James Newton Howard's luminous
Wyatt Earp pays explicit homage to the classic Western scores of Hollywood greats like
Dimitri Tiomkin and
Alfred Newman. By turns rousing, tender, and bittersweet, it's music of mythic proportions, brilliantly evoking the grandeur of the Old West.
Howard subjugates traditional action themes in favor of a pastoral approach channeling the everyday heroism of pioneer life: the hammer falls of railroad construction are given as much thematic attention as the climactic gunfight at the OK Corral, and romance and gunplay co-exist as equals, each the yin to the other's yang. ~ Jason Ankeny