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| Armstrong |
For the Record: Craig Armstrong: (Compilation)
Despite his relative anonymity with casual film score collectors, Craig
Armstrong's output from the mid-1990's through the 2000's rivals some of
the most prolific film composers in terms of quality music for high
profile films. The Glasgow, Scotland native is best known for bridging
and traversing the divide between symphonic classical music and
contemporary pop style. Having been trained at the Royal Academy of
Music, his career initially involved an odd balance between production
work for Massive Attack, Madonna, and U2 on one hand while writing for
classical commissions and collaborations with the Northern Sinfonietta,
the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and the Royal Scottish National
Orchestra on the other. His simple but effective blends of old and new
have had the fortune of landing in some remarkably high profile films,
culminating in his production, arrangement, and composition work for
Moulin Rouge, an immensely phenomenal project that garnered him
widespread acclaim and awards. The mainstream first took notice of the
composer's feature score style in
William Shakespeare's Romeo +
Juliet in 1996 and
Plunkett & Macleane a few years later (the
latter becoming a staple of movie trailer placement for years to come),
though film music collectors really took notice of him after 1999's
The Bone Collector. His wide ranging talents cause albums of his
work to exist in the collections of nearly any serious music collector
even if the owner is unaware that Armstrong is in part responsible for
what he or she hears. In the late 2000's, the Ghent International Film
Festival began featuring symphonic concerts of major composers' works,
and in 2006 the focus of their attention was on Armstrong's music. The
performing group at this event has changed through the years, and in
this case, The Flemish Radio Orchestra and Choir was present (as they
had been for the more famous Hans Zimmer concert several years earlier)
to tackle many of the composer's best known works. These performances
were recorded and made available to collectors as the first of the "For
the Record" series of specialty CDs that went on sale at the festival's
shops, its website, and soundtrack specialty outlets. Like the
subsequent "For the Record" albums for the music of Mychael Danna in
2008, Angelo Badalamenti music in 2009, and Shigeru Umebayashi in 2010,
these concert presentations are treats for the fans of the collector,
featuring competent performances with solid recording quality and no
ambient crowd noise, but they often raise more concerns than they may be
worth for those same people.
The selection of material to perform is always a point
of contention on such compilations, though in the case of Armstrong, he
often arranges his themes into a form that lends itself well for that
use. Additionally, this "For the Record" CD debuted just a year after
the composer's "Craig Armstrong: Film Works 1995-2005" promotional
compilation that offered the original performances of many of the same
cues. The completion of his score for
World Trade Center in the
interim allowed for a whopping four tracks from its subdued and
depressingly beautiful score to be included on the "For the Record"
product. Gone, unfortunately, are the replacement cues written for
The Negotiator and
Cruel Intentions. Of more importance,
however, is that the Ghent performances attempted to represent
Armstrong's career without any of the composer's trademark electronic
loops. In
The Bone Collector,
The Quiet American, and
Plunkett & Macleane, the ensemble makes token efforts with
percussion to emulate the missing synthetic layers. Unfortunately, you
can't really represent Armstrong's career without these electronic
tones, and the performances on this compilation therefore suffer
significantly from their absence. The highlights from
Plunkett &
Macleane, "Escape" and "The Ball," had to be omitted as a result.
Ironically, the Ghent setup would have been better suited for
Elizabeth: The Golden Age and
The Incredible Hulk, both
written not long after this recording. The strictly orchestral
performances are rather passionless across the board, the trademark
piano at the heart of so many of Armstrong's themes failing to resonate
emotionally. The technically accurate playing by the full ensemble lacks
the melodramatic flair that Armstrong's original scores tend to exude,
exacerbating the issue with the synthetics. The choir was absolutely
necessary, however, and it at least does its job adequately in the
appropriate places. The solo vocal performance in "One Day I'll Fly
Away" from
Moulin Rouge is a disaster compared to Nicole Kidman's
screen version. On the upside, the album does feature a dialogue-free
version of "O Verona" from
William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet
and the "Restaurant Proposal" theme from
Love Actually to
accompany that score's lovely "Glasgow Love Theme." The addition of
"Lissa's Theme" from
Best Laid Plans is a nice move as well, even
if it is very similar to
The Bone Collector. Overall, this "For
the Record" album cannot compete with the original recordings on "Craig
Armstrong: Film Works 1995-2005" because of the lack of passion and
electronics in the performances. Hearing Armstrong's music without its
natural synthetic element is simply too bizarre to behold.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Craig Armstrong reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.83
(in 12 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.41
(in 45,004 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert contains long notes about the festival, composer, conductor,
and orchestra, as well as photography from the event.
