: (Mychael Danna) Since the
reemergence of wide release films about the history of Christianity a
few years ago, each successive entry in the genre seems to cause the
obligatory public stir. While some people of the faith stand in lines
well outside the theatre on opening night, others protest the movies for
their interpretations, production elements, or commercialism. The mass
of both this positive and negative attention came with Mel Gibson's
a few years ago, though several smaller
productions about ancient Christianity often slide by with less fame or
star power. One such entry is
, the traditional
depiction of the time from Mary and Joseph in Nazareth to the few years
after Jesus' birth. Despite the mixed reviews for the film, which are
inevitable given the wide range of spiritual beliefs spread among those
reviewers, there has been almost unanimous praise for Mychael Danna's
score for the film. Danna, a Canadian, and his brother Jeff are two of
the composers with foremost and vast expertise in ancient Middle Eastern
and European instrumentation and traditional songs. While Mychael
Danna's career may be more accomplished due to his collaboration with
director Atom Egoyan, Jeff Danna may have written what is the most
outstanding score about the life of Jesus in the modern age. Jeff's work
for
in 2003 succeeded in its authenticity
where the shortly subsequent John Debney score for
stumbled over its own weighty feet. And while Jeff is not
listed as having any association with his brother Mychael's effort for
, there are significant similarities in the
substance of the authenticity that made Jeff's work so fascinating. As
you would expect, Mychael Danna did the same extensive research for this
film as his brother had done before, collecting some of the same
instruments for this project. While there exist harmonic and overarching
atmospheric similarities between them, Mychael was attempting to
approach the story from the perspective of the events' consequences on
European life, thus allowing for the use of several European carols and
other songs as well as a broader palette of Western sounds, most notably
the larger choral presence.
As his brother had accomplished, Mychael Danna's sound
for
The Nativity Story avoids the pitfalls of becoming enveloped
by its own importance. Nor does the score have the hugely epic scope of
old religiously-flavored favorites like
Ben-Hur and
The
Robe. The score manages to infuse the film with significant power
without bludgeoning the listener, a temptation for any composer given
the passion with which some write music for the subject. Thematically,
The Nativity Story relies on its vocal renderings and
interpolations of accepted Christmas melodies to provide its identity,
with Danna's underscore serving to connect the interpolations with a few
various motifs. The integration of the carols ranges from outward
concert-like performances, such as the Austrian "Silent Night" for the
entirety of "Silens Nox" (an elegant layering of strings makes this a
superior performance), to intriguing fragmented adaptation (sometimes as
counterpoint), such as the brief use of the Ukrainian "Carol of the
Bells" at the outset of "Is There a Place for Us?" For casual listeners,
most of the quotations will pass without notice, except for the
occasional feeling that perhaps you've heard the tune before. More
importantly, Danna has woven these pieces together into a fabric that is
readily harmonic and easy to appreciate. The only exceptions are the
cues dominated by ancient horns and woodwinds over Roman drums, some of
which are specifically built with dissonance to represent the efforts of
King Herod to combat his perceived danger. Some of the location and
journey shots, accompanied by cues like "Veni, Veni Emanuel," "Is There
a Place for Us?," and "The Journey" allow the percussion to roll in
strong rhythms under a high chorale, but never with a sense of
overbearing hardship. The score has too much hope built into its rising,
major key structures for its few darker moments to thrive. Contributing
to most of the lofty, optimistic characteristics of
The Nativity
Story are its layers of vocals. While the score includes every kind
of vocal representation from Gregorian chants to solo male and female
voices of all tones, the presence of a boy soprano as the representation
of a higher spirit is the highlight of the score.
The prominence of the boy soprano over a full choir in
four or five of the score's most elegant cues, as well as the strong
texturing of the string section and solo performances of ney flutes that
often accompany the voices, causes parts of
The Nativity Story to
radiate the same overwhelmingly beautiful harmony as Howard Shore's
The Lord of the Rings trilogy. In fact, there seem to be several
connections between this score and some of Shore's work, though this is
likely to be completely coincidental. The boy soprano in particular is
the enduring voice of
The Nativity Story, from its ethereal
introduction in "The Annunciation" to "Give Me a Sign" and the stunning
finale sequence ranging from "A Star Shall Come Forth" to "In Rosa
Vernat Lilium." Those latter tracks feature the traditional pieces in a
lyricism especially attractive to fans of
The Lord of the Rings,
for both the boy soprano and the Enya-like female solos are presented
over grandiose harmonic layers of the full ensemble and choir equal to
Shore's popular work in its magnificence. The score does have a
significant number of conversational cues, often featuring harp and
specialty string instruments, and it offers many of these cues at its
outset. Combined with the two or so brief blasts of brass and percussive
dissonance for the Romans, the score does have a few less interesting
moments on album. But in all cases, the music is saturated with the
appropriate atmosphere for the subject, largely due to Danna's
expertise. Some listeners may find the fuller sequences, especially
those set to a percussive rhythm, to be too melodramatic, as the
The
Passion of the Christ became in its latter cues. But the difference
here is that Danna instills a sense of awe into the music without
becoming forceful with his ensemble. The mixing of the solo elements is
outstanding, with individual vocals and woodwinds easily enunciated
through even the ensemble performances. Nicholas Dodd's orchestrations continue to impress.
Due to a lack of the main theme's prominence until the very end, Mychael's
The Nativity
Story may lack slightly behind Jeff's
The Gospel of John,
though Mychael compensates for the gorgeously operatic solos in his
brother's work with the boy soprano here. Both are remarkably
intelligent efforts, and the broader scope of
The Nativity Story
will likely appeal to a wider audience. It also flourishes in a
relatively weak year for scores in 2006, standing easily as one the
year's best.
***** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Mychael Danna reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.25
(in 16 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.06
(in 5,347 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
