Red Army - Christophe Beck & Leo Birenberg |
2/19/15 |
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What You Will Hear: Featured violin and cello. Some Russian choir. Some klezmer and a nice mix of Russian instrumentation. Also be ready for driving and heart pounding music, almost like it came from an adventure movie.
Standout Tracks: Red Army, Tarasov, The Russian Playing Style, Defeat, The Greatest Starting Five Man Unit, Captain Fetisov Will you be humming along? There is a repeated arpeggio (usually pizzicato?) that will stay with you. The score this makes me want to dust off: Battlestar Galactica - Bear McCreary Will I come back to it? Yes. I am, admittedly, late to the party with this score. It is fantastic, and I wish I would have reviewed it when it first came out. Just kept getting pushed to the back burner... As I listened, I went back and forth between two beliefs: (1) the music is probably too big for a documentary and (2) the music blends perfectly with the interviews and storytelling. In the end, I haven't seen the movie, but I'm willing to bet that this great score is able to make both of those predictions come true. Beck and Birenberg have managed to create a score that has two personalities. It is uplifting and at the same time constantly agitated. In a way (viewed through my American perspective), it seems to perfectly represent the simultaneous honor and misery of late Soviet culture. |