LE SYSTÈME OCTOGON – Patrice Mestral

Original Review by Alan Rogers

The French documentary film Le Système Octogon is based upon the thesis formedby two investigative journalists (Fabrizio Calvi and Frank Garbely) who suggest that as World War II drew to a close a significant amount of Nazi gold was hidden away only to resurface – after the war had ended – to help fund the German political party, the Christian Democratic Union and to have further wide-reaching influences within political circles over the decades after the war. A major part of the network, the “Octogon Trust” was a front company set up by an arms dealer and it functioned as the channel for this secret funding. Using archive footage from the remnants of war-torn Germany, plus photos and expert interviews, director Jean-Michel Meurice weaves a narrative that describes the extent of this far-reaching corruption and details the role former Nazis and the Nazi finances played in the whole system.

Contemporary jazz composer Patrice Mestral has provided music for over twenty scores for film and television spanning over 40 years. For Le Système Octogon Mestral has composed an orchestral score that succeeds in adding an oppressive and somewhat bleak quality to the documentary. Scoring the archive, newsreel-type footage, Mestral has chosen to leave the interviews with various experts free of music. Covering the years immediately after World War II through to the building of the Berlin Wall in the early 1960s, punchy brass figures, staccato string patterns, dissonant and discordant passages with unsettling textures all build a sense of unease. Archive film of bombed cities (“Allemagne Année Zéro”), helpless refugees and even footage of anonymous people doing mundane tasks (“Les Nazis Se Recyclent”) are all given a sense of hopelessness with Mestral’s overarching commentary.

PIUS XII: UNDER THE ROMAN SKY – Andrea Guerra

Original Review by Alan Rogers

Pius XII: Under The Roman Sky is a 2010 TV movie that attempts to detail the efforts of Pope Pius XII (played by James Cromwell) to save Jews from the Nazis after the city falls under Nazi occupation in 1943, as well as covering an alleged plot by Hitler to take the Pontiff as a hostage. A German/Italy co-production, Canadian-born director Christian Duguay’s 3-hour film is scored by Italian composer Andrea Guerra and the score features lush strings and beautiful a lovely soprano voice (plus larger chorus) that imparts an uplifting feel in the listener rather than the ominous and dramatic aspects that the topic may suggest (more on that in a moment).

The score immediately captures the attention, using the aforementioned lush strings and solo voice to create a mood of faith and human virtue that swells with the inclusion of fanfare-like brass and chorus. The mood established in this first track, “La Città Eterna”, continues in both “Il Papa è Nostro Padre” and “Il Dolore di Una Città” where the same elements are used by Guerra to showcase his thematic material to great effect. In contrast however, “Sotto Il Cielo di Roma (Main Title)” introduces more ominous music with the appearance of low strings and a nervous, low-register piano passage (motifs hinted at during the final seconds of “La Città Eterna”) that is suggestive of rats scurrying along darkened passageways. Interspersed within these darker devices the lush strings and the solo voice re-appear, almost hinting at good trying to break out from darkness. A low string ostinato adds additional pace to the score at this point, further increasing the drama to the music. This title track establishes the fight between the light and dark aspects of the story that will be played out during the course of the film. 

SOUTH PACIFIC – David Mitcham

Original Review by Alan Rogers

South Pacific (Wild Pacific in the US) is a six-part British nature documentary series from the BBC Natural History Unit that aired in 2009. The series (a BBC/Discovery Channel co-production) concentrates on the islands, wildlife and people of the vast expanse of the South Pacific. No-one does natural history programming like the BBC: The Blue Planet and Planet Earth are two examples of well-produced nature documentaries that have set the benchmark for others to follow. Audiences are routinely dazzled by the spectacle of the natural world, sometimes seeing many aspects of the world around us for the very first time. Alongside the spectacular visuals, composers such as George Fenton (who composed lavish scores for both The Blue Planet and Planet Earth) are being inspired to compose breathtaking music. British-born composer David Mitcham has been composing for film and television since the late 1990s and his scores for wildlife films in particular have been consistently been recognised for their quality: Danger In Tiger Paradise (2002), The Elephant, The Emperor and The Butterfly (2003) and, most recently, Echo: An Unforgettable Elephant (2010) have all won accolades worldwide. As composer for South Pacific, Mitcham has been inspired by the indigenous music of the region, using vocals, ukelele and percussion to fashion a score that reinforces the geographical setting and adds a subtle level of drama to the various aspects of life in the South Pacific.

