Sense and Sensibility (soundtrack) Scottish composer Patrick Doyle. Doyle was friends with actors Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, and had worked on many films directed by the former, including "Henry V" (1989) and "Much Ado About Nothing" (1993). Thompson hired him to score the 1995 film "Sense and Sensibility", in which she was writing and starring. "Sense and Sensibility"s director, Ang Lee, requested Doyle write a score that was gentle, intimate, and a reflection of "the suppressed emotions of that society". Doyle later described the film as "more stifled; the music had to be suppressed to match what was happening onscreen. You had this
Sense and Sensibility (soundtrack) National Public Radio's Liane Hansen and Andy Trudeau felt the score's portrayal of restricted emotion was an accurate reflection of the novel's gradual storytelling style. They compared the music in "Sense and Sensibility" to Doyle's score for "Henry V", and described the former as possessing less instrumentation and sounding more wistful and sentimental. The score has also been reviewed by film and Austen scholars. Sue Parrill described the soundtrack as "stunning", though Kathryn L. Shanks Libin felt that aspects of the film's musical authenticity were "sacrificed to the general richness of the soundtrack". Thomas S. Hischak referred to it as