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Review of Craig Armstrong: Film Works 1995-2005
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you own one or two of Craig Armstrong's scores and are
curious enough to expand your collection to a few of his other
consistently strong works.
Avoid it... only if the slightly higher price for the hour-long CD deters you from an otherwise strong compilation.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Craig Armstrong: Film Works 1995-2005:
(Compilation) One of the lesser known but consistently intriguing
talents in modern film music is Craig Armstrong, a Glasgow, Scotland
native who has made a career of bridging the gap between the pop and
classical genres of music. Trained at the Royal Academy of Music,
Armstrong's early career has been balanced between classical commissions
and collaborations with the Northern Sinfonietta, the Scottish Chamber
Orchestra, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra on one hand, and
arrangements and production work done for popular artists ranging from
Massive Attack to Madonna and U2 on the other. While several composers
have attempted this balancing act in the 1990's and 2000's, Armstrong's
works have featured both a sense for simple melodic beauty and a little
bit of luck. Film score collectors --those with hundreds, if not
thousands of scores on their CD shelves-- first took notice of Armstrong
with 1999's stark, realistic, but enchanting The Bone Collector,
while the mainstream began to get a taste of Armstrong's collaboration
with director Baz Lurhmann for William Shakespeare's Romeo +
Juliet a few years earlier. Armstrong is one of the few composers
with significant orchestral works who is probably still better known for
his pop affiliations and solo works rather than the film scores alone,
and no better evidence of this phenomenon exists than his production,
arrangement, and composition for Moulin Rouge, the project that
not only has provided the composer with a comfortable lifestyle but also
several awards on his own shelves. Whether you're a pop-inclined person
with Plunkett and Macleane and a few other scores on your shelves
or an orchestral traditionalist with The Quiet American on yours,
Armstrong is the kind of artist whose work --albeit still somewhat
limited-- exists in the form of a CD in almost anyone's collection. And
even if you're without an Armstrong album, you've likely heard the
"Escape" cue from Plunkett and Macleane in several trailers and
television promotional spots over the past seven or eight years.
Even though he is never short of offers for work, Armstrong has still gone forward with a late 2005/early 2006 commercial release of a promotional collection of his film score works featuring what he considers to be his best works. "I've done so many films, some of which have never been seen," Armstrong remarks. "The album is an opportunity to get out some of the music people have never heard. It's the best of what I've done, It's not just the pieces everybody knows." That's true for the non-film music collectors, though people with three or four Armstrong scores in their ownership will likely quibble over the choices of cues selected for the compilation. Armstrong's contribution on Romeo + Juliet in 1997 is offered in three places on the compilation, including the grandiose opening burst and monologue to the film. The "Escape" cue from Plunkett and Macleane is as necessary as any for inclusion, and while it is a staple of modern trailers and TV shows, its higher choral sections remain too shrill, and when editors often crank up the volume on that piece, the upper choral regions are usually distorted. The more enjoyable piece from Plunkett and Macleane (and maybe the highlight of the whole score) is the hypnotic dance piece "The Ball," which is also included here. The title theme from The Quiet American is a highlight of Armstrong's career, and this, along with a shorter romance cue, is included as well. The lone and welcome representative from The Bone Collector is the always intriguing and genre bending "New York City" cue. Of the lesser known works, The Clearing has received the poorest ratings of any Armstrong score to date, and its somewhat throwaway minute of music here is followed by the almost anonymous title theme for Orphans. Among the interesting substitution pieces are "Rise," which Armstrong wrote in 1997 and appeared in The Negotiator, and "This Love," with an instrumental arrangement that sounds remarkably like John Ottman's rejected music for the same Cruel Intentions. The album ends with an Armstrong variation on a Debussy melody for Baz Luhrmann's "Chanel No. 5" television advert featuring Nicole Kidman, the most recent piece in the compilation. Inevitably, you can always contend with the selections representing your favorite scores on a composer compilation like this, and some mild disagreement could arise over the selections from Moulin Rouge, Love Actually, and Ray. None of the cues from Moulin Rouge represent the more invaluable music from Armstrong's promo for the project. Only a snippet of his outstanding underscore is chosen for this compilation, rejected in favor of two of the three main songs that Armstrong adapted for the film. Given the almost crazed demand for the commercially unavailable pieces from Moulin Rouge, it's disappointing not to see a few of them here. Likewise for Love Actually... an endearing film with an equally endearing score that finally allowed Armstrong to stretch his wings in the genre of romantic comedy. It's a delightful score in every sense, especially in its rousing, fully orchestral title theme. Unfortunately, one of the local sub-themes is presented on this compilation (the Glasgow theme you hear in the heartbreaking "Mark's Video" scene), and while it is as charming as the rest of the score, the absence of the title theme is sorely noted (the "Joanna Drives Off" cue would have done great justice here; it's arguably the most positively impacting single cue in Armstrong's career). Given the mammoth demand for the Love Actually Oscar promo, the relative lack of material from the score here is unfortunate. In the case of Ray, the score was sadly overlooked (and ineligible for an Oscar once again) because of the obvious song usage in the film. Armstrong chooses the lovely "Della's Theme" for inclusion here, though the highlights of the Ray score are among the "Dreams of Ray" cues, which better exhibit the composer's multi-genre talents. Even with these suspect choices of one cue over another, the "Film Works 1995-2005" album is a very strong sampler of Armstrong compositions, especially for those of you who may own one or two of his scores and are looking for similar material. When you hear the vast majority of his works on one CD like this, there are some interesting aspects of Armstrong's writing that make themselves clearly evident. First, this is a man who obviously dearly loves the grand piano in his home, for so much of his work is centered around the instrument. Also, similarities can be heard in his thematic structures, which are never typically too complex, and you'll catch yourself hearing many aspects of his themes carry over from score to score. And aside from the obvious talent Armstrong has for combining electronic elements into an orchestral setting (usually in the form of easy, non-offensive percussion loops), another constant throughout his career has been the use of voice, whether in a full operatic, choral setting or in the intimate vocals heard in The Quiet American. His touch for eerie high-octave vocals in particular lends his work well to the suspense and drama genres. One other note about the merging of the orchestral and synthetic is that Armstrong has been producing the sound that many people thought Graeme Revell would delve into more often after his underrated The Saint in 1997, with Armstrong remaining loyal to the romantic side (whether dark or light) of his music while Revell has strayed ever further towards the industrial sound design end of the spectrum. Overall, the "Film Works 1995-2005" is recommended; other than a few pleasant surprises from the lesser known works, Armstrong throws no curveballs with the selections. Perhaps an inclusion from his recorded and rejected work for Jan de Bont's Tomb Raider 2: Cradle of Life (for which rumors suggest that some of Armstrong's work actually made the final cut of the film) would have tickled the album up to the highest rating. If you enjoy Armstrong's work already, be aware that his work with Massive Attack led to two critically acclaimed solo albums, "The Space Between Us" and "As If To Nothing," and more of his film music was featured on his "Piano Works" album already available (though some cues overlap with the film works album). Let us all hope that Craig Armstrong's music continues to grace films for decades to come. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 59:45
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes no extra information about the scores, films, or Armstrong himself (not even a
picture).
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