The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (soundtrack)

Background

It was announced on October 9, 2007 that award-winning composer David Arnold would score the film with the themes composed by Harry Gregson-Williams (who scored The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and Prince Caspian). It was Arnold's fourth collaboration with Apted after The World Is Not Enough, Enough and Amazing Grace. The second trailer for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader uses identical music to the trailer for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

As the previous films were distributed by Disney, the soundtracks for those films were released by Walt Disney Records. However, this film was distributed by Twentieth-Century Fox, and the soundtrack was released by Sony Music.

Score

Arnold worked with an 87-piece Orchestra and a 40-piece choir to record the score for the film. He also worked with Paul Apted (Michael Apted's son) in editing the score, remarking that it was "going to be epic.". Arnold chose not to collaborate with Lisbeth Scott, whose vocals are used to the first two films. He created specific themes for The Dawn Treader and Reepicheep. In order for the film to be consistent with the franchise, he chose to use the previous themes by Gregson-Williams for the opening and closing scenes, as well as for scenes featuring some recurring characters, such as Aslan.

The scoring sessions took place during September 2010 and were completed on October 8, 2010.

Songs

Carrie Underwood recorded a song entitled "There's a Place for Us", which she co-wrote with David Hodges and Hillary Lindsey, that was released on November 16, 2010 as a lead single and can only be purchased exclusive on iTunes. It has sold 77,000 copies as of January 20, 2010. This song was also covered by various artists for international releases of the film, including E.M.D., Xander de Buisonjé, Sergey Lazarev, Victoria S, Sonohra, and Joe McElderry, who released it as the b-track to his single "Someone Wake Me Up".

Sreeram Chandra recorded a song entitled "Rehnuma" in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu which was featured for the Indian release of the film. Australian singer Stan Walker also recorded an original song "Stand Up" for the film's Australian release.

Track listing

All music composed by David Arnold.

Reception

The soundtrack had met with generally favourable reviews from critics. Allmusic.com gave the soundtrack 3½ stars out of 5, saying

"Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third installment in Walden Media's popular Chronicles of Narnia series, features the work of Grammy Award-winning composer David Arnold (Casino Royale, Independence Day). Arnold, who has taken the reins from previous author Harry Gregson-Williams, incorporates many of the latter composer’s main themes, which, when paired with Arnold’s more frenetic, modern action cues, echo the third act’s penchant for pure unadulterated fantasy. Arnold truly makes the score his own on the 11-minute “Into Battle” sequence, which boasts some truly impressive Wagnerian choral sections."