CD Reviews: Universal France Releases of Delerue, Jarre and Sarde
by Lukas Kendall
Le Mépris **** 1/2 (1963)
GEORGES DELERUE
Universal Music Jazz France 013 477-2
28 tracks - 70:22
There have been several compilations of the music of the late Georges
Delerue, among them three volumes from Varèse Sarabande (the "London
Sessions"), a re-recording by Nonesuch, and an outstanding 2CD set of original
tracks on the Odeon label from 1998 ("30 Years of Music for Film"). This
new collection utilizes Delerue's complete 14-minute score from Le Mépris
to kick-off an eight-films-over-eight-years (1962-1970) -- with eight
directors -- survey of his most influential work for the nouvelle vague.
Delerue (1925-1992) was a supremely gifted composer who, like John Barry
and Ennio Morricone, seemed to have an extra special knack for film composition.
He was a wonderful melodist who instinctively maintained a simplicity of
line and form so as not to clutter the drama but instead evoke its most
pertinent emotions. As an orchestrator, too, he favored exquisite solos
for woodwinds over delicate backings for strings -- rarely a note colored
too heavily. Like Morricone, Jarre and Barry -- but not many others --
he started out in his native cinema and eventually scored dozens of Hollywood
films over a long and fruitful career; he was that good. And finally, like
Morricone, he often drew from earlier musical forms, like those from the
Baroque and Renaissance periods, to update contemporary genres.
Le Mépris (Contempt), Delerue's lone score for
Jean-Luc Godard, accompanies a justly famous picture about the film industry,
starring Brigitte Bardot. It is a signature work that has found an afterlife
in pictures such as Casino, with a somber, classically influenced
melody over gentle string arpeggiations -- you'll recognize it. A classic
score, despite being only six tracks long.
The rest of this CD is filled out by selections from: L'Aîné
des Ferchaux (1962, with its gently "Americana" main theme); La
Peau Douce (1964, directed by Truffaut); Cent-Mille Dollars au Soleil
(1963, with an almost "Herrmannesque" opening breaking into a triumphant
march); L'Insoumis (1964), Cartouche (1962, an "action" score
for the French Robin Hood -- Delerue doing Korngold), Heureux qui comme
Ulysse (1969); and Compte à Rebours (1970).
The CD flows together much more gracefully than the Duhamel compilations,
largely due to Delerue's more consistent style and approach. I don't know
how useful this will be for those already familiar with the represented
scores, but I found it a wonderful CD.
Red Sun **** (1971)
MAURICE JARR
Universal Music Jazz France 014 114-2
12 tracks - 31:49
One of my favorite wacko scores is given its first stereo CD treatment:
Red Sun by Maurice Jarre, for a bizarre 1971 western. Let's see,
it stars an American action hero, Charles Bronson paired as a "buddy" with
a Japanese cinema legend, Toshiro Mifune (as a samurai, no less), against
a Frenchman, Alain Délon, as the heavy...is directed by an Englishman,
Terence Young (who helmed several early Bond films)...takes place in the
American West but was made by a French-Italian-Spanish consortium, a la
the spaghetti westerns...and was scored in Rome by a Frenchman, Maurice
Jarre. The result is a terrific, tuneful and eccentric western score featuring
Japanese and American elements blended into Jarre's inimitable style.
I love all of Jarre's western scores -- The Professionals, Villa
Rides, El Condor -- but Red Sun has a special lunacy due to
the Japanese influence. According to Jarre in the liner notes here, he
tried to craft a type of "imaginary folklore, like Bartók did: Ondes
Martenot, accordion, koto and dulcimer, all of it mixed with orchestra."
He succeeded, with a joyful, lyrical main theme, softer, instrospective
moments, and pounding, odd-metered action setpieces.
Jarre may be a "harmonic pervert" as he kids in the new notes -- which
also feature a candid opinion of the film and of the director -- but it
takes a special kind of perversion to make a lark like Red Sun memorable
30 years later. In another 30 years, I'll still have the theme for Red
Sun stuck in my head; I doubt I'll remember the score to American
Outlaws.
Le Choix des Armes/Fort Saganne **** (1981/1984)
PHILIPPE SARDE
Universal Music Jazz France 014 115-2
22 tracks - 67:55
This exquisite Philippe Sarde CD combines two of his scores for director
Alain Corneau: Le Choix des Armes (Choice of Arms), starring
Yves Montand and Gerard Depardieu as rival gangsters, and Fort Saganne,
starring Depardieu as a French officer in the Sahara before World War I.
Sarde is a fine composer who often writes with specific classical models
in mind -- sometimes getting too close for comfort (such as the use of
Stravinsky in Lord of the Flies). All composers have used models
from time to time, such as James Horner with Prokofiev and Shostakovich,
Jerry Goldsmith with Vaughan Williams (Star Trek: The Motion Picture),
John Williams with Hanson (E.T.), and Jerry Fielding with Lutoslawski.
However, with Sarde, it seems to happen an awful lot that he writes an
impressive score, and then someone says it's just some famous classical
piece.
In the case of Le Choix des Armes, Sarde has furthered the source
composer (Ravel) with an innovation that does validate the usage: he has
taken two American bassists, Ron Carter and Buster Williams, and written
wonderful jazz parts to blend with the otherwise symphonic performance
by the London Symphony Orchestra. It's a wonderful mutation of high-minded
jazz meeting early 20th century impressionism -- like France's version
of Gershwin. Fort Saganne, by contrast, is more traditional, but
still highly polished. In his liner notes, director Corneau mentions that
he tracked the film with Saint-Saëns' Symphony with Organ, and that
may be what the final score resembles, although solo cello is what carries
Sarde's work, not organ. It is a rich, solemn score, both meditative and
calm.
One other thing bears mentioning: the presence of the late Peter Knight
as orchestrator/conductor on Le Choix des Armes but not Fort
Saganne. Knight was a gifted arranger particularly of strings who did
the orchestral backings for the Moody Blues and orchestrated a number of
scores from this period for Sarde (Tess, Quest for Fire, Ghost Story)
and Trevor Jones (The Dark Crystal, Nate and Hayes). Le Choix
des Armes has similarities to those scores in the size and warmth of
the strings and woodwinds: a wonderful, fluttery, impressionistic sound.
Fort Saganne is fine, too, but it's like the difference between
setting your computer to 16 colors, rather than millions. Having a Knight-orchestrated
Sarde score on this CD followed by a non-Knight one offers an interesting
contrast in the space and depth the late musician contributed.
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