The score for the pirate film Cutthroat Island

Cutthroat Island

Cutthroat Island is a 1995 action adventure film directed by Renny Harlin. The film stars Geena Davis, Matthew Modine, and Frank Langella. The film received mixed reviews from critics and was a major box office bomb: listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest box office flop of...

 was composed by John Debney

John Debney

John C. Debney is an American film composer. He received an Academy Award nomination for his score for Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ...

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The music was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra

London Symphony Orchestra

The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...

, with choral contributions by the London Voices

London Voices

London Voices is a London-based choral ensemble led by Terry Edwards, who founded the ensemble in 1973...

 and was conducted by David Snell.

Although the actual film was a commercial disaster, the score has been praised for its style, reminiscent of the Golden Age Hollywood swashbuckling scores by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Erich Wolfgang Korngold was an Austro-Hungarian film and romantic music composer. While his compositional style was considered well out of vogue at the time he died, his music has more recently undergone a reevaluation and a gradual reawakening of interest...

and the symphonic scores by French composer Frédéric Talgorn

Frédéric Talgorn

Frédéric Talgorn is a French composer for film and television.He studied music at the Paris Conservatoire where his teachers included Sabine Lacoraet and Yvonne Loriod, but he completed his studies on his own. In 1987 he moved to the United States where be began to compose film music...

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It has been noted as one of Debney's greatest compositions, alongside The Passion of the Christ

The Passion of the Christ

The Passion of the Christ is a 2004 American drama film directed by Mel Gibson and starring Jim Caviezel as Jesus. It depicts the Passion of Jesus largely according to the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John...

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The score uses traditional orchestration backed with choir, a practice Debney considered necessary to avoid the music's sounding "too old fashioned"

Particularly, conservative critics have considered this score as one of the best in the genre, unlike the music from Pirates of the Caribbean

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (soundtrack)

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl soundtrack is the official soundtrack album from the homonymous film. The album was released on July 22, 2003, by Walt Disney Records and contains selections of music from the movie's score. The music of the film and this album are both...

, which relied heavily in synthesizers and modern action score conventions

1995 releases

Two CD's were released with the score in 1995, one of them by Silva studios and another by Nu.Millenia Records Both releases have the same tracks.

2005 Expanded Edition

Later, in 2007, Prometheus released a two disc Special Extended Edition, which added 40 cues that were left out of the previous soundtracks or weren't used in the film.

Disc One
Disc Two