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As many composers do, Horner bases the heart of the score around the piano, which is, more than any other instrument for another setting, the pure and wholesome representative of the warm, suburban American home. Several cues, heard mainly in "Two People" and "Parallel Lives, Parallel Loves," offer meandering piano solos without an overt rhythm, theme, or direction. The feel of the piano's harmonious performances, even without dominant thematic development, suffices in maintaining the tender atmosphere for scenes of dialogue. Horner can't resist creating at least one theme, of course, and that string identity heard first in "The Waves of the Caspian Sea" and throughout the climax at the end serves a fair share of good-natured loveliness in its simplistic construction. Only in the final cue, "A Return to the Caspian, And to the Iran of Old," does the theme exude a truly redeeming attitude, almost bordering on Horner's aim for sincerity that you heard in his children's scores of the early 1990's. The most typical (and likely a tad tiresome) use of instrumentation in House of Sand and Fog is the rumbling of the piano and woodwinds on bass notes accentuated by a tolling chime or bell after each phrase of a progression, the composer's usual method of establishing gravity in a particular moment. This rolling technique, which Horner has utilized throughout his career, is applied in significant abundance here. As in A Beautiful Mind, a slight touch of electronics is to be heard; the majority of the low budget synthetics is employed in the opening half of the score, with a light electronic choir providing depth to only few short cues midway through the score. For Horner collectors, the most interesting music in the score will be the heightened tension heard in the latter half, beginning with "Break-In" and concluding in "We Have Traveled So Far, It is Time to Return to Our Path." The cue "The Shooting, A Payment for Our Sins" presents the first sense of urgency in the work, with a dramatic rhythm established by deep percussion and string plucking and reaching a crescendo of heavier strings at about 10 minutes into the cue. Overall, House of Sand and Fog is an easy score to appreciate, but a more difficult one to enjoy on album. Its dramatic weight is sometimes compromised by its own sparse construct, but it respectfully serves its purpose with class. It gained Horner an Oscar nomination, a relative surprise and, among the composer's vast collection of superior works, an undeserving one.  ***   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.15 (in 108 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.23 (in 203,344 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

Total Time: 69:46