February 14, 2018

  • Cinema Meets the Piano

     Cinema

    Luigi Palombi, piano.
    Dynamic 7805
    Total Time:  79:12
    Recording:   (***/****
    Performance: ****/****

    Luigi Palombi’s new album, Cinema, may be one of the best collections to explore historical development in film music this year  He accomplishes this with a superbly chosen program that moves us from the earliest days of silent film up through modern jazz music where the piano has played a prominent role.  It has a decidedly European flavor which also heightens the interest in this well-chosen program.  Of course, from the earliest days of cinema, music was one way to help provide some additional emotional punch to onscreen action, but it also served a potential practical purpose of taking attention away from the sound of the projector itself.  Though, most likely it was a better way to quiet down rambunctious audiences.

    Students of film music history know that early films tended to be accompanied by a host of music chosen by the theater pianist.  The music often drew from classical music, familiar folk songs and hymns, or general popular music where possible.  But the need for music that anyone could grab and use became more important as time went on and this led to specific collections like that of the Sam Fox Moving Picture Music.  Published in 1913, the collection eventually expanded to five volumes that allowed for a wide range of backdrop music for every dramatic scenic possibility.  Here, Paombi has chosen five works that appeared in the first two volumes.  Composed by John Stepan Zamecnik, the five selections play like a miniature suite exploring comedy, a love scene, a dramatic scene, some “Indian” music, and exit music.  Each are excellent examples of this early film music.

    The composer Camille Saint-Saens is credited with writing the first film score in 1908.  The early experiments with film in France would lead to a number of concert composers trying their hand at writing for this new art form.  Among them was the composer Erik Satie.  Satie is sometimes referred to as the “father of minimalism”.  This is due to his music’s tendency to take small motivic ideas and repeat them just enough to make one think the music is “stuck.”  It is coupled with a harmonic language and writing style that further expands upon that of the Impressionists, especially Debussy.  Satie was asked to write a piece for the intermission of the ballet Relache (1924).  The music has these rather interesting minimal components that lie in stark contrast to the music heard in Zamecnik’s collection.  It also incorporates Chopin’s “Funeral March” as one of the familiar thematic ideas, but it is tightly constructed with different musical ideas recurring as a unifying feature.

    With the advent of sound, music had more to contend with and in Europe concert composers who wrote for film often extracted the music to individual concert works.  This was particularly the case with the composer of Les Six who wrote film music.  Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) wrote a score for the 1933 adaptation of Madame Bovary.  From this he extracted three delightful little waltzes that feature his unique style with its blend of Romantic tendencies and polytonal harmonic structures.  More familiar to film music fans may be the work of Georges Auric (1899-1983) whose music for Moulin Rouge (1952) would gain fame in the popular song “Where is Your Heart?”.  Palombi has chosen the concert work Three Morceaux from the 1934 film Lac aux dames.  These all have a delightful salon quality from the little “Laendler” to the beautifully sentimental of the “Elegie” and the wit of the final movement.  Here are elements that have one foot in the concert world and one in the world of popular song.  Auric’s harmonic language takes a page from the Satie-like modal moments but likes to flirt more with romanticism, and just a hint of jazz.  The music jumps up a decade for a selection from Honegger’s 1945 score for Un ami viendra ce soir.  Here we get the “Souvenir de Chopin” which allows us yet another window into the way art music was being quoted and repurposed within a composer’s own work for a film.  This integration of the Romantic pianist with Honegger’s own style is almost like a written improvisatory reflection.  It would be the composer’s last work for piano.

    Next up are three more contemporary piano works derived from film music by quite different musical voices.  The first of these is “Un Petite Phrase” from Hans Werner Henze’s score to Un amour de Swann (1984).  Here is a strikingly dissonant work reflective of the composer’s concert style.  The languid harmonic movement is the one connection to earlier music on the disc, but the slight phrase and close intervallic development makes this a more intense work.  Intricate writing with close extended harmonies also graces the beautifully moving “Adagio” Franco Manino wrote for L’innocente (1976). The music is quite captivating as it seems to grow darker and unravel against a reflective romantic melancholy.  In 1999, Manuel De Sicca created a suite to honor his father Vittorio, in Tre Film de Papa making its first appearance on disc.  The music has that jazz ballad quality with gorgeous thematic ideas being individually in each movement from three films: Amanti (1968), Una Breve Vacanza (1973), and The Garden of the Finzi Continis (1970).  This is one of the many delightful discoveries that transitions us into the final two American film examples on the disc.

    The first of these is Oscar Peterson’s “Blues for Allan Felix” which was used in the 1972 film Play It Again Sam.  It in one way serves to demonstrate that, like early film scores, later films also acquired and incorporated other music to help serve the film.  Here it demonstrates Palombi’s equally confident ability to switch gears musically as we move more into a firm jazz piano segment of the album.  Dave Grusin’s suite from The Firm (1993) makes for a fitting close then to the album.  The six selections here explore aspects of rhythm and ballade writing that intend to capture a variety of emotional film connections thus bringing us full circle to the early pieces which opened the album.  The harmonic language and motivic ideas also connect us to the styles of Auric and Honegger a bit as well.  Such connections are one of many overall intents in this release.

    Palombi’s intelligent program is an excellent listen and is filled with the sort of performances that will make this an album to return to again and again.  The music itself also allows for this repeated play and it will likely become one of your favorite piano albums.  It brings us a cross section of music from the early days of vaudeville-like piano up to contemporary jazz with delightful stops across French Impressionism and Fauvism as well as some dissonant contemporary voices.  The sound quality is equally impressive with an immediate feel that has just the right amount of presence.  In shore, a fantastic release worth tracking down!