Band of Brothers  (Audio CD) 
by Michael Kamen

When Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks collaborated on the Academy Award®-winning Saving Private Ryan, an abiding passion to further honor the young fighting soldiers of World War II was born in both men, resulting in Band of Brothers, an ambitious 10-part miniseries based on historian Stephen Ambrose's account of a 101st Airborne regiment as it fought its way across Europe. In scoring the sweeping project, Michael Kamen has eschewed much of the martial music familiar from past war epics in favor of the quiet, largely introspective sound that's informed modern battle films from Platoon through Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line. And if his reverential, often somber tones capture the dignity of the soldiers and the gravity of the events, they sometimes do so at the expense of other human dimensions--and the lively pop music of the '40s. Still, Kamen's work strikes an impressive balance, fusing the pastoral with subtle modern rhythm touches and utilizing spare piano solos, a darkly ironic use of Beethoven's String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, and a memorable, elegiac main theme. --Jerry McCulley