The French Revolution

Gary Pozner's Whirled Music production company has provided the musical accompaniment to the History Channel documentaries Russia: Land of the Tsars and Quest for King Arthur. Their third collaboration in as many years is The French Revolution, which aired in January. Pozner uses some musical sounds of the time period ("Ancient Regime") and a large amount of militaristic brass and snare, with some choir cues thrown into the mix as well. His musical ideas are good, but at times, the execution of the performance comes up short.

Too many cues sound overly electronic, almost like MIDI files ("Royal Crisis," "The Rise of Robespierre," and "Versailles Abandoned"). Electronic beats, as heard in numerous cues on the album, do not fit a soundscape of Renaissance France. There are some good cues, such as "Power to the People" and "March to Versailles" which are bold brass, percussion, and choir pieces that do reflect the events of what this documentary is presenting. "Agnus Dei" is a solo vocal cue along the lines of Alien 3 and End of Days, which is an interesting choice of orchestration, but works. Generally, Pozner's ideas a good, but could have benefitted from a less synthetic-sounding result.