I discovered that there was a soundtrack for this 1977 children’s fantasy/horror series almost by accident, and when I recovered from the shock that it existed, it was an instant purchase. The opening theme of Children Of The Stones by itself is a classic of TV/film scoring in the horror genre: just the music is scary as hell, starting out with a hush of pleasant but eerie choral voices that becomes disharmonious, breaks up into chanting instead of singing, and then crescendoes in a massed scream before resuming singing something more akin to what most people would think as music. If you’re not ready for it, it’ll scare the piss out of you. That single piece of music is responsible for about 80% of the effectiveness of the show as a piece of scary television.
The soundtrack album then turns into a horror of its own for completely different reasons.
As was often the case with this particular genre of television – at which regional UK broadcaster Harlech Television (shortened to HTV) excelled – the composer behind the music was Sidney Sager, ho also contributed music with choral elements to such HTV children’s series as King Of The Castle and Into The Labyrinth, both utilizing the Ambrosian Singers, who are front-and-center in the Children Of The Stones score. With the story’s heavy reliance on druid lore, the singers spend as much time chanting as they do singing, and yes, the opening titles are not the only place that they reach a fever-pitched shriek. It’s amazingly unnerving music. (And this show was for kids?)
That’s the good horror. The bad horror began to set in with only the second track. At the end of “Mrs. Crabtree Views The Painting”, as the singers again reach an unnerving climax, there’s the sound of broken glass. Because in the show, Mrs. Crabtree drops an entire tea tray as the creepy painting that sets off the story gets into her head. But…that would mean…
Oh no. Yes. It means what you think it does. Later tracks include footsteps, doors opening/closing, rustling graas, rushing wind, even occasional non-musical voices. Yes, they just took the sound from the DVD, did some EQ, and released that as a download and a pricey limited-edition vinyl album with a poster of the aforementioned painting.
I could’ve pulled the DVD off the shelf and done that myself. And since I already bought the DVD, it wouldn’t have cost me seven-and-a-half quid for the privilege. Hell, I probably could’ve run it through some demixing software to at least attempt to remove the extraneous sounds from the show.
It’s not too much to expect that the original scoring tapes might still exist from a show of this vintage; look at the numerous releases of Doctor Who music from the ’60s and early ’70s, or even the BBC’s release, several years ago, of the complete score from the 1975 children’s fantasy series The Changes, also presented without the rest of the show’s sound mix intruding. There may be some notes about the production process of this album in the liner notes of the LP; I don’t know, I only got the download, and there was no warning that this was what the soundtrack collecting world refers to as “archival sound” – dialogue or effects stems that were part of the only available source media for the music. Yes, that is a thing that happens, on official releases, but I’m accustomed to labels warning me about that being the case.
Sidney Sager’s music is stunning, scary work – it’s the only reason this release gets as much as a two-star rating. But the lack of warning that this is basically an audio presentation of the musical moments of the show as-aired is infuriating. Let the buyer/listener beware.
- Children of the Stones (Opening Title) (1:15)
- Mrs Crabtree Views the Painting (0:06)
- Someone Who Is Happy (0:11)
- Matthew and Dai (0:35)
- Adam Touches the Stones (0:27)
- Circle of Fear (I Can’t Wait) (0:17)
- Nobody Ever Leaves (0:12)
- Being Alone (0:32)
- Within the Painting (0:33)
- Matthew’s Accident (1:29)
- Serpent in the Circle (0:46)
- Tom Browning (0:30)
- Looks, It’s Jimmo (0:16)
- Narrowing Circle (1:14)
- Premonition of Dr Lyle (0:22)
- Dai Casts the Bones (1:55)
- The Barber Surgeon’s Amulet (1:17)
- Never, It’s Mine (0:20)
- He’s Not There (0:35)
- Anger the Fire (0:27)
- Such Power (0:23)
- It Is Time (0:43)
- Squaring the Circle (1:16)
- We’ve Lost Them (0:18)
- Go Now and Be Happy (0:29)
- I’ll Return This at the Same Time (0:34)
- We’re Trapped (0:07)
- The Circle Is Complete (0:34)
- The Circle Is Broken (1:19)
- Children of the Stones (End Titles) (0:31)
Released by: Trunk Records
Release date: October 20, 2022
Total running time: 19:33
