My Favourite Scores – 1935

 

• She
• Max Steiner
• Tribute Film Classics / 2008 / 69:42

I never really appreciated the quality of Max Steiner’s She until I heard Tribute Film Classics’ re-recording. I was familiar with this score as I already had the original score recording that had been released by Brigham Young/Film Music Archives. But that recording – though remarkable considering that it is a recording from 1935 – does show its age. With the re-recording Steiner’s score just shines.

Original Soundtrack

What is so wonderful about this score is Steiner’s hypnotic and intoxicating main theme, best heard at the beginning of “The Queen / Tanya In Bed” for when She first appears. That particular passage, when compared with the original recording, highlights just how much can not be heard! The beguiling use of the wordless choir  in such a way must surely have been in the minds of composers scoring TV’s Star Trek many years later.

I usually have to approach Steiner’s music with a certain amount of trepidation since I usually only like my mickey-mousing film scoring in very small doses (She does have a smattering of this style of scoring). But there’s so much more that is there to enjoy in the whole score.

BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY – Gavin Mikhail

Original Review by Alan Rogers

Writer Ruta Sepetys approached musician and recording artist Gavin Mikhail and asked him to write a piano score for her first book, Between Shades of Gray. Between Shades of Gray is a novel aimed at the young adult (but has appeal to older readers also) that follows the experiences of 15-year-old Lina, her 10-year-old brother and their mother in 1941 Lithuania after they are rounded up by the Soviet secret police and transported to a Siberian labour camp. Based upon meticulous research and drawing from interviews with survivors of the Soviet genocide, Sepetys’ book is (by all accounts) a powerful story.

Gavin Mikhail, working together with the author, has chosen characters and events from the book and has written eight pieces for solo piano. Mikhail’s score is melancholic in tone and has an emotional impact that is easily felt in both the music he has composed and by the way in which the music is played. The music doesn’t really touch on the horrors described in the book. There is no dissonance, no soundscapes that make this a difficult album to hear. However, there is a sadness underpinning most of the tracks (“Ice and Ashes”, “11 Cigarettes” and “Far From Home” are good examples) but there is also a sense of strength (e.g,. “Ice and Ashes” with its powerful rendition of the melody), patriotism (e.g., “Krasivaya” has not a celebratory patriotism but rather a feeling of stoic resoluteness in the face of adversity), love (e.g., “The Last Lullaby”, a stand-out track) and triumph (e.g., “Between Shades of Gray”) that ensures that every track is memorable. Only on one occasion does the music have a feeling of peril or worry to it: “Run To Something Beautiful” has an injection of speed to its tempo that translates to a sense of urgency. By the end of this short album (it runs to just over 20 minutes) you come away having been touched my Mikhail’s music in a way that is, in the end, uplifting.