Patrick Doyle – Kissing in the Rain (OST Great Expectations) [1998]

“Kissing in the Rain” Composed and co-produced by Patrick Doyle Conducted by David Snell Orchestrated by Lawrence Ashmore Vocal solo by Miriam Stockley With this lack of a central personality in mind, if you’re seeking a coherent listening experience, then Great Expectations could drive you nuts. If you break the score down into its many parts, however, there are plenty of individual cues that will both please and surprise a novice Doyle collector. The diversity in its impressive assembly of contributing performers, as well as fantastic shifts in style and genre from cue to cue, create the mystical and romantic whole that Doyle was attempting to achieve. Among these performers are a whistler, several well-known vocalists, and a famous guitarist, all of whom contribute with glorious precision. Merged with a powerful orchestral presence and a bank of synthesizers, Great Expectations sounds magnificent in almost each of its cues. Its themes can be described the same way, but their employment, outside of the idea for Paltrow’s Estella, is haphazard. The theme for Hawke’s Finn is nebulous and carefree, defined by the textures of vocals and a whistler perhaps appropriate for the artist’s uncertain career and lifestyle. A theme for Robert DeNiro’s character of Lustig, the escaped criminal, builds to heartbreakingly powerful renditions in “Benefactor” and “Lustig Dies” in the middle of the score, two of the orchestra’s most robust performances. But the theme for Estella is easily …