it's quite beautiful, if a bit minimalistic. The piano pieces actually seem to flow from Kaper's music, but the string quartet seems a bit out of place. Still, it's only a minor complaint.
I've just played this score for the first time in many months. I like it though acknowledge it is long and perhaps does overstay its welcome ... just a little (I kept expecting it to end and then another track started!).
The original themes pre the Schubert pieces are exceptionally good ... the ones after less so but I do wonder if that is subjective based on the pure classical brilliance of the non-original pieces. I do intend to try playing the score sans Schubert but have not yet done so.
I chose to play this score as I've just bought and listened to a non-score album by Wojciech Kilar: Angelus-Exodus-Krzesany ... very interesting, the similarities in style (minimalism) are there.
Thanks for this recommendation. I'm always very open for anything Kilar, and this one was on offer from an amazon.co.uk marketplace seller at a very good price, so I blindly went for it. Curious what it will be like.
I received this CD in the mail today (will listen to it later).
Anyone got a good cover scan that I can use after importing the CD into iTunes? (I did google it and also looked the title up on Album Art Exchange, but didn't find anything usable).
It's a great score. It has a very modal, timeless, Elgar-ian quality that I really love. It's great music to get swept up and "lost" in, or to write to - I hold it in the same "special" category as Chris Young's FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC, of which it has a number of non-explicit similarities in tone and evocation.
This, and not DRACULA, was the score that first introduced me to the wonders of Kilar. Still today he remains one of my very favorite composers, and this one of my very favorite scores. Minimalism doesn't really lend itself to romanticism, but this is one of the most melancholic, yearning scores I've ever heard.
His classical pieces are also worth a listen. "September Symphony" gets a lot of play around these parts.
This is one of those scores that I absolutely adore on CD but don't like much in the film at all. I remember once I saw the film I was really disappointed in the way it worked with the images.
Probably my favorite Kilar score nonetheless (with DRACULA a close second.)