Product Review

This prequel to director Ronald Maxwell's 1993 epic Gettysburg is no less sweeping in its scope, covering the early years of the American Civil War from Manassas to Fredericksburg. But while its musical score (a collaboration between vets John Frizzell and Randy Edelman) offers up a comparable range of music styles, it's a soundtrack that crucially revolves around emotional concerns of a more intimate, human scale. Its folk-rooted historical connections are given voice by Mary Fahl's Celtic-tinged "Going Home" and Bob Dylan's brooding "Cross the Green Mountain," while a sweeping, yet infinitely melancholy orchestral main title suggests the true, tragic costs of the conflict. Spare, haunting tracks like "Loved I Not Honor More," "My Home Is Virginia," and "The Soldiers Return" predominate to an unusual degree in a war epic, pastoral suggestions of tranquility defiled. Conversely, the battle cue "VMI Will Be Heard from Today" seems to pulse with a dark, medieval energy that's anything but heroic. --Jerry McCulley