Music for a Jolly Good Adventure

I've written on several occasions of my love for the BBC's Sherlock series (most recently to praise its second series finale). I've been so caught up in the clever writing and enthralled by the amazing acting that I don't believe I've given proper mention of another fantastic element of the show: the music.

Sherlock is scored by a composing team, David Arnold and Michael Price. Soundtrack enthusiasts are likely to recognize Arnold's name; his wild and bombastic music has appeared most notably in the Roland Emmerich films Stargate and Independence Day, as well as every James Bond movie since Tomorrow Never Dies. Michael Price is a relative newcomer whose most well-known film is arguably Hot Fuzz (in which he skillfully aped the style of music that, well, folks like David Arnold are known for delivering).

Together, the two of them create a wonderfully exhilarating score for Sherlock. The real triumph of it is how it manages to carve out a space uniquely its own while managing to sound reminiscent of several preexisting concepts one would expect. Fans of older Sherlock Holmes films (we're talking Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett type stuff) might expect something driven by woodwinds and clockwork percussion, like the theme to "Mystery!" Those who saw the newest Hollywood films with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law might expect the frenetic strings and pulse-pounding tempo of Hans Zimmer's work there. Their score manages to be these things and more, a strange "modern baroque" action movie music.

And make no mistake, it sounds like movie music. Just as the Sherlock series' 90-minute installments come off feeling more like feature films than episodes of a television series, so the music underscoring them packs the punch of a film-sized orchestra. The sound of the Sherlock score is loud and powerful, filling the audio spectrum and the room.

I mention the score now because I've recently picked up two soundtracks that have been released, one for each of the two series of the show to date. My preference is ever so slightly for the first series version, which first set up a lot of the musical ideas of the show in the score for the pilot, "A Study in Pink." But both soundtracks are well worth it for a fan of the show, loaded with exciting music. There are maybe just a small handful of dreary tracks on each release that make me rate the total packages a B+ overall, but they still get my endorsement. You don't need to cherry pick either soundtrack for a suite of fantastic music.