Todd Haynes's acclaimed Far From Heaven is a melodrama set in the 1950s dealing with sexual and racial prejudice. So who better to write the music than the only composer working today who actually scored movies in the 1950s dealing with sexual and racial prejudice? In the most inspired piece of composer casting in recent times, Elmer Bernstein was the first and only man for the job.

Renowned for his westerns, once typecast into doing nothing but comedies, Bernstein has for me always been at his very best when scoring serious drama. He set the high-water mark for the genre with To Kill a Mockingbird forty years ago, but has written wonderful music in the last few years along similar lines for films like Rambling Rose and Frankie Starlight, two of the best scores of the 1990s. In many ways Far From Heaven picks up where they left off. There was simply no need for Bernstein to write pastiche or parody: he invented this stuff, and it's as fresh today as it was fifty years ago.

The album is written in Bernstein's favourite way, for an orchestra barely above chamber size, highlighting strings, flutes, clarinets and piano. The latter, played impressively by Cynthia Millar, weaves its way through many tracks. While not ever-present, its "homely" feel is ideally suited and leaves a lasting impression; it shimmers its way straight to the listener's emotions. The score's main theme is touching and beautiful, a prototypical Bernstein piece that I'm sure will live alongside his classic themes of the past in listeners' minds.

More sprightly material appears from time to time; charming, joyful and classy, tracks such as "Walking Through Town" and "Turning Point" will melt the coldest of hearts. A couple of pieces of low-key jazz, "Cathy and Raymond Dance" and "Miami", appear in the middle of it all and stand alone as a slightly different shade in a field full of beautiful colour. By the nature of the film, of course some of the music is more tragic, and tracks like "Walk Away" are full of such feelings of anguish, but underlying it all is a great sense of optimism that nothing ever becomes morose. Bernstein has a wonderful ability to express strong feelings of emotion underlying a surface-level feeling of something else, and he uses it masterfully here. This is never demonstrated more aptly than in "Stones", with a cello solo to die for.

This is a work of breathtaking beauty that will surely bring a tear to your eye. Bernstein has crafted yet another masterpiece to stand alongside all those he has written in the past. Far From Heaven is just as good as To Kill a Mockingbird and I say with absolute confidence that it is the best score of this year. Varèse's packaging includes lengthy notes from Bernstein and director Haynes, along with numerous recording session photos of the composer and director with pianist Millar and the composer's beautiful daughter Emilie, who orchestrated. Not to be missed.

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