Prince Of Egypt - Original Soundtrack > Reviews > Soundtrack fit for a Prince

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
Value for Money

Advantages:	Good recording quality, and professional performances all round .
Disadvantages:	Pointless additional commerical tracks which bring the overall album quality down .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The score for The Prince of Egypt is, for me, the best for
any animated film since The Lion King. Dreamworks' first
major animation outshone anything produced by Disney at
the same time, and the CD goes some way to showing why
that was.

The orchestral cues are all written by Hans Zimmer and are
of his usual excellent standard. The pieces written for
the sequences where Moses meets God in the burning bush
and for the crossing of the Red Sea are awe-inpsiring even
when divorced from the on-screen action, and real emotion
is conveyed in such tracks as 'Goodbye Brother' where the
essentially wordless vocals are provided by Ofra Haza.

But the big treat of the score is the sextet of songs
written by Stephhen Schwartz. His musical style has
evolved considerably since the days when he wrote the
bpuncy scores for such Broadway shows as Godspell, and he
provides songs which are perfectly right for both character
and situation.

'Deliver Us' is the opening montage of the film, showing
the plight (and the faith) of the Hebrew slaves and the
desperation of the mothers whose children were being
slaughtered. This and 'The Plagues', which is again more
of a montage than a straight song, are small masterpieces,
combining disparate choric elements alongside solo voices
to great effect. They move with unstoppable energy, yet
serve their narrative purpose and more, creating mood and
feeling effortlessly. The choir pronouncing the wrath of
God in 'The Plagues' is truly chilling, leading perfectly
into the understated horror of 'The Death of the First
Born', one of Zimmer's orchestral cues.

'When You Believe' won the Best Song Oscar and deservedly
so - it speaks simply yet eloquently of faith both old and
newly discovered, leading into a joyous Hebrew chorus first
from the children and then from the massed Israelites. On
this track, Michelle Pfieffer demonstates a wonderful
singing voice which is utilised far too little. She isn't
the only voice principal to double on the singing, either,
as Ralph Fiennes, Steve Martin and Martin Short also show
off their (less considerable) vocal talents.

The only disappointment of the CD is the poor set of 'extra'
tracks not from the actual soundtrack of the film - either
from the credits or coming seemingly from nowhere. The
commercially released version of 'When You Believe' is truly
abysmal: Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston strip the song of all
emotional honesty; it seems throughout that they are trying
to outdo each other with their vocal performances, making
the track far too 'busy'. The other cover versions, plus
'Humanity' are also disappointing, though Boyz II Men's
track 'I Will Get There' is pleasant enough.

In all, this is a CD with many positives: a wonderful
orchestral score from Hans Zimmer and solid songs from Stephen
Schwartz add up to a great whole. From the joyous 'Through
Heaven's Eyes' to the sinister yet comic 'Playing With The
Big Boys' and the breathtaking 'Red Sea', the recording is
an ever-more-interesting delight. For best results, use a
player which can be programmed to skip over the first track
and several of the final ones, leaving just the 'soundtrack
proper'.