tak schválně co zmrví tentokrát.June 3rd 2012 – 3 new releases, including…
L’AFRICAIN / Georges Delerue-Philippe de Broca
Philippe de Broca loved Africa – he campaigned to protect its environment – and he'd wanted to make a film there for years. In 1982 his dream came true when he filmed L’Africain (Brain of Evil), a life-sized comic-strip of a movie with a naïve charm (not to mention pygmies, chase-scenes and aerial acrobatics) which starred the tandem of Catherine Deneuve & Philippe Noiret. To give his adventure the sound of a distant land de Broca teamed up again with his lucky-mascot composer Georges Delerue, who was immigrating to Los Angeles at the time. Delerue had the idea of a wide-open-spaces score, and he wrote a vast, symphonic, "call of the wild" piece – the musical equivalent of CinemaScope – and recorded it at Abbey Road. "What I asked Georges to do was quite simple," said de Broca. "I wanted an overture that flowed like a great African river: vast and muddy, and irresistible." But the heart of his Africain was its love-theme, one of the most heart-rending pieces which Delerue ever wrote for the filmmaker. Declined in several variations, the theme also had a song-version, Face to face, brought to life by the graceful voice of Vivian Reed. The multi-track master-tapes for the film L’Africain – a miraculous recent discovery – have made this release possible, and it comes as a timely event to mark the 20th anniversary of the composer's disappearance. This is the first stereo edition of the complete score by Georges Delerue, a key work by the composer, with a broad, generous sound which does justice to the firepower in Delerue's writing.
Booklet: interview with Philippe de Broca
17 tracks, 45 minutes of music
TOPAZ / Maurice Jarre-Alfred Hitchcock
In 1969, the great Alfred Hitchcock made a secret dream come true when he filmed a real-world James Bond in an adaptation of the best-selling Topaz espionage-novel which dealt with the unmasking of a Russian mole inside France's Secret Service. With a solid plot, an international cast and location-shooting in New York, Washington, Paris, Copenhagen and Havana, the master filmmaker had everything he needed except for a composer to replace Bernard Herrmann – their split during the filming of Torn Curtain was irremediable. Hitchcock's composer for Topaz would be Maurice Jarre, who'd moved to Los Angeles five years previously and now had two Oscars to his credit. "I was quite worried, overawed even, at the idea of working with such a legend," said Jarre. "The stamp left by Bernard Herrmann was so strong that I wondered whether I'd be capable of stepping in." Not only was he capable, but Topaz turned out to be a pure concentrate of Maurice Jarre's talents: an instrumental Meccano construction – Ondes Martenot, zither, synthesizer and accordion – of heady melodies which are almost obsessive, plunging dizzily into traditional Cuban rhythms. But above all it is a great unknown score whose melancholy and sad lyricism win out over the spy-thriller elements of the film. Specially restored from the original master-tapes, Jarre's music from Topaz is available here in its complete version for the first time: until today, it was one of the last, great Hitchcock soundtracks to remain unissued. It's a must for both Jarre aficionados and every fan of the master of suspense.
Booklet: interview with Maurice Jarre + rare stills
14 tracks, 47 minutes of music
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