Here is a prize Herrmann disc for all lovers of the best film music. Neretva is a great sonorous score used for the English language version of this Yugoslavian production. The music, scored for a massive orchestra (Herrmann's biggest), is apocalyptic. Militaristic black-hearted brass shout and call in cantankerous uproar. The score is infused with Slavic temperament (echoes of Shostakovich 7 and 8) in collision with Soviet poster art heroism. The giant brass complement register powerfully in the Chetniks' March and in the gigantism of The Partisan March (a momentary tribute to Sousa?). Less tempestuous voices also invade and these gentler inspirations include Strauss's Rosenkavalier and Mahler (Farewell). This is moody music full of temperamental outbursts and Shostakovichian fist-waving. The Sisters excerpts are very welcome too with barking brass and tubular bells conjuring up yet another death-hunt. There is a plangent urgency in this music complete with hallooing horns, a weird synthesiser sounding like the distressed neighing of a horse and even (unless I am mistaken) a touch of the dreaded Hammond organ. The Night Digger score largely belies the ghoulish title in a long sequence of lambent grey aquarelles for a grand string ensemble. There are character-saturated solo parts for harmonica (Tommy Reilly - who else?) and Viola d'Amore and a steady diet of neurotic decelerated waltzes, the harmonica calling like a wounded cat, a weirdly foggy glow and morgue-focused serenading. This contrasts with a diving, plunging, wild athleticism (track 16) and the turbid cycling of the strings (a la Sibelius's En Saga) like maggots squirming in a suppurating corpse. Track 17 holds a surprise in sounding rather like the shark theme from John Williams' Jaws. The sorrowing serenade of the viola tails off into a fine warm confidence and back to a querulous fearful beauty suggested by the harp's notes stepping up and down the scale. This is a true connoisseurs' score and a must-buy for all Herrmann adulants.

The insert notes are good, though brief, and economically complement a most generous collection of reissued recordings in fine sound.

Reviewer

Rob Barnett

Reviewer

Rob Barnett