Music to a play without words

Rating: 10/10 (13 July 2000)

(no spoilers, comments on music and movie)
You would never expect a movie about plasticine chickens to be moving, or exciting, or anything but a happy farce. But as one person said, Chicken Run (and its music) is as far from Disney as Pink Panther is from Pocahontas. Not to say I don't like Disney. Dinosaur is one of the best scores ever, and the orchestral Lion King is also wonderful, but listen...
The tremendous variety has a lot of revisiting power. It has action and suspenseful music several times, exciting as U-571, Titan A.E. or Star Trek The Undiscovered Country. It's playful, energetic, happy _without_ being schmaltz, but has moments of intensely morose, dignified, sad music moving from military to unspeakably beautiful. There is NO boring low or LOUD AS BRASS music! It's like music to a play without words.
Despite the variety of music, it's drawn together by a multitude of themes. The main CR theme is played on kazoos (so that what that instrument is!), harmonica, some whistle instrument that sounds shrilly in Chickens are not Organized(!), flute and delicate piano. Sharp-eared viewers will note the main theme replays exactly at the end, with a very different scene being played out. There's a theme for the Rats, played in their debut track, the second half of Flight Training, and the middle of Building the Crate. It's light ethnic, like French/Italian. The sound of awe near-end of We need a miracle is like a shorter one near-end of Flight Training and a longer awe on one of the end tracks, for a very good reason. There's also a theme for the Pie Machine. A bad kind of awe sound, the "Crimson Tide" male chorus referred to. And there's a small female chorus brilliantly used for short sections.
Anyone notice a small homage to Jaws, twice?
Also what dance tune is the first part of Flight Training built from? It sounds very familiar, but I can't place it.
This is over an hour of music, two-thirds of the movie, and it's easy to follow the movie or to happily guess what's happening if you haven't seen it. The tracks don't give away the plot points as easily as Star Wars Ep 1 and others.
I have nearly a hundred orchestral movie scores, and this is my best, along with Dinosaur (the score, not the movie). And this has two songs sung during pivotal points in the movie (not BY the chickens, don't worry), which hail from Big Joe Turner in '55, and Dion in '61.
Some country and Scottish snuck in there, too. Go! Go! Go! Go! (heard twice in CR) It's beautiful music, and should appeal to everyone. Listen to the samples, buy a copy, see the movie, which I already have thrice and write down more nuances I forgot each time. Email me if you want to talk about any aspect of the movie, especially the music!
The chances of us escaping are a million to one. Then there's still a chance. Ginger