The album begins with the excellent “Opening Title Music”, a short cue that uses all the aforementioned elements to immediately transport the listener to idyllic islands and turquoise seas. Of all the tracks featured on the album it is the songs – many of them composed as musical “set pieces” and featuring texts from a variety of languages including Maori, Hawaiian and Rapanui – that linger in the memory once the album has finished.

LOBSTER WARS – Andy Kubiszewski

Original Review by Alan Rogers

Off the coast of New England, five lobster boat crews struggle to land their catch in any weather in Lobster Wars, a Discovery Channel documentary series from 2007 (the show is also known as Deadliest Catch: Lobstermen). Lobster Wars is one of a long line of fly-on-the-wall documentaries that follow various sections of life who endure difficult and sometimes extreme conditions in order to just do their job (Ice Road Truckers anyone?). American/Polish musician Andy Kubiszewski has composed music for numerous TV shows (e.g., Monster House, Ice Road Truckers, America’s Toughest Jobs), many of which feature a hard-edged score that reflects the extreme nature of the subject matter (and also the characteristically “in-your-face” narration that accompanies these documentaries). Kubiszewski bases his score for Lobster Wars around a small group of instruments (live and synth), using growling electric guitars and pounding percussion elements together with fiddles and accordion/concertina to provide an enjoyable score that feels like a grungy Celtic rock group’s latest instrumental album.

The album opens with “Catch Experiment”, which features a very catchy riff played on fiddles that gives an immediate Celtic feel to the score and is perhaps suggestive of the geographic setting of the series. Percussion beats, growling guitar licks and the occasional anvil hit adds colour to the basic repeating fiddle motif. The Celtic feel to the music is very prominent throughout and seems also to hint at the boat crews’ camaraderie, risking their lives to land their catch. The fiddle takes centre-stage in cues such as “Fiddle 1”, “Fiddlework” and especially in “Catch of The Day” where it plays out a jig in celebration of the crew’s success. What sounds like uilleann pipes (“Out To Sea” and “Adventure At Sea”) and accordion/concertina (“Sea and Sky” and “Wind Driven”) reinforce the Celtic air and, together with the fiddles (and the solitary use of female vocals in “Celtic 1”), links the various tracks to a common sound. Kubiszewski does a good job at establishing the setting (geographical as well as maritime) with this Celtic sound. 

THE GRUFFALO – René Aubry

Original Review by Alan Rogers

The Gruffalo is an award-winning animated film based on the already-classic children’s picture book written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. The book tells the story of a mouse’s walk in the woods and his encounter with three dangerous animals who all wish to eat him. In turn, a fox, an owl and a snake are frightened off when the mouse tells them that he is meeting his friend, the gruffalo, whose favourite food just happens to be the relevant animal. Events take a turn when the mouse discovers that the gruffalo is in fact real and the mouse has to again think quickly to avoid becoming the monster’s next meal. Using the voice talents of an all-star cast, the half-hour 2009 film – a mixture of model and CGI animation – skilfully recreates the look and feel of the book. It’s a wonderful film that quickly became a classic, a definite feel-good animated film that is destined to become regular in holiday season TV programming schedules for years to come.

René Aubry’s lovely and evocative score makes a major contribution to the success of the film. Aubry, a French composer who has composed for both TV and film as well as composing music for several dance choreographers, is best-known for his blending of classical harmonies with modern instrumentation. But with his score for The Gruffalo, he uses a small ensemble of traditional instruments (acoustic guitar, piano, strings, woodwinds and percussion) in a variety of combinations to provide character to each of the story’s main protagonists. “The Forest” opens the album with a light, tinkling piano line played over a pattering guitar sequence that transports us to the story proper: we are in a place of babbling brooks, bright sunshine and an optimistic outlook. This is similar in style to the jaunty theme Aubry gives to “The Mouse”, the track that ends the album. The music reflects effectively the mouse’s optimistic temperament as well as re-inforcing his own success over his adversaries. Overall, each of the six tracks on The Gruffalo play as a “character study” for the various protagonists and, on the album, play as self-contained compositions (with various passages being used at appropriate parts in the story). 

VISO D’ANGELO – Paolo Vivaldi

Original Review by Alan Rogers

Viso D’Angelo (Angel Face) is a four-part police thriller mini-series that aired on Italian TV at the end of October 2011. In it the police are on the hunt for a serial killer who leaves a rosary in the hands of their victims. The investigation leads police to go undercover, infiltrating the church-led community of Santa Lucia. TV movie-veteran composer Paolo Vivaldi (Don Zeno, La Baronessa di Carini, Exodus) composes the score for this police drama and digital label RTI/Made In Etaly has issued a 15-minute digital release that provides enough evidence to suggest that Vivaldi has once again provided a score worth tracking down.

