Current Reviews

        by Benjamin Chee

Sergei Prokofiev
Piano Concerto No. 1-3

Martha Argerich, piano
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor



Samuel Barber
Orchestral Works and Concertos
Leonard Slatkin, Charles Munch



Rimsky-Korsakov
Evgeny Svetlanov


Beethoven
Symphony No.9
Piano Transcription by Franz Liszt
Konstantin Scherbakov, Piano



Kronos Caravan

Film music, for some reason, doesn't always quite get the exposure or respect it deserves in the concert hall, and one only wonders why. Is it because of the perceived dichotomy between the so-called high-grounded ivory towers of classical music, and the crass populist entertainment served up in films with formulaic colour-by-numbers plots that film music panders to? (In other words, don't the people who plan and conduct orchestral programs ever get out and watch flicks with loud explosions, laser beams and ex-Austrian bodybuilders and, you know, appreciate the musical underscore?)

There is, of course, a fuzzy middle ground. Stanley Kubrick has used Strauss, Khachaturian, Ligeti and Penderecki in his films; John Williams has been described as a musical magpie whose influences range from Walton and Strauss to Bartok and Stravinsky; and James Horner practically channels Schumann, Khachaturian and Prokofiev note for note. (Try playing "spot the difference" between Horner's Troy and Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky). Music originally written for film can survive transition from silver screen to concert hall, looking at the likes of the two Williamses (Ralph Vaughan and John), Walton, Honegger, Shostakovich and Prokofiev. (The suite from Lieutenant Kijé, if you didn't know, was salvaged from a failed film project.)

More recently, Howard Shore's two-hour dramaram of soundtrack highlights, The Lord of the Rings Symphony, has been making the rounds on a world tour, accompanied with overhead projections of paintings and production sketches from Peter Jackson's trilogy. Philip Glass and his Ensemble have brought back the old-fashioned practice of having live orchestral and even vocal accompaniment to "silent" films, including Godfrey Reggio's Qatsi trilogy and Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bete. Other names like Steiner, Rosza, Korngold and Waxman are probably less familiar to classical listeners, yet along the fringe, there is an enthusiastic enough following who derive no small pleasure in appreciating music originally written for a visual medium. The question then, is: can Wojciech Kilar's music stand on its own? Prior to Bram Stoker's Dracula, Kilar was virtually unknown outside Poland, and his Hollywood output remains modest - Roman Polanski's Death and the Maiden and Jane Campion's Portrait of a Lady being the two mainstream releases which comes readily to mind.

Bram Stoker's Dracula was Francis Ford Coppola's luscious retelling of the classic vampire mythology, not without its share of hype and controversy (the much-touted Winona Ryder nude scene, for instance, which never materialized, or the Dracula-Elizabeth bestiality scene, which did). In any case, this version cleverly tied the mythology into the historical 15th century Romanian warlord Vlad "Dracul" Tepes avenging the suicide of his wife. This sumptuous production was aided in no small part by Thomas Sanders' design, Michael Ballhaus's cinematography and the music of Wojciech Kilar, whose swooning love themes and grinding hunting music added enormously to the Victorian London gothic.

Listening to these bold new interpretations by Antoni Wit and the Polish National Radio Symphony, a six-movement suite based on the movie soundtrack, it becomes apparent that Kilar's music on its own (and in the right hands, as it is here) is at the same time both magisterial and introspective, as in the sinuously romantic motifs of the Mina/Dracula and Mina/Elizabeth sections. Further audition of the three-part extract from his Death and the Maiden music, written two years after Dracula, only confirms this.

There is a distinct idiomatic similarity between these scores, such as in the Vampire Hunters track from Dracula and Roberto's Last Chance from Maiden. Mina's and Paulina's motifs from their respective soundtracks are practically siblings. Listeners familiar with either or both films will enjoy revisiting these tunes with Wit and co. Less so, I think, for the other suite on this album, based on the 1993 TV mini-series König der letzten Tage ("The King of the Last Days"), Tom Toelle's period piece about John of Leyden, the 16th century false prophet and leader of the Anabaptist movement who created a New Jerusalem in Münster.

The section titles are largely borrowed from the Mass (Intrada, Sanctus, Miserere, Agnus Dei, Gloria), which totally belies the stylistic quality of the music. Kilar's music for König comes across with, well, less of a furrowed brow and brooding angst than heard in Dracula or Maiden. There is a sheen of opulence in this writing which is missing from the other two, which is a pleasant surprise - and the cor anglais melody in the Canzona is gorgeously played, although miked a bit too close for comfort.

The fillers (about six minutes' worth) are taken from Kilar's much earlier efforts: The Beads of One Rosary (1980) and Pearl in the Crown (1972) are both Kazimierz Kutz films. The cue from Beads is a three-cornered tune between piano, trumpet and woodwinds, a twee little mood piece, while Pearl offers us a snatching glimpse of Kilar's early style, the proto-trademark sweeping strings and thumping percussion which would become a signature style in his later music. The sound is bright and extrovert (with the caveat mentioned above), although a bit more reveberance would have given more body to the strings, always such a vital component of Kilar's music. A fine addition to Marco Polo's Movie Classic series.

 

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