Michel Legrand recently scored "The Price of Fame" (La rançon de la gloire), a 2014 French film. From the 30 second clips, this sounds big, gorgeous, jazzy, romantic... and glorious! I can't wait to hear it all.
This score - which sounds like vintage Legrand - kind of came out of nowhere (at least I didn't know about this, and Legrand is my favorite living composer & I try to keep up with his website on a weekly basis) and is a very welcome tonic following Legrand's apparently rejected "Max Rose." The album is being released on January 5th (not sure if it's download only or if a CD will be available).
This isn't even announced on his website or his imdb page. But absolutely great news, even though the score is a scant 34 minutes. The 30 second samples sound like Legrand at his best. Can't wait to order.
Legrand composed and orchestrated his score for LA RANCON DE LA GLOIRE in March/April within a period of 30 days - he needed 15 days for composing and 15 days for orchestrating. Here is a marvellous interview with him about this new score on the French Cinezik website: http://www.cinezik.org/infos/affinfo.php?titre0=20141017182524
Apparently, Legrand had a wonderful relationship with director Xavier Beauvois (who had previously directed OF GODS AND MEN which won the Grand Prix in Cannes in 2010) and they even plan to do a film musical together as their next project.
Particularly interesting are these comments by Legrand about the state of film music today and the lack of really good themes nowadays: "Il n'y a pas de musiciens aujourd'hui. La musique est une chose difficile, il faut une exigence folle, une culture incroyable. Aujourd'hui, il n'y a pas de musique dans la musique qu'on entend. Absence de thèmes ou pas, où est la musique ? Je ne suis plus ému par une partition comme avec Joseph Kosma et "Les Enfants du paradis" (Ndlr : il chantonne). La musique de John Williams dans "Always" de Spielberg est bien faite, celle de Ennio Morricone dans "Mission" est incroyable ! Ça c'est de la musique !"
Together with the director Legrand was also at the Venice film festival in August to present their film. Nice to see him here together with his wife Macha Meril and also to see and hear him talking at the press conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW1EehwhNOY
It seems that Michel Legrand is finally back with a great score. I've never been a great fan of Michel Legrand (even if you HAVE TO RESPECT the man) but from what I've heard (thank you Stefan Schelgel for the link), you can already feel how goes the movie and, in my point of view, this is the most important thing about an OST. Claude Lelouch always reffers to Francis Lai by saying : "Francis' music is my best director" !!
You can listen to some extracts on the link that Stefan Schlegel indicated. (it looks like you can buy it but won't be shipped until January 1st...), nevermind I already pre ordered it on iTunes !!
I just watched the movie and fortunately Michel Legrand composed the score because it helped this movie to get to another dimension…without that, it's one basic movie !!
I have downloaded the album and for sure that is the only thing that I m going to buy from this movie.
Thanks Stephan, for the Cinezik interview post. Legrand's sense of fun and enthusiasm is quite infectious. He seems to be discussing J.Williams and E.Morricone from about 5:10 but I think he makes another reference to JW at about 7:34. Still musically vocal - lucky man!
I'm a rather big Legrand fan, and regardless of the quality of the film (or score, for that matter), I'm happy to see that he's still keeping busy in the scoring department -- I know that he's kept busy with touring activity over the last few years, even visiting Norway.
With Ennio Morricone, Quincy Jones, Lalo Schifrin and John Williams he's one of the few remaining A list film composers of that generation still being around!
!! 