Soundtrack to Angels & Demons available May 12th

By -

Hans Zimmers score featuring violinist Joshua Bell will be released by Sony Classical on May 12th

The film Angels & Demons, directed by Ron Howard staring Tom Hanks & Ewan McGregor, opens nationwide May 15, 2009

Sony Classical is pleased to announce the release of the original motion picture soundtrack of Angels & Demons featuring an original score by Academy Award®-winning composer Hans Zimmer and solos by Grammy-winning violinist Joshua Bell, available May 12, 2009. Sony Pictures releases the highly anticipated film Angels & Demons, from the team behind the global phenomenon The Da Vinci Code, on May 15, 2009.

Angels & Demons is based upon the bestselling novel by Dan Brown. Tom Hanks reprises his role as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, who once again finds that forces with ancient roots will stop at nothing, even murder, to advance their goals. Ron Howard returns to direct the film, which is produced by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and John Calley. The screenplay is by David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman.

Director Ron Howard again teamed with composer Hans Zimmer for the Angels & Demons score. This film score required an entirely different musical approach than the score for The Da Vinci Code. Zimmer found ways to make the music as agile and kinetic as Robert Langdon’s firing synapses, He used, for example, a chamber group instead of a traditional orchestra to create that sense of action.

Since Angels & Demons is equally about religion and science, Zimmer represents religion with the combination of orchestra and chorus and used electronics to denote science. As he put together the orchestra for the recording, Zimmer sought out the best and hired violinist Joshua Bell. Says Zimmer, “Joshua played like an angel with his violin framed by the contrasting starkness of the electronics. He added such beauty and grace to the music, and such depth to the characters. He is an extraordinary artist.”

Howard says, “There’s nothing formulaic about the way Hans thinks about the score,” adding that Zimmer’s music always “suits the sound that the film calls for.” In this case, Zimmer echoed the cinematic theme of hidden meanings by playing a musical game. As a nod to the symbologist character, Zimmer hid a five-note musical ambigram in the score. Whether or not anyone figures it out remains to be seen, but one thing is certain; as Howard says: Zimmer is “a fantastic storyteller.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In ...
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

Teaching Composition – What are we trying to achieve

By -
In the process of learning composition I have spent time with a number of instructors who have encouraged me to write twelve-tone, pitch-class, electro-acoustic and other forms of experimental techniques. No matter how much I might understand and appreciate the work of other composers in the genres, these are not forms of music I resonate with. They are simply not forms of music I listen to and I struggle with the idea of writing them. However, in a Master Class by Libby Larsen she made the comment, “Learn them all, because all forms of music have something to offer.” This I very much agree. There are elements of each of the above mentioned forms (and others) that I do resonate with. Berg’s Violin Concerto is a beautiful twelve-tone work, although it is possible to look at numerous sections of the music with a “tonal” analysis. Another composer friend, Gary Bachlund commented that using these techniques can narrow the choices for how to compose a piece of work. If you look at ...
Read more