Red Army - Christophe Beck & Leo Birenberg

2/19/15

Mighty Ducks meets Red Dawn? Sorry, that was my honest first reaction to this picture.

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.
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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.

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