June 19, 2015

  • Giacchino For Piano

     

     

    Up/Rataouille/The Incredibles: Music from the Pixar Films for Solo Piano ****

     

    Regular visitors to the BSX website know that there are a number of great downloads there of film music familiar and rare in new recordings by a host of performers.  Joohyun Park, a frequent collaborator with the label, is featured here along with Mark Northam in this delightful (limited edition) collection of music by Michael Giacchino.

     

    Those who experienced Giacchino’s early LucasArts video game scores, were perhaps not as surprised when the composer’s first big film, The Incredibles, helped boost the composer’s career.  That score, with its unique Barry-esque 1960s vibe, is one of the first big highlights in his oeuvre.  But that would soon pale to the  next couple of Pixar films he would score.  All three are represented here, being presented in “reverse” appearance.

     

    Mark Northam performs arrangements of music from Up (2009) andRatatouille (2007).  The music from the former film translates very well to piano lending an almost silent-film like era feel to the music.  The ideas capture the period of the narrative quite well and that comes across in Northam’s performances.  There are nine selections from Up among them “Married Life”—one of Giacchino’s finest scoring moments and well done here.  “Le Festin” opens the seven selections from Ratatouille.  This too manages to capture a sort of 1920s feel and is a perfectly-crafted little French song.  The music tends to feel a bit of a cross between Impressionism and Romantic styles of the early 20th Century which are clearer in the stripped down piano versions.  Some things work better than others, especially the more nuanced slower reflections, but the performances are certainly well done as well.

     

    Translating The Incredibles’ (2004) big brassy sound to piano is probably the harder thing to accomplish.  The primary thing here is to select some cues that can present thematic ideas from the score and then soup them up just enough to make them a bit more interesting to both play and hear.  That too has been achieved in the carefully-chosen five selections that make up the close of the album.  The result lends the music a feel of jazz-improvisational ideas cast against the thematic material and an often more intense virtuosic feel.  The shift to the electric piano sounds in “Life’s Incredible” also help connect to the period feel of the score.  The briefer “Indcredits” works quite well to bring this part of the release to a perfect close.

     

    Northam’s arrangements work very well and both he and Park present committed and engaging performances that honor this great music quite well.  You can find this and other great releases at www.buysoundtrax.com.