CD Reviews: Legrand plays Legrand and Unfaithful
Michel Legrand plays Michel Legrand *** 1/2
MICHEL LEGRAND
Decca 289 468 512-2
14 tracks - 69:56
If the recent release of Michel Legrand's unused score for 1973's The
Man Who Loved Cat Dancing whet your appetite for more from this veteran
French composer, this Decca album may or may not sate your curiosity. Legrand
has scored over 200 films in his career, but he's had only a few minor
hits in America. Most of his scores are for French films; the most famous
being the 1964 cult-musical classic, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
In all, the most well known of his scores are Ice Station Zebra, The
Summer of '42 (his Oscar winner), Atlantic City, Yentl and of
course The Thomas Crown Affair. Although Legrand has scored fewer
and fewer high profile films in the last decade, he did provide nice music
for the big screen treatment of Madeline in 1998.
The other thing about Legrand is that he's known more for the hit songs
from most of his scores than he is for the actual underscore. That's why
it was disappointing that his first major career retrospective CD focuses
mostly on these songs. The songs, or course, are first rate, from the wistful
Oscar-winning "The Windmills of Your Mind" (from Thomas Crown) to
the melancholy "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" Another head-scratcher
is why all the pieces needed to be piano solos (visions of Ferrante and
Teicher-style elevator music kept popping in my head). As questionable
as that may be, it's also probably what makes this CD important -- as the
album title indicates, Legrand himself is the piano soloist.
The 70-year-old composer starts the CD with a virtuoso rendition of
"I Will Wait for You" from Cherbourg. The second Cherbourg
song, "Watch What Happens," sounds more like an improvisation than an actual
song. Things settle down thereafter, but the two standout tracks are the
score cues from The Thomas Crowne Affair and Brian's Song.
But, by the time you get to the halfway point of the disc, you may wish
Legrand had varied the format just a little bit, adding additional instruments
or a vocalist that would have helped distinguish the lesser known songs
from each other.
A medley of three songs from Yentl ends the CD on a powerful
note with the gorgeous anthem "A Piece of Sky" as its finale -- again,
I would have liked to hear some of Legrand's unreleased score to the Streisand
opus rather than the popular songs. I suppose I'm just arguing over the
concept of this album. It succeeds as what it is. I wish it were something
else. While this CD might not make non-Legrand fans into fans, it is full
of accomplished and emphatically performed music. Now we just need an orchestral
compilation on the order of the recent Georges Delerue set so that film
score fans can become more aware of Legrand's rich legacy. -- C.W.
Unfaithful ****
JAN A P KACZMAREK
Varèse Sarabande VSD-6356
19 tracks - 44:14
Adrian Lynne returns to Fatal Attraction territory with another
adulterous tale of extra-marital affairs, but this time it's Lost Souls'
Jan A P Kaczmarek and not Maurice Jarre providing the steamy accompaniment.
Starting with a simple piano sonata in "At Home," the main theme is eventually
joined by weeping strings in "Video on the Bed" and "Braille." Kaczmarek
brings plenty of European sensibilities to the project, particularly evident
in the Parisian accordion of "Triangle" and cimbalon in "Sudden Turn."
He also avoids the cheesy clichés of so many "adult thrillers" by
composing an accomplished melody for Diane Lane and Olivier Martinez to
bump 'n' grind to. "Sudden Turn" adds an edge of danger and urgency to
the central theme, reprising it in a faster tempo, with desperate female
panting just under the surface. Jorane's wordless groaning is probably
the closest that any mainstream US movie has got to Edda Del'Orso's orgasmic
groaning on Morricone's many Italian sex dramas of the early '70s (most
notably Maddalena), and bravo for that. Finally, the gorgeous titular
track ("Unfaithful") is represented both with orchestra and as solo piano.
On the downside, many of the cues clock in at under two minutes, inevitably
meaning that they fade out just as they're getting interesting. Technically,
the recording is crystal clear, and Chet Swiatowski's piano solos are faultless.
Oh, and if you're buying this disc to get the African music played in the
bath-tub scene by Ali Farka Toure or the two Dead Can Dance tracks Devorzhum
and Dedicace Outo, they're not here. If you need that, try the "Talking
Timbuktu" album, and more specifically, the track entitled "Ai Du" (Ali
Farka Torre & Ry Cooder).
Cut from the same sweaty cloth as Goldsmith's Basic Instinct and
Barry's Body Heat (but more restrained and substantially more European),
Kaczmarek's Unfaithful has enough variations on its killer main
theme to avoid undue repetition. Classy, classical and very sexy, this
is probably the best piano-dependent soundtrack since...The Piano.
-- Nick Joy
MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com
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