The album begins with “Viso D’Angelo” which (I assume) is the main theme for the mini-series. A wordless female vocal statement of the theme before there’s a dramatic and full and orchestral statement of the theme (a theme reminiscent of a similar female vocal element that John Ottman used in his score for Hide and Seek). Played predominantly on strings, Vivaldi’s theme is full of pace and urgency before once again settling down to a restatement of the theme by wordless vocals but this time with the added accompaniment of an organ suggesting a link in the story with the church. Vivaldi’s suggestion of the church’s involvement is carried over to the second track, “Il Dolore Di Angela”, where we hear a string passage that has a distinctly religious feel to it. This leads into a couple of beautiful melodies played on solo strings. “Il Dolore Di Angela” has a montage feel about it as there are several ideas heard in this track: after the two solo string segments there are a couple of other musical ideas referenced. But they all fit together nicely into a beautiful but ultimately sad track that culminates in a bold statement of one of the themes heard at the beginning of the cue. The feeling of sadness is maintained in “L’Ultimo Saluto Di Angela” (but on this occasion using strings and piano). A quick-paced action cue, “Inseguimento Di Rubes”, splits these sombre tracks disrupting somewhat the mood set up by the first two tracks and as the album only runs to less than 15-minutes in length, there’s not much time for the mood to be re-established before the final track comes around and the album draws to a close. 

MONT ATHOS: LA RÉPUBLIQUE DES MOINES – Thierry Malet

Original Review by Alan Rogers

Mount Athos is a self-governing monastic state under the sovereignty of Greece that was founded in the mid-900s. A peninsula jutting out into the Aegean Sea, Mount Athos is home to twenty Eastern Orthodox monasteries, populated by over 1,000 monks. After 6 years of trying, French documentary film-maker Eddy Vicken secured permission to film inside “The Monk’s Republic”, to produce a film examining the long history of Mount Athos as well as the day-to-day lives of the monks. The musical score comes from Thierry Malet, a composer whose previous projects are predominantly for TV movies and short films. Although the majority of the score reflects the contemplative existence of the monks, what really stands out (and remains firmly in the memory) is a rousing battle-cry styled theme featuring a combination of a choir of monks and the City of Prague Symphony Orchestra.

Mont Athos: La République des Moines (2009) is an example of a score where there’s a stand-out theme set in amongst function music that probably works very well in the film. Malet’s inspiration for the theme is an old psalm sung by the monks (I believe it is the Polyéleos: Psalm 135 Tone V). As with many of the hymns and psalms sung as part of the monks’ daily observances, the psalm is very much a meditative piece. For his theme however, Malet asked the monks to double the psalm’s tempo. This proved problematic both for the monks and the orchestra (that was recorded separately). As the monks where more used to singing with a free tempo and singing the psalm at a difference pace, the final recording ended up having no fixed tempo. When it came to recording the orchestra (with added snare drum to give the martial feel the composer wanted), Malet found it a challenge to get the orchestra to mirror this free tempo. However, the hard work paid off: the end results of their efforts is heard in “Chœur Percussions Guerre” and “Generique Fin – Open + Chœur Percussions” and it’s a very memorable piece of music. There is something about the psalm’s melody that makes it immediately memorable and Malet ably compliments this with a driving, rhythmic counterpoint (strings and percussion). “Chœur Percussions Guerre Master” and “Gong Monacal / Chœur Percussions Guerre” both feature what sounds like the orchestra-only accompaniment for the choir’s vocals. 

QUAND LES ÉGYPTIENS NAVIGUAIENT SUR LA MER ROUGE – Bernard Becker

Original Review by Alan Rogers

Quand Les Égyptiens Naviguaient Sur La Mer Rouge (When The Egyptians Sailed On The Red Sea) is a French TV documentary from 2009 that follows American archaeologist Cheryl Ward as she builds a replica Egyptian ship (from around 1500BC) and attempts to retrace the voyage of a fleet of five ships to the mysterious land of Punt, thus proving that the Egyptians were a seafaring people. Directed and co-written by Stéphane Bégoin, the documentary, in typical Discovery Channel style, is a mix of following present-day archaeologists as they build a picture of events during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut (whose time as Pharaoh encouraged the establishment of trade relations) and of dramatic reconstructions of the period. Scoring the documentary is French-born composer Bernard Becker (El Guerrero Sin Nombre) who provides an interesting and effective score that is made up of two different aspects.

