Dear readers,

The Cinderella (2015) soundtrack has been released on iTunes today! There are 33 tracks for C/US$9.99 or C/US$1.29 per track. The album features two songs from the beloved Disney animation, ‘A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes’ and ‘Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo’, sung by Lily James and Helen Bonham Carter respectively. It also features ‘Strong‘ by London singer, Sonna Rele, which I imagine is the closing song though I am not particularly partial to it. The lyrics certainly fit the movie but I never cared much for contemporary songs. That said, the instrumental version of the song is very nice, minus the beat (what is it called? It sounds like clapping). After hearing the song for the second time in theatres, I’m beginning to like it more and more!

The score for the film is by Scottish film composer, Patrick Doyle, whom some of you may recognise for his beautiful scores for A Little Princess, Sense and Sensibility, Gosford Park, and Disney’s Brave. By the way, if you haven’t bought or downloaded the aforementioned albums, I highly recommend you do. You shan’t regret it! What I like about Doyle’s compositions is how peaceful it is or how it makes you want to waltz (or maybe that’s the dancer in me), with Brave being an exception (though you’ll feel like you’re in Scotland). From the soundtrack preview, I get the feeling there will be a lot of twirling and glitter swirling! I am looking forward to hearing the full version of the valses when the movie comes out.

In the meantime, I have already downloaded Lily James’ rendition of ‘A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes’ and I am in love with it! I’ve compared both the original Disney version sung by Ilene Woods to James’ and find that the new version has more gaiety whereas Woods’ is slower and a little deeper. Both are romantically sung and one is not better than the other, in my opinion.

On another note, if, like me, you enjoyed the trailer music from the first Cinderella trailer, the two pieces used were ‘Above and Beyond‘ by Audiomachine and ‘Aeon‘ by Nick Murray ft. Juliet Lyons.

Just 3 more days until Cinderella!

18 March 2015: P.S. By now, you may be wondering what song Ella and her mother was singing. It’s a traditional song called ‘Lavender’s Blue’ and you can hear Laura Wright’s vocal rendition of it here. You’ll also hear the melody in a few tracks, such as Track 14: Who is She.

15 June 2015: Some of my favourite tracks are:

• Who is She
• Valse de l’Amour
• Other valses and polkas 🙂
• A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes (Lily James and instrumental)
• Strong (Sonna Rele and instrumental)