July 9, 2012

  • Review: Final Cut -- Film Music for 4 Guitars!

    From the start , this new Chandos (Chandos 10723) release by the Aquarelle Guitar Quartet will not be for film music purists.  Final Cut is at its heart another of those semi-crossover releases highlighting Classical artists in popular music that appear now and then.  The present release features a somewhat eclectic mix of film music in what becomes a rather transfixing hour of music making.

    The performances here are really superb.  It is very difficult to know exactly when all four guitarists are performing because of their tight ensemble and ability to match tone and style with one another.  The sound imaging does help place them across the sound picture and after a couple of listens you can begin to get a visual for who is playing.  The music that lays well originally for guitar tends to be the most strikingly enjoyable.

    The disc opens with Django Reinhart’s “Minor Swing” which was used in Chocolat.  The performance is really quite good setting the stage for what is to come.  The Spanish guitar flavors of the selections from The Motorcycle Diaries and Frida are really quite amazing with Goldenthal’s music really standing out here.  The Kamen/Adams song “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?” from Don Juan DeMarco begins a series of more familiar musical selections that are well-performed and nice to listen too even if they may not capture your attention fully.  This happens with the selections from Titanic, Schindler’s List, and The Deer Hunter.  Most likely, the familiarity of these themes makes for less interest even though the performances are fine.  Nyman’s “The Heart Asks Pleasure First” from The Piano seems to bring this “section” to a close.  The theme from A Summer Place is seemingly out of place here.  Gardel’s “Por Una cabeza” used in Scent of a Woman and Lai’s theme from Love Story bring us back to more interesting music for guitar that fits well.  The Greek-flavored music of The Third Man and Zorba the Greek work quite well in this context as well.  The final three selections though are really stellar.  One would not think Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” would translate well to guitar, but this is the first real example of the four instruments working through this material in a way that makes them sound like quartet.  The same is true of the theme from Sakamoto’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.  The theme from Il Postino makes for a beautifully touching conclusion that features a truly nuanced approach to this music.

    That the Aquarelle Guitar Quartet takes this music seriously is quite obvious from their loving performances of the music.  Some selections fall rather well for guitar than others. But this is perhaps due more to familiarity with other arrangements of familiar music.  The arrangements here are all well-crafted for the quartet and the album as a whole manages to travel through enough musical territory that there is a bit of something for everyone.  The recording makes for a wonderful relaxed listening experience made even better by the rich sound provided by the Chandos engineers.