Becker seems to have decided to split the score into two different “sounds”. One half the score has a particularly ethnic feel to it. Through the use of specific instruments (ethnic woodwinds, percussion) and musical style (melodies and rhythms), the composer effectively conjures up a sense of place both in terms of location as well as time. The opening track “Le Mystérieux Pays de Punt” highlights this, setting the scene for the documentary and the score with a breathy woodwind that plays out a seductive melody. The use of ethnic woodwinds and exotic rhythms is heard several times throughout the score (e.g., “A Bord du Navire” and “Les Portes du Temple”). A particularly effective use of the ethnic woodwind can be found in “La Reine Hatshepsout” and “Le Ciel d’Égypte”. Solo woodwind plays a reflective, almost sad melody that seems associated with the Pharaoh Queen herself. 

IL MISTERO DEL LAGO – Alessandro Molinari

Original Review by Alan Rogers

RTI/Made In Etaly is a label that regularly releases soundtracks from Italian TV productions. Several of these releases are worthy of reaching as wide an audience as possible (see my recent review of Marco Betta’s score for Maria Montessori: Una Vita Per I Bambini). Il Mistero Del Lago (directed by Marco Serafini) is an Italian TV movie from 2009 in which a teacher is sent to a house located in the middle of a lake to teach two young orphans. You know that things are not going to go smoothly when the body of the orphans previous teacher is found on the shores of the lake. Based loosely on Henry James’ short novel, The Turn of The Screw, the drama is steeped in a mysterious atmosphere where visions, apparitions and shady pasts are much in evidence. Italian composer Alessandro Molinari composes a score, predominantly made up of strings and woodwinds, to add a layer of intrigue to the film without resorting too much to shock tactics.

Track 6, “La Signorina Andreani” features a lovely theme that highlights the way in which the composer uses the strings of the Czech National Symphony Orchestra to give the score a full sound that concentrates on music rather than suspenseful soundscapes and ambience. For “La Signorina Andreani” the theme is heard in the strings and it is then repeated as it is passed to various sections of the orchestra. A solo piano version closes out the album. “Il Salvataggio In Mare” is another good example of how Molinari uses strings to accentuate the drama effectively. And the composer uses the various sections within the strings too in order to heighten the drama: “Il Funerale Della Petri” features low strings as a support for the visuals in the form short descending motifs and tremolo notes rather than having a particularly sad theme. 

STEPHEN HAWKING’S UNIVERSE – Sheridan Tongue

Original Review by Alan Rogers

Sheridan Tongue has scored music for many UK dramas and TV documentaries. 2010 saw the transmission of two documentary mini-series that featured his scores. One was Wonders of The Solar System (the companion series to 2011′s Wonders of The Universe (reviewed here)). The other was Stephen Hawking’s Universe (aired in the US with the title Into The Universe With Stephen Hawking), a Discovery Channel science documentary mini-series written by Hawking and narrated by actor Benedict Cumberbatch (who incidentally played Hawking in the TV film, Hawking). Having episodes with titles such as “Aliens”, “Time Travel” and “The Story of Everything”, Stephen Hawking’s Universe has grand ambitions and comes across more science fiction than science fact due to the emphasis of the documentary on the physicist/cosmologist’s speculations and “what ifs?”, speculations that are based on theories extrapolated from current thinking. Tongue’s score is also ambitious in scale, using a 56-piece orchestra alongside electronic elements and providing a grand cinematic and dramatic score.

The album begins with “Into The Universe” and includes the music used during the introduction of the show. Tongue sets his stall out early with music full of bold brass fanfares alongside string ostinato figures. It is clear that the music is not only going to support the on-screen visuals, it is also going to grab the viewer by the scruff of the neck and drag them through Hawking’s universe. Ostinato figures – and rhythm in general – feature prominently throughout the score, driving the visuals forward and adding a sense of the dramatic. “Time Travelling”, “The WOW Signal” and “Alien Ocean” all feature ostinato patterns, fuelling the music onward. Tongue does add interest to these rhythms by varying their instrumentation; both between instruments of the orchestra (e.g., strings in cues such as “Time Travelling” and “The WOW Signal” and keyboards in cues such as “The Endless Waltz of Galaxies”) and also between the orchestra and various electronic sounds (e.g., “The WOW Signal” and “The Mad Scientist Paradox”).