Yesterday film composer Jorge Arriagada passed away. Arriagada was a Chilean-French composer and was based in Paris for most of his career. He had a longstanding friendship with director Raúl Ruiz and scored 47 (!) of his films.
I know Arriagada is not well known by general film music fans, but he had a wonderful career. He worked with great directors like Barbet Schroeder, Olivier Assayas, Jean Pierre Mocky, Laurent Perrin, Benoît Jacquot, Patricio Guzmán, among others. And of course he scored many important Chilean films. Also he prominently did the score for "It's All True", an unfinished Orson Welles film.
I think one of the reasons that he has not been well known, is that for many years his music was not available to listen away from the films. But this has changed with various compilations of his works, available on most music streaming services. The other reason is that he never worked in Hollywood. Many years ago, I asked him about it, and he just didn't wanted to work there, although he had opportunities to do so. I remember he gave me the example of Alexandre Desplat: He much prefered the "French Desplat" rather than the "Hollywood Desplat".
Here's a nice pice he wrote for "L'Île au Trésor", present in one of the four album compilations of his work with Raúl Ruiz:
And here's one track from Barbet Schroeder's "La virgen de los sicarios":
Sad to hear about the passing away of this remarkable and intelligent composer whom most soundtrack fans who are only interested in US scores won´t konw at all. Disques Cinémusique released a few scores by him on a CD in 2013, but during the last years it has become very quiet regarding works of this composer, although by looking at the IMDB it seems that he still scored a few more obscure pictures in France or Chile. I particularly enjoyed the lovely pastoral music he had written for Raoul Ruiz´s LES ÂMES FORTES - for me one of the best scores from 2001. I have also some other very interesting and fine scores by him on CD like L´OEIL QUI MENT (1993), IT´S ALL TRUE (1993) or LA VIERGE DES TEUERS (2000). His most popular score has probably been for the Marcel Proust adaptation LE TEMPS RETROUVÉ in 1999.
Here is the memorable main theme from LES ÂMES FORTES:
Sad news indeed. I think there was already a thread dedicated to him in the past or am I wrong ? As a tribute, I will play LES LIGNES DE WELLINGTON (my favourite score), L'OEIL QUI MENT and KLIMT. RIP Maestro.
Thanks for the heads-up, and sorry to hear it. I'm not familiar with this composer. I think the only Chilean film composers I'm aware of are Alejandro Amenabar and Cristobal Tapia de Veer. And the two composers Pablo Larrrain has worked with, Carlos Cabezas and Juan Cristobal Meza.
But the clips posted here sounded fine. Definitely a composer I should investigate.
Although I've not heard as much music from him as from many other composers he has been listed among my favorite composers here in my profile (don't know if anyone ever checks these anymore?) for as long as I can remember as I found this truly special bond with some of his titles. I was not aware of any other release of his music coming out since 2013 when I bought the DCM Arriagada/Le Guay compilation.
Will be glad to revisit this compilation, Klimt, the brief L'Enfant de l'Hiver, Shattered Image, Le Temps Retrouvé, Les Âmes Fortes, It's All True ... in his honour.
I still expect that his old LP "Ave Maria" might be included on some future "Introuvables" box from Music Box Records.
This thread made me revisit several scores from Arriagada which I have not heard for a long time including Les Ames Fortes or Alceste à Bicyclette. Great stuff!
Below is a photo of my Arriagada collection. A wide variety of films!
3 of them are starring John Malkovich (a coincidence?).
Dorian, I have approx. the same quantity of CDs as you have but don't know L'ENFANT DE L'HIVER AND A SHATTERED IMAGE. I also enjoy the compilation of soundtracks written for the director Philippe Leguay (LES 2 FRAGONARDS, etc).
That's a beatiful collection Dorian! It has been moving to read positive comments about Arriagada and his work in this thread. There's so much work from him to explore and that's something that is not going away.
L'Enfant de l'Hiver is a brief slow and sad strings-only score and there are even few dialogue snippets on the CD, which still runs for just 15 minutes. Not my most often played title but I like the music.
Shattered Image, on the other hand, is one of my favorites. Sometimes sad, sometimes spooky, featuring children's chorus and some Christmas mood towards the end, it is very impressive and effective. There are 3 pop/reggae songs in between the score tracks which divide the score to logical pieces, sometimes I skip the songs, sometimes I play them too for another experience. I remember buying this CD on Amazon.com for $1 some 20 years ago. A dollar very well invested.
On my side I am curious about the mentioned Les Lignes de Wellington as I seem to have missed this title back when it was released. Especially since you said, Laurent, that it is one of your favorites.
Thanks for your descriptions, Dorian. Regarding LES LIGNES DE WELLINGTON, I can't tell if you will like it nor if it belongs to his very best scores. It's actually the only movie scored by Arriagada I've seen - and a long one it was ! - but the music is special to me. Due to the period of the movie, it's very classical, using a choir in some passages, conducted by Laurent Petigirard. There are some poignant passages like Terre brûlée and other favourites include tracks 2, 8, 11 and 14. You also can find two tracks written in a traditional way with pipes, fiddle and recorder. I guess Cinémusique's CD is now out of print but that it sometimes surfaces on the second hand market.