Oliver Twist (Bonus Track) [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

Director Roman Polanski’s own experiences as a virtual orphan in the Krakow ghetto during WWII no doubt attracted him to the themes of Charles Dickens’ classic 19th century novel. But in scoring Polanski’s new film version of the tale, composer Rachel Portman’s nods to Victorian musical traditions are only fleeting (most notably in the stately brass flourishes of the opening “Streets of London”). As always, Portman’s forte is portraying more personal, introspective landscapes, and her orchestral score is a skillful synthesis of spare historical motifs and more modern influences — music that serves as a sort of crucial emotional bridge between past and present. Her delicate writing for strings and winds will be familiar to her admirers, its rich, neo-pastoral textures gently seasoned with Celtic folk melodic influences on “The Road to the Workhouse,” “Prelude to a Robbery,” and elsewhere. Even the soundtrack’s darker second half (and cues like the quasi-minimalist “Robbery”) are models of admirable restraint, the gently brooding underbelly of a quiet masterpiece of a score.