February 4, 2014

  • Argentinian Comedy Score: Music On Hold

    Musica en espera (Music on Hold, 2009) finds a film composer needing a new muse for inspiration and may just find it in a pregnant woman abandoned by her boyfriend.  Hernan Goldfrid’s first film was enormously popular in Argentinia with much critical acclaim for his direction as well as a nod to the score.  After coming to some attention with his score for Phase 7 (2011), Argentinian composer Guillermo Guareschi can be heard here in this earlier score exploring the romantic comedy genre.

    Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” is the first thematic idea you hear in the opening track “Elisa”.  But, “To the Bank” features an interesting blend of strings and harpsichord with a variety of wind ideas in an almost tango-like rhythm.  This interesting dance-like feel (appearing in the “Mother-in-Law’s Theme” and elsewhere) helps set up musical humor as the surrounding material tends to veer in other directions or results in a semi-comic feel to the music with the instruments assigned to important motifs.  Often, there is a real sense that the music is punctuating on-screen hijinks.  “Bach Unconclude” is a brief setup of the concept of a theme trying to develop that will appear in “Seba” more fully.  One of the more substantial cues, it gives the listener a sense for Guareschi’s melodic development and blend of  pathos that is part and parcel of the dramatic thrust of the score at times.  The music is quite like that Alberto Iglesias tends to use in his Almodovar comedy scores with a little overly-romantic piano theme that is equally engaging (cast in a “A Minor” later).  A bit of Irish-flavored folk rock also appears in “Irish On Hold”.  This kicks off a few tracks that have other-musical influences such as “Bathroom’s Vertigo” with more of a Herrmann-esque Psycho feel similar to that Richard Band used in Re-Animator.  The final tracks are piano-driven explorations of material making for a rather good piano suite of sorts.

    Music on Hold is an overall rather interesting brief score that has many nice moments and interesting thematic development.  The use of a smaller ensemble allows for interesting colors and the rhythmic dance-like qualities also make this an interesting surprise.  This is a very limited edition release of 500 copies from Howlin' Wolf Records.  HW tends to release small prints of very esoteric films and this is no different.  It is certainly a very interesting, if brief work from a composer worth watching.