Starring
Olga Kurylenko and Jeremy Irons, Giuseppe Tornatore’s Correspondence
looks at the relationship between an astrophysics student
(who spends her spare time as a stunt performer) and her
professor. This frequently long-distance relationship is
facilitated through various technological means, but hasn’t
really captured the imaginations of the Italian critics
(the only country where the film’s been released so far)
with generally middling-at-best reviews some way short of
those for the director’s previous movie The Best Offer.
With
Tornatore comes of course Ennio Morricone, this being
their eleventh movie together (not counting various tv
shows and commercials). Eyebrows might be raised when
an 87-year-old composer says he still wants to find new
things to do and different things to say but unbelievably,
he actually has done something genuinely unlike anything
I’ve heard from him before for this score, which focuses
on very sparse ideas and executes them with electronics
and very prominent electric guitar alongside the Prague
orchestra. (Indeed, aspects of his previous Tornatore
score were also new for him; the director is clearly a
treasured collaborator for Morricone and inspires him
to continue to grow as a composer.) Having said that –
while it’s new, the score does not have the immediate
appeal of many of the composer’s efforts of the last decade
or so, which in being “safer” have tended to be more obviously
attractive and moving.
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It
opens with the dreamlike “La casa sul lago”, piano solo
(played beautifully by Morricone’s regular pianist Gilda
Buttà) the dominant force. It weaves around, with a deliberate
slight emotional disconnect, the strings rising and falling
behind it. The melody doesn’t really stick like the composer’s
so often do, but it’s certainly a nice piece. The second
cue is the 13-minute “Una stella, miliardi di stelle” which
plays like a meditation on the vastness of the universe
or something, a very simple little figure repeated again
and again, first for piano then synth, all the while with
a calming electric guitar – I find it soothing, but am aware
that others might be tempted to skip forward long before
the track ends, so simple is the idea and so often is it
repeated.
There’s
more of a rock feel to “Improvvisazione in sol”, hint
of Pink Floyd perhaps, guitar and synth pads and percussion
– it really is new territory for Morricone and honestly
I’d never have thought it was by him had I not known.
“Stuntgirl” is more familiar – tense strings swirling,
the guitar does appear but only in a supporting role this
time, then there’s an explosion of action led by the strings
but with no small part for electronics. Finally there’s
a hint of the trademark Morricone romance in “Due camere
in hotel”, complete with sweeping strings, and it’s very
beautiful but (ironically) there are probably just too
many previous, better, examples of the same style in the
composer’s canon for it to leave too great an impression.
The
titular “La corrispondenza” sees textural electronics
eventually give way to a beautiful piano solo before the
tide turns back again; I think it’s one of the highlight
cues. Piano also dominates (in fact, is the only instrument
featured in) “Una storia nella storia”, this time in pastiche
classical romantic mode not completely unlike (but much
more low-key than) the composer’s wonderful Canone Inverso.
The guitar returns (with the piano) in the beautiful “Il
ritorno di una stella”, one of the score’s most romantic
moments, an unfamiliar instrumental setting perhaps but
a familiar melodic sweep. Then there’s a much sparser
piece, “L’infinito spazio”, shreds of a melody seemingly
shimmering in and out cleverly; as with some other aspects
of the score, the idea is excellent, the execution perfect,
but somehow it doesn’t end up sounding as good through
the speakers as it does on paper.
That
melodic fragment then appears in full and is developed
through the gorgeous “Una luce spenta”, a six-minute cue
that is absolutely the highlight of the album: it’s a
breezy piece of romance, with the piano and guitar joining
forces with a solo violin and the string orchestra in
beautiful style. “Parabola astratta” goes back to the
dreamlike style, piano and strings both seemingly floating
around each other; then in “Calco” comes another gorgeous
violin solo. “Veloce corsa” sees the score take a rare
return to a more suspenseful style, a very simple descending
guitar figure joining some tense strings. In “Il cano
simpatico” the score becomes very sparse once more, a
piano dancing over a compelling electronic soundscape;
then the piano once again takes on a classical sound in
“Invenzione breve”. The album closes with “Disperata chittara”,
in which the guitar is actually not particularly desperate
at all, but rather mellow and relaxing.
There’s
some beautiful music in Correspondence and little in the
way of suspense material, but this isn’t a score of the
big sweeping melodies which dominate Ennio Morricone’s
latter-day music. Instead he has very carefully created
a certain atmosphere – notes of love flitting in and out
of a much wider piece which navigates seamlessly from
classical influences up to much more modern stylings.
It’s clever music and the dramatic journey it takes is
brilliant but as I said, it doesn’t make such a strong
and satisfying album as perhaps the quality of the individual
components might suggest. It is great to hear the veteran
composer still doing something different, and frankly
any new music from him at this stage is very welcome indeed,
so it’s a given that his many fans will find much to enjoy
in it; but I imagine many won’t get as many plays out
of the album as his two scores from 2015.
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