John Barry's score for director Michael Apted's World War II drama Enigma is a lush, orchestral effort performed by members of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and conducted by the composer. The cues are mostly short, with only four of 19 lasting more than three minutes, but there is a consistency of tone for most of them, and it is a quiet, contemplative one. Things pick up a bit in terms of tension on such titles as "Police Chase" and "Puck Dies," but even then
Barry maintains a deliberate feel that never becomes too stirring. More typical are pieces like "The Quarry" and "Tom Goes to the Cottage," in which a piano plays a single-note theme supported by stately strings. This is not the music for a battlefield war film, but rather one fought internally, with plenty of time for contemplation and uncertainty. Still, the result is both moving and elegiac. (The album concludes with a couple of period songs, DeSylva, Brown and Henderson's "The Black Bottom" as played by
Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra in 1937; and
Harry Warren and
Mack Gordon's "You'll Never Know," recorded in 1943 by British bandleader Ambrose and His Orchestra with Ann Shelton on vocals, which are used as source music in the film; as well as a 1994 recording of Vaughan Williams' "Dives & Lazarus" played by the New Queen's Hall Orchestra, conducted by
Barry Wordsworth.) ~ William Ruhlmann