Music Webmaster Len Mullenger

FILM MUSIC RECORDINGS REVIEWS


Philip GLASS and Burkhard DALLWITZ The Truman Show OST MILAN MLADV35850-2 [56:44]  

 

iMVS (UK)

Extraordinary music for an extraordinary film. The Truman Show certainly deserves its popularity a thought provoking and biting satire on the insidious effect that television has on our lives. A round the clock soap; the ultimate in voyeurism.

This new CD sets the scene, in cue 1, with the narration that is included after Dallwitz's portentous cavernously-deep fanfare, "1.7 billion were there for his birth; 220 countries tuned in for his first step, the world stood still for that stolen first kiss... and as he grew so did the technology ...an entire human life recorded on an intricate network of hidden cameras and broadcast live and unedited 24 hours a day, seven days a week to an audience around the globe...from Seahaven Island, in the largest studio ever constructed - and, along with the Great Wall of China, only one of two man made structures visible from space. Now in its 30th great year - It's the Truman Show!"

It seems extraordinary that Philip Glass's music was not used entirely for this film. But it has to be said that the music of Burkhard Dallwitz fits in seamlessly with Glass's material. Dallwitz was born near Frankfurt Germany in 1959. He travelled to Australia when he was twenty and studied at Melbourne's Latrobe University studying advanced composition. He then went on to score for Australian films and television. His contribution to The Truman Show is music of striking originality and potency quite unlike most film scores. He catches the awe of the world-wide interest in The Truman Show but he also suggests the monotony in its round the clock absorbtion in music that is almost primitive for in more than one track there is an emphasis on African or aboriginal drums and rhythmic hand clapping. But the listener is constantly captivated by Dallwitz's colourful, kaleidoscopic sonorities

Philip Glass's contribution is a mix of a two or three cues of original music and material which he had previously composed such as "Living Waters" and "The Beginning" from Anima Mundi and Anthem - Part 2 from Powaqqatsi. Of his original music, "Truman Sleeps" is a soothing lyrical piece for solo piano, "Raising the Sail" is a rather sad yet haunting (that is, when the piano enters) Glass inspiration for keyboards and electronically muffled strings; and "Dreaming of Fiji" is very much in the same mode but with a rather catchy, slightly Celtic-sounding melody.

The CD also includes the second movement from Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 played by Artur Rubinstein.

Reviewer

Ian Lace

Reviewer

Ian Lace

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