If he was so well trained and his scores were so erudite, what did it mean that Hubert Rostaing had orchestrated "Le Train" which had shown all that original and ambitious string writing - or that the aforementioned Vladimir Cosma had orchestrated Sarde's first film score "Les Choses de la Vie" (1970) which had seemed so confident and lyrical? And when, in 1981, he had started to accept American film jobs and I heard the fierce command of orchestral forces, the memorable themes and the strong scene-setting ability so handsomely demonstrated in his score to "Ghost Story", it was surprising to find the name of the conductor Peter Knight credited with the orchestrations there. That was all impressive, but there were puzzling caveats to my applauding of him. His personal instrument was piano and he never did learn to conduct. I learned that Sarde's mother had been an opera singer and that he had studied harmony, counterpoint, fugue and composition at the Paris Conservatory with Noel Gallon. All of these made impressive soundtrack albums because the themes were compelling, the orchestral details were sophisticated and literate, and the scores seemed to hold together, no matter what the musical genre. Along with Michel Legrand, Vladimir Cosma, Antoine Duhamel, and Georges Delerue, Sarde quickly became my favorite living French screen composer and that sprang from my strong admiration for his vigorous, detailed and original score to the 1973 Granier-Deferre film "Le Train" – so carefully shaped, cue by cue, to its own internal logic, full of pulsing locomotion, rolling figures, then static holding figures, then barreling on down the tracks, all in the same minor key mode that tied the whole score together (learning only later that Sarde had composed the score in advance of the film and had then participated in the process of applying the film to the score).Īt the same time I was admiring "Le Train", I was also learning his impressive half atonal/half folksong score to the historical thriller "Le Juge et l'Assassin" (1975, scored for string quartet, accordion, harp and the beautifully gravelly voice of Jean-Roger Caussimon) and his half baroque/half jazz music to the police action comedy "Flic ou Voyou" (1978, scored for the Gabrielli Quartet versus jazzmen Chet Baker and Ron Carter) and his subtle orchestral setting for the Irish ensemble The Chieftains in 1977's "The Purple Taxi". I call him enigmatic because, right from the beginning, he seemed to present contradictions. And indeed his scoring over the years has seemed more musical than cinematic, more compositionally interesting than narrative (which is what movie scores usually try to be). Worldwide, he is probably heard more via soundtrack discs than through any large audiences seeing his films. Along with lasting relationships with directors like Sautet, Tavernier, Polanski and Annaud, Sarde gradually made inroads to the mainstream Hollywood film industry including an Oscar nomination for the 1979 music to "Tess". In October 2018, French composer Philippe Sarde receives the Film Fest Gent World Soundtrack Lifetime Achievement Award together with a tribute concert of some of his nearly fifty years of screen music. The Enigma, Philippe Sarde : 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award at Film Fest Gent
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |