The Red Violin: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

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• The Red Violin OST

Music reviews of The Red Violin: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Music Review: Four sophisticated strings in five sophisticated stories
Rating: 4 Stars

Corigliano's approach is awesome and at the same time the only right one. As the violin passes from culture to culture, the music changes with it. However, at the centre of each of the five 'chapters' is one theme: "Anna's theme". And seeing that - in a certain spiritual approach - Anna herself incorporates the violin, her theme is also the Red Violin's theme. This is beautifully illustrated in the soundtrack's first piece (properly named "Anna's theme") - which is first hummed by a woman's voice and then deftly handed over to solo violin.

After departing from the violin's place of birth - Cremona - the listeners relocates it in baroque Vienna. So far the music had been rather ageless (meaning: modern, non?contemporary film-music), yet here it has started to absorb some Zeitgeist. This three?track chapter's most outstanding moment is "Kaspar's etude", which, symbolically and narratively, features a violin-solo and an accelerating metronome that abruptly stops ticking.

Next stop in our time-travail is a group of Gypsy-travellers, who end up with the musical instrument in English Oxford. This chapter features some wonderful Roma music and a truly virtuoso etude by featured violist Joshua Bell (who plays all the solos and leads in the score). These five tracks are the zenith in an already outstanding body of composition.

We journey to Shanghai next, but there is little original composition here, especially in the second track, which features an appearance of the Chinese Red Guard accordion band (still a very famous accordion/children's choir musical piece). Nevertheless, the music adds value to the whole with its oriental folklore and flavour.

And with the fifth chapter we have arrived in more modern times - in Montreal to be exact. What you get here is music with very mysterious quality. "Morritz's theme" is a slightly altered "Anna's Theme", very interesting.

After the "End Titles" - in which "Anna's Theme" is given back to the humming female vocal by the solo violin - we are treated with a 17-minute long orchestral piece. Here, Corigliano used stagnation in the film's production-process to further delve into some of the earlier themes. (Normally, composers are called in only AFTER all the imagery has been shot, but here characters being filmed IN the film had to play a composer's film-music, which is why Corigliano came into the moviemaking early.) This music is much more than "suite" and a living identity of its own.

The music on this album is intelligent and sensitive, varied and literary. And there aren't simply excerpts from it: there is a lot of it. It doesn't break boundaries, and it will not define new standards. But the album's content is great quality all the way, which will move you with deep instrumentations, astounding virtuoso performances and vibrant storytelling, each time you grace it with a listen.

This is worth at least four stars.

Bram Janssen,
The Netherlands

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