Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email


2016 May 09 • Monday

The 412th Soundtrack of the Week is the first from one of our favorite composers: Zbigniew Preisner and his score for Blue.

Preisner's music for Blue, the first of Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colors" trilogy, is rich and handsome, alternatingly restrained and bursting with expression.

The three movies are named for the colors of the French flag and what those colors signify. For Blue it's Liberty, and the story concerns the widow of a recently deceased composer and the attendant strains of liberty that she experiences.

I haven't seen this movie since it came out almost 25 years ago but I remember being impressed by the music. In the case of Blue, the music is especially important as one of the composer's pieces is a threaded through the film. (I remember that there was at least an implication that the composer's wife was the one who had actually written the music while her husband received the credit. I'd like to see the movie again to verify this.)

This was my first encounter with Preisner and his beautiful, haunting and lyrical approach to melody and atmosphere. Debussy and Satie come to mind as I listen to his work.

The full orchestra cues, which are generally, as I recall, for the famous composer's magnum opus, are impressive but not as pleasurable as the delicately poignant and longing cues Preisner came up with for just a few instruments.