Music from the Movies
by Roy Donga

Dead Sea Scrolls is a 1998 Discovery Channel documentary charting the scientific and archaeological investigations into these 2000 year old documents found in 1947 at Khirbat Qumrãn, Jordan. Alan Williams’ tender and haunting theme is predictably Eastern flavoured, with exquisite recorder solos by Joe Stone. Gentle percussion and symphony orchestra add some development and depth to the theme, but ultimately the limited cue running times prevent the material from developing as it might if this was a feature film. Highlight tracks are ‘Voices Of The Qumran’ (2.25) and ‘Surveying Qumran Ruins’ (2.01), where the theme really manages to soar. A secondary suspenseful motif (‘Discovery Of Text’, and ‘Testing The Samples’) and occasional (Gladiator style, although this score pre-dates Zimmer's score by two years) ethnic vocalisations from Kathie Talbot add further welcome ingredients. As a composer CDR promo, packaging is basic artwork and credits only. Alan Williams must be applauded for making his music available in this way, but even with this short running time, the content here is maybe too repetitive and arguably does not justify a disc of its own. However, based on this score alone, I would be very interested in hearing more works by this talented composer; a suites and themes compilation album (now available - ED) would be most welcome.