SHOSTAKOVICH Film Music - Adventures of Korzinkina; The Golden Mountains; The Silly Little Mouse; The Tale of the Priest and His Worker Balda - Belarus RTV Sym. Orch./State Cinematographic Orch./Walter Mnatsakanov cond. - Citadel DTD88129: These are fairly recent recordings made at Moscow's Mosfilm studios of music from four of the many Soviet films for which Shostakovich created musical scores but which have seldom been seen in the U.S. In his earliest scores in the l930's his music frequently is very satiric, especially when depicting the supposed vulgarities of the bourgeois way of life with whimsical polkas, foxtrots and gallops. The Golden Mountains abounds in these, but also includes a complex fugue for organ and large symphony orchestra. The derisive tone of his music for the animation The Tale of the Priest is similar in style to Weill's 3-Penny Opera. This film was banned in l934, so even the Russians didn't get to hear Shostakovich's music for it. The Adventures of Korzinkina was a l940 comedy with a lyrical and melodic score. The 1997 Russian tapes were mastered by Citadel with 24-bit equipment and sound quite a bit better than most Russian recordings.
- John Sunier
EDISON DENISOV: Film Scores - A Nameless Star; An Ideal Husband; Turtle Tortilla - Russian Cinematographic Orch./Serguei Skripka cond. - Le Chant Du Monde RUS 288172: I love this Siberian composer's first name. Some of his abstract music is a bit hard to take in its naive effort to be avant garde without the means to bring it off. But in his film music, Denisov - who died in l996 - controlled his experimental side and served up some lovely lyrical melodies, interesting rhythms and masterful orchestrations. Edison Denisov lit up the Soviet screen with music for over 60 films. The first of these three films is a romantic story in whose score the celesta figures prominently, the second is the Oscar Wilde play and supports the plot with several dance forms, including quoting a Scott Joplin rag. In Turtle Tortilla - which turns out to be a Russian version of the Pinocchio story - Denisov goes full bore into jazz in many of the cues, including a rocking boogie-woogie!
- John Sunier
The Film Music of ALAN RAWSTHORNE: Suite from The Captive Heart; Main Title from The Cruel Sea; Main Title from West of Zanzibar; Where No Vultures Fly, Lease of Life; Three Dances from The Dancing Fleece; Suite from Burma Victory; Saraband and Carnival from Saraband for Dead Lovers - BBC Philharmonic/Rumon Gamba - Chandos CHAN 9749: Rawsthrone was a contemporary of such British composers as Alwyn, Lambert and Tippett. He scored some 27 films from l937 to l964, of which The Cruel Sea will probably be the most familiar to U.S. audiences. Several of the other films deal with aspects of World War II, as that one does. Most of these selections are first recordings of music by a film composer who felt that film music was rarely satisfactory on its own. The major suite of music here is for The Captive Heart, which is set in a WWII POW camp and concerns the correspondence of an inmate with the wife of a dead British officer. Conductor Gamba is the Assistant Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic and seems to have a special flair for film music. Sonics are impeccable.
- John Sunier
The Great British Film Music Album - 60 Glorious Years, 1938-1998 - Royal Philharmonic/Philharmonia Orch./Westminster Philharmonic Orch./City of Prague Philharmonic; conductors: Kenneth Alwyn and Paul Bateman - Silva America SSD 1094: This fine collection presents music from a dozen British films, including a quarter-hour-length suite by Arnold Bax from Oliver Twist and the entire glorious Red Shoes Ballet by Brian Easdale. Other highlights are Arthur Bliss' music for Conquest of the Air and Malcolm Arnold's for Breaking the Sound Barrier. Vaughan Williams wrote the score for another military-slanted film, Coastal Command, and Patrick Doyle's music for Ophelia's Funeral in the Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet is a moving elegy for the string section.
- John Sunier
The Film Music of SIR MALCOM ARNOLD, Vol. 2 - Phillip Dyson, piano/BBC Philharmonic/Rumon Gamba - Chandos CHAN 9851: Arnold, one of Britain's leading living composers, turned out equal numbers of film and abstract works in the l950s, but later turned away from film scoring because producers wanted vocal theme songs and he wanted to keep the scores entirely instrumental. The Belles of St. Trinian's will probably be the most familiar of these films to Americans. You don't need the hilarious screen doings to realize this is instrumental humor in music at its best. This comedy suite is balanced by other suites from David Copperfield, The Captain's Paradise (Alec Guiness starred), and Roots of Heaven. The disc opens with a 13-minute suite from the Hollywood circus film Trapeze, which starred Gina Lollobrigida, Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. Arnold's symphonic study Machines turns out to be drawn from a documentary film on the British steel industry - a fascinating example of "machine music" in the same company as Mossolov's and Antheil's.
- John Sunier
The Film Music of SIR RICHARD RODNEY BENNETT - Philip Dukes, viola/BBC Philharmonic/Rumon Gamba - Chandos CHAN 9867: Bennett has been a superbly versatile musical figure in British life for over a half century. In addition to writing many abstract works showing some influence of his teachers - Messiaen and Boulez - he is an accomplished jazz pianist and one of the leading film composers today. His lush and melodic music for such period pieces as Lady Caroline Lamb, Far from the Madding Crowd, and Murder on the Orient Express are all on this first rate CD. The Lamb music is actually an Elegy for Viola and Orchestra in two movements and could stand alone as a concert piece in any symphony program - which was probably the composer's intent in arranging it in its present form. The lengthiest excerpt here is music from the l991 Merchant-Ivory film Enchanted April, about a group of English ladies spending a month in an Italian villa just as WWII was beginning. The ethereal French electronic instrument the ondes martenot is featured extensively in this 19-minute suite.
- John Sunier
REQUIEM FOR A DREAM - Music by Clint Mansell, played by the Kronos
Quartet - Nonesuch 78611-1: Yet another weirdly dysfunctional family picture combined with drug addiction, this one has gained praise for the Ellen Burstyn's amazing performance as a woman who is desperate to lose 50 pounds so she get appear on a TV game show. (It would be nice if soundtrack CD producers would think to give at least a one-paragraph summary of what the film is about. Do they think 100% of the prospective buyers of the CD will have seen the film already?) Except for a couple of Latin numbers, most of the soundtrack is handled by the Kronos Quartet. Quite a feat, but they and composer Mansell seem to sustain interest well over their 22 separate cues - all extremely short. I think this is another film I'll deliberately skip but will enjoy the soundtrack many times.
- John Sunier
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