Double Life Veronique

Hector Berlioz, France’s greatest Romantic composer, exemplifies the spirit of his age – yet his genius was also ahead of its time. Reflecting his colourful life, his music is astonishing for its originality and ambition, and for orchestration of groundbreaking brilliance. This, the first-ever complete Berlioz edition, comprises carefully selected recordings and even includes works completely new to the catalogue. The accompanying booklet, lavishly illustrated, contains a fascinating commentary from Berlioz biographer David Cairns, whose words bring the composer’s music still more vividly to life.

Preisner's scoring for films have been very successful with "The Double Life Of Veronika", and three albums of scores for "Three Colours Blue, White and Red", some reaching Platinum CD status by Poland's musical standards… another outstanding score was "The Last September", based on a novel by Elizabeth Bowen and brought to the screen by director Hector Babenco, beautiful and compelling music, and the unforgettable Agnieszka Holland's "Secret Garden". Let us look at the soundtrack at hand–-"ABERDEEN", from writer/director Hans Petter Moland finds our characters on the road to Aberdeen in Scotland… storyline is between father and daughter regarding their reconciliation as the prepare to visit her dying mother… the big surprise is her father may not really be her father. Preisner captures the tone and mood of Moland's screenplay, with piano solo (Leszek Mozdzer) of a lingering theme, interwoven at times with the voice of Stina Nordenstam… create feelings of dreamlike drifting…mesmerizing counter-melodies featuring John Parricelli (guitar)… completely enters your body and soul.

The ten one-hour Dekalog films are set around the same modern Warsaw apartment building. Each film deals with a theme - love, marriage, infidelity, parenthood, guilt, faith, compassion - exploring the relevance of one of the Ten Commandments, showing how people deal with moral dilemma in their everyday lives. The soundtrack for nine of the ten Dekalog films marks the point where the creative relationship and friendship between Preisner and Kieslowski first flowered and contains the seeds of much of Preisner's later work. (Kieslowski and Preisner decided that Dekalog X would not require an original music score). The music was recorded by Zbigniew Malecki and Aleksander Dowsilas at Radiowy Dom Sztuki Studio, Katowice.