It's a tall order to compile the best classical music of the twentieth century, but EMI has selected its top 100 classics for this six-disc set, and it's difficult to argue with most of the choices. Without taking sides in the great ideological debates of the modern era – traditionalist vs. avant-garde, tonal vs. atonal, styles vs. schools, and so on – the label has picked the composers whose reputations seem most secure at the turn of the twenty-first century and has chosen representative excerpts of their music. Certainly, the titans of modernism are here, such as Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Béla Bartók, Dmitry Shostakovich, Sergey Prokofiev, Claude Debussy, and Benjamin Britten, to name just a few masters, but they don't cast such a large shadow that they eclipse either their more backward-looking predecessors or their more experimental successors.
The type of warm, sophisticated jazz-inflected pop/rock proffered by Bruce Hornsby & the Range was probably the last thing anyone expected to find at the top of the charts in the late '80s. Yet Hornsby, with his virtuosic piano playing and mature song craftsmanship, placed six consecutive singles into the Top 40 between 1986 and 1990, among them the number one "The Way It Is" and the equally solid "Mandolin Rain" and "The Valley Road," both of which reached the Top Five. Hornsby's career has taken many turns in the two decades since his first appearance, and while his commercial fortunes have dissipated, his willingness to grow as a musician, to dodge stagnation, has only expanded. That's what Intersections 1985-2005 is all about…
Pianist Denny Zeitlin has the distinction—among many others—of having written one of the loveliest of loves songs: "Love Theme From Invasion of the Bodysnatchers." The tune can be heard in its unadorned beauty on Zeitlin's Precipice (Sunnyside Records, 2010), the recording of an extraordinarily beautiful and adventurous solo concert. The original version of the tune, from the soundtrack of the 1978 movie, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1978)—a masterful remake of the classic 1954 science fiction film—was Zeitlin's lone effort at writing for film. Hired originally to do a "jazz" score, Zeitlin found it necessary—when plans changed—to convince the powers-that-be that he was indeed capable of writing music for symphony orchestra and electronics—the then-new-on-the scene synthesizers.
"A Most Wanted Man: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" (26 tracks; 48 min.) brings the orchestral score of the movie, composed by well-known German musician Herbert Grönemeyer. "Opening Theme" sets the tone for the entire movie: a gentle accordion is interrupted by menacing-sounding violins, with a sense of dread for what is to come. "Annabel Meets Issa" brings a dream-like, dare I say romantic, sound (the tension between Annabel and Issa is one of the main themes of the movie)…
With Mott the Hoople, guitarist/vocalist Ian Hunter established himself as one of the toughest and most inventive hard rock songwriters of the early '70s, setting the stage for punk rock with his edgy, intelligent songs. As a solo artist, Hunter never attained the commercial heights of Mott the Hoople, but he cultivated a dedicated cult following.