December 31, 2008

• Best New to the Libary: December

  Between all the shoveling and a crazy few weeks that just goes with it being a holiday season, there has not been much time to drop a line or two here.  There have been plenty of things to review around here, mostly new stuff and much of it horrid.  Many of the Oscar contenders have scores that are only just now trickling out.  I did manage to hear Zimmer's Frost/Nixon score and it actually is much better than I would have expected.  And I really liked the choral piece Ottman came up with for his music to Valkyrie.  (Of course, now I just have to find time to catch the movies!)

  So here are my 5 favorite picks that stand out for the month of December and they are an odd bunch.

  I am not trying to win any home brownie points, but the real surprise for me was the gift of Film Score Monthly's Elmer Bernstein Film Music Collection.  I guess I was really good this year for the wife to shell out the bucks for this (usually she does not buy CDs, but I emailed her earlier in the year and said I was debating getting a copy if the number went down).  This is a fabulous set of music and I've only had a chance to hear the first 2 discs!  The Steiner recording is wonderful and it might be worth the price alone to hear Bernstein's own re-recording of the masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird.  Off to more listening with this during the weekend!

  Reviewed here earlier in the month is the Miklos Rozsa Collection which features guitar transcriptions of music from the composer's films as well as an original guitar sonata.  These are excellently performed by Gregg Nestor in wonderful recordings from BSX Records.  It is a disc I managed to listen to more than most over the past few weeks.

  The third choice for this month will come as a bit of a surprise.  I am no fan of synth or electronic scores.  It seems

  just weird to pay money for someone monkeying around on a synth.  Even with the improvement of technology, I

  feel often like a snob about these sorts of scores that use synth or samples exclusively.  However, there are some

  really rare exceptions and one of these is the music Mark Snow provided for the short-lived series, Millenium. 

  La-La Land records just released a 2-disc set of music chosen from each of the the three years of the series and

  presented in stellar sound with a gorgeous booklet to boot.  Snow has a lot of fun with the music on these discs,

  though I was partial to some of the film noir and Herrmann-esque segments myself. 

   

  From the review front, there arrived a score for a German television production of Der Seewolf, from Jack

  London's popular novel.  The music is by Marcel Barsotti who has been building a steady stream of scores over

  the past decade for German TV.  This one has lots of engaging themes, a visceral side of intense orchestral writing,

  and a sound that is all its own but bears resemblance to dark scores by Danny Elfman, John Ottman, and

  Christopher Young with a little Marco Beltrami and Don Davis thrown in for good measure.  It does not make the

  score feel derivative in any way and it is a generous 78 minutes long to boot.  It is an import from Alhambra

  Records and so will show up in stores like Screen Archives online.

   

  Finally, I had the extreme pleasure of seeing the Simon Bolivar Youth Symphony perform under the direction of

  Gustavo Dudamel at Boston Symphony Hall last year.  They played the crap out of Bartok's Concerto for

  Orchestra, a Beethoven symphony, and music from West Side Story and then turned around and played another

  30 minutes of encores!  Classical music was never so alive as it was under the fingers of these young musicians

  playing their hearts out with excellent direction and musical understanding provided by their energetic conductor. 

  So it should be no surprise that their album Fiesta is easily one of the best Classical albums of the year.  This is

  overall one of the most entertaining programs of Latin and South American classical selections you will likely hear

  -at least until their next release!  The one known classic here is the set of dances from Ginastera's Estancia ballet

  (which Mata recorded with a similar orchestra for Dorian).  Another piece slowly gaining more familiarity (it was

  even used in the film Sin City) is Revuletas' classic piece Sensamaya.  Bernstein's Mambo from West Side Story

  is a nice encore--can't wait to hear them record the whole suite sometime.  The Danzon No. 2 by Anton Marquez

  is one fo the ensemble's favorite encores and is worth more concert time here as well.  Fortunately, Deutsche

  Grammaphon has created an engaging eye-catching cover to go along with this release.  It is worth adding to your

  collection even if you are a casual classical music fan--it's likely to be one of those classic's. 

   

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