Search - Benjamin Frankel, Werner Andreas Albert, Queensland Symphony Orchestra Brisbane :: The Importance of Being Earnest: Benjamin Frankel's Music for the Movies

An outstanding selection of Benjamin Frankel film music...

03/06/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This CD is fine qualty DDD recording with spacious, detailed sound. It has excellent presentation and booklet, with a very nice choice of film stills. I particularly enjoyed the 'Importance of Being Earnest' and 'Trottie True' tracks, both with those jaunty lively themes at which Benjamin Frankel excels. 'Curse of the Werewolf' is an amazing quality score for such a low budget film, bearing in mind Hammer usually only budgeted for £85-100,000 per film in the early 1960s ! With a much bigger MGM budget and major stars, the 'Night of the Iguana' score is a revelation, as I have never heard it before - I only hope the film is on TV again soon so I can study the context of the music. The sombre moments reminds me at times of Mahler and the music in 'Death in Venice', and the 'Hannah and Shannon' theme is superb. I liked the use of the muted trumpet,(as in Miles Davis ' Sketches of Spain' ?) to suggest Mexican atmosphere. The 'Trottie True' suite is lovely: 'Gaiety Gallop' deserves to be a light music classic along with Benjamin Frankel's 'Carriage and Pair', capturing the Edwardian world of Sir Arthur Sullivan beautifully, and the haunting 'Balloon Toon' is already becoming one of my favourites. There are wonderful reconstructions for the 'Lullaby' from 'The Years Between', and 'Footsteps in the Fog'.... In the latter, apart from the lush, haunting 'Lily Watkins Theme', the use of the piano in 'Lowry's Secret' is particularly eerie....
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