicated emotion very simply."
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