MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively AmazonUK   AmazonUS

The Kite Runner – film score (2007)
Alberto IGLESIAS (b.1955)
Opening Titles [3:21] 1
The Call, Kabul 1978 [2:33] 1
He Hates Me [1:08] 1
Sin [1:34] 1
Kite Tournament [5:40] 1
Hassan Theme [2:58] 1
Plant The Watch [1:30] 1
Russians Invade [2:23] 1
The Truth [1:59] 1
Fuel Tanker [3:09] 1
End Phone Call [2:06] 1
The Stadium [2:34] 1
Escape [3:10] 1
Fly A Kite [4:27] 1
Reading The Letter [2:50] 1
Ahmad ZAHIR (1946-1979)
Tanha Shudam Tanha [3:35] 2
Ehsan AMAN (b.1959)
Omaid e Man [1:47] 3
Dukhtare Darya [3:43] 3
Sami YUSUF (b.1980) and Bara KHERIGI
Supplication [4:06] 4
Sussan Deyhim (vocalist) 1
Ahmad Zahir (vocalist) 2
Ehsan Aman (vocalist) 3
Sami Yusuf (vocalist) 4
Hollywood Studios Symphony/Michael Nowak 1
rec. Cata Studios (Madrid), Warner Bros. Eastwood Scoring Stage, Conway Studios and Remote Control Productions, date unknown. DDD
EDGE MUSIC 477 7333 [62:47]

 

Experience Classicsonline

The music for The Kite Runner has been nominated in the best film score category in both the Academy Awards and BAFTAs, so there ought to be no need for me to convince anyone that it is "good" film music. 

But that does raise the perennial question of what makes such music "good" in the first place. For, paradoxically, while a score needs to add to the complete cinematic package by enhancing atmosphere and drawing out and magnifying the audience's emotions, it actually fails in its proper purpose if it is so obtrusive that it draws inappropriate attention to itself within the overall mix. 

As a result, anyone who, on the basis of Oscar or BAFTA nominations, buys a soundtrack album expecting to find music that will necessarily stand alone as valid - or even enjoyable - in its own right, runs a significant risk of disappointment.

That said, Alberto Iglesias's musical score is undeniably effective in adding to the powerful emotional punch that The Kite Runner packs. It is without question, one of the past year's most moving and engrossing movies. 

The story centres around two boys in pre-Taliban Afghanistan, the middle class Amir (Zekeria Ebrahimi) and the servant boy Hassan (a remarkable performance from Zekeria Ebrahimi). Their friendship, based around a shared enthusiasm for kite flying, is tragically brought to an end after Hassan is brutally raped and Amir - who saw the attack but was too scared to intervene - rejects the friend whose continued presence is a permanent reminder of his own moral and physical cowardice. 

Years later, by now a refugee in America and aware that Hassan has, in the meantime, been killed, Amir decides to return to Afghanistan to atone for his earlier sins by rescuing Hassan's young son from sexual enslavement to a Taliban warlord. 

The Kite Runner thus deals with serious and moving issues of friendship, loyalty and honour and, apart from the scenes where the boys demonstrate pure joy in flying their kites, its score is appropriately complex. 

Utilising stringed instruments as the santur, oud and rubab and wind instruments such as the bansuri and the ney, its predominant characteristics are rhythmic intensity (track 7, Kite Tournament) and plaintive lyricism (track 5, Sin, and track 12, Truth). Where appropriate - and with varying degrees of subtlety - Alberto Iglesias's palette augments the eastern instruments with the full resources of a western symphony orchestra. 

Apart from Iglesias's original score, there is also some well integrated music by two stars of the pre-Taliban music scene: Ahmad Zahir (even now, nearly 30 years after his mysterious death, popularly revered as "Afghanistan's Nightingale") and Tajik singer and émigré Ehsan Aman, still active today though based in the USA. Contemporary Anglo-Iranian singer Sami Yusuf adds a song (track 21, Supplication) that conclusively demonstrates the overriding importance of orchestration and rhythm in creating atmosphere, for it makes a most evocative and "authentic sounding" contribution despite being sung in English. 

This soundtrack album can be best appreciated as a memento of the film. If not immediately memorable, the score is certainly atmospheric and undeniably skilful. Iglesias is the regular composer for Pedro Almodovar's films and was nominated for an Oscar in 2005 for his music for The Constant Gardener. 

But I would suggest that you hold on and wait for the eventual release of a DVD where you will appreciate how the music fits into a much bigger picture - that, moreover, offers a superbly moving and effective demonstration of the art of cinema.

Rob Maynard



 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.