John Scott: Becoming Colette (1992) Symphonic Suite

ABOUT THE SCORE: The tragic true-life story of French author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette has been adapted to film on a number of occasions, and this 1992 biopic is one of the more obscure tellings. Hailing from director Danny Huston, who would later find much better success as an actor than director, the film stars Mathilda May in the titular role and a supporting performance from Virginia Madsen, but appeared to receive almost no distribution in the English-speaking world. It was, however, graced with an absolutely fantastic score by John Scott, who wrote what I would consider for his career the equivalent of John Williams' "Jane Eyre" or Richard Rodney Bennett's "Lady Caroline Lamb" - a fabulously tragic period/costume drama with deeply felt emotions, stately beauty and delectable orchestrations. Within the score one finds not only a gorgeous theme for Colette herself but also beautiful passages for acoustic guitar (performed, I believe, by Gregg Nestor), a powerful and dynamic overture to open the suite, and a few bouncier passages of lighthearted music to highlight Parisian living at the turn of the 19th century. It's all graced with Scott's inimitable sensitivity of emotion and orchestral ingenuity one expects from this exquisite composer, and the dramatic airings of the main theme late in the score and some of the finest dramatic writing Scott wrote during the 1990's.
The music was recorded in Los Angeles with non-union musicians per the film's limited budget, and the only deterrent to the score is somewhat dull sound quality stemming from the inability to afford a top-tier engineer. Regardless, music of this quality is unencumbered by the acoustics. In an unusual move for the composer, who normally retains total autonomy over his music's orchestration, Tim Simonec is credited for arranging one track ("For the Love of Willy") for unknown reasons.

[@yvesdakota6436]

Excellent . John Scott is a great but underrated composer ! I just love his works !

[@georgekomar4886]

I believe that the track that Tim Simonec arranged, orchestrated and conducted was "For the Love of Willy," and not "Love in the Morning." Gregg Nestor did indeed do the guitar solos. Tim Simonec is listed as Music Coordinator for the recording.

[@bobbengan]

Right you are, thank you for the correction. I do wonder how it came to be that Simonec arranged that one piece, esp. since Scott is dogmatic about orchestrating all his own music.