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EDITOR’s CHOICE August 2000
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Georges AURIC
Lola Montez. Notre-Dame de Paris. Farandole.
- Suites of music from the films.
Moscow Symphony
Orchestra conducted by Adriano
Marco Polo
8.225070
[63:33]
Crotchet
Amazon
UK
With these three scores Adriano reaches the third volume of film music by
Georges Auric and, for me, it is the best so far in an outstanding series.
In fact, this album is going to be a strong candidate when it comes to Film
Music on the Web Awards for the year 2000.
The most substantial work is the 28-minute suite from Max Ophül’s
1955 film of the life of the famous 19th century femme fatale
- Lola Montez (1818-1861). This beautiful woman
of Irish extraction had toured Europe as a dancer and acted as a political
spy. Her conquests included Franz Liszt, Fréderic Chopin, Prosper
Merimée, Alexander Dumas senior and King Ludwig I of Bavaria. Her
life ended as a religious recluse but not before she had sunk to appearing
as a circus act when her fortunes fell. It is this circus presence that is
a strong feature of the film with the cynical ringmaster (Sir Peter Ustinov)
exposing her loves and her shame.
The Main Title opens on a dramatic note with military material reminding
us of the significance of Lola’s spying activities. This soon segues
into one of the waltzes that dominate the score. This one is slow and sombre
and is associated with Lola’s failed and lonely existence as a circus
‘freak’ and, indeed, the music then soon becomes circus orientated,
colourful and vibrant but with a cheap brassy feel heightened by the use
of a chorus of five saxophones. In sharp contrast ‘Lola’s childhood
and youth’ is a charming picture of youthful games and high spirits,
Auric delightfully capturing the essence of a frolicsome little girl but
there is pathos too in the material that underlines the disturbed relationship
between Lola and her frivolous mother.
The ‘Farewell Waltz’ is one of Auric’s best-loved melodies
(composed in the film by Liszt as a farewell present to Lola after their
affair) and it is given two separate cues in this suite. The first begins
with snare drums marking a strict tempo before the mood relaxes and the melody
proceeds as a dreamy solo for piano (a beautiful, sensitive rendering by
Stos Zabavnikov). The second cue takes up this dreamy romantic view of the
tune and spins out its romantically yearning qualities.
Elsewhere Auric’s versatility is shown in a number of vignettes: short
tunes and dances, or character pieces, suggestive of the countries where
her romantic adventures are set. There is much humour evident:
‘Cossacks’, for instance, is a bright, light-hearted confection
with the saxophones prominent, leaning towards Satie; while the four square
Germanic ‘Minuet’ seems more suited to the beer garden. There is
also a colourful and intoxicating ‘Fandango’.
Notre Dame de Paris was the 1956 French Technicolor remake of The
Hunchback of Notre Dame. Vilified by the critics, it miscast Anthony
Quinn as Quasimodo and Gina Lollobrigida as the gypsy girl Esmerelda. It
was not a patch on the two earlier Hollywood productions, particularly William
Dieterle’s excellent version that starred Charles Laughton as the hunchback.
The one bright element in the 1956 debacle was Auric’s score.
The Main Title music begins imposingly with a peal of big bells supported
by massive cymbal and tam-tam crashes that herald majestic awesome music
for the huge edifice that is the Parisian church of Notre Dame. More intimate
romantic music led by flute follows plus murkier material that is the
‘Destiny’ theme. ‘The March of the Vagabonds’ that
immediately follows, is swaggeringly defiant and trenchant – snare drums
and trumpets to the fore. Auric is a master in simultaneously conveying multiple
strands of character and plot. In ‘The tryst – the assassination
attempt’ there is the lyrical tender music for the romance between Esmerelda
and Phoebus counterpointed by the most odious figures for the jealous onlooking
Frollo. His jealousy also blights another musically complex episode where
Quasimodo’s unrequited love for Esmerelda is expressed as he offers
her flowers while she is apprehensive fearing Frollo’s malevolence.
Much of the film’s score comprised songs and dances for Esmerelda by
Francesco Lavagnino but Auric was also called upon to write a few additional
dance pieces in the ancient style for an ensemble of two harps, two guitars
and cello. These also underscored various scenes involving the hustle and
bustle of the Beggars of Paris. Five of these dance movements are gathered
to form a separate little suite including two lively fandangos and a ‘Jota
et Habanera’.
Concluding the collection is music from Farandole (1944), an earlier
version of Roger Vadim’s celebrated La Ronde. It was about
a circle of illicit love affairs – one person loving someone that loved
someone else until a complicated circle is closed, the last person involved
having an affair with the first.
The music begins somewhat ominously as though self-righteously censoring
the lewd activities to follow but soon this mood gives way to the dizzy whirl
of the love carousel; frivolous and comedic and ending by cocking a snook
at the puritan attitude of its opening. Auric again shows he has a real flair
for comedy with coquettish strings, lustful brass and furtive woodwinds etc.
- this score is a charming soufflé with Poulenc-like insouciance rubbing
shoulders with more romantic reveries.
An outstanding album; heartily recommended.
Reviewer
Ian Lace
