Soundtracks

Egisto Macchi has written two very good musical scores for two movies telling events of human history, filled with big drama and pain: “THE TROTSKY ASSASSINATION” directed by Joseph Losey in 1972 and “THE MATTEOTTI MURDER” directed by Florestano Vancini in 1973. All the Contemporary side of Egisto Macchi’s music powerfully explodes in these two scores, as complex and effective results of his work as a member of NUOVA CONSONANZA, a musical school touching the roots of “TROTSKY” and “MATTEOTTI” Both scores are recorded here for the first time. It gives Soundtracks collectors and music buffs a chance to enter a new and fascinating world, where orchestra and extraordinary electronic sounds are joined.

This two-fer release from Varèse Sarabande pairs two of the more influential and interesting horror soundtracks of the slasher-film era. Charles Bernstein's score to Wes Craven's 1985 slasher cult classic A Nightmare on Elm Street is very much a product of its time, eschewing traditional orchestral approaches while employing state-of-the-art synthesizers and sound effects to convey the horror of Craven's suburban dreamscapes. Bernstein's unsettling cues utilize technology to strong effect, creating sinister atmospheres that effortlessly communicate the threat posed by the film's ghoulish antagonist, Freddy Krueger. The inorganic, dehumanized tones produced by the composer's synthesizers underscore the narrative's detachment from waking reality. That said, taken on its own terms the music is more than a little dated. While the best Hollywood scores boast a timelessness that transcends their origins, A Nightmare on Elm Street is immediately recognizable as a product of the mid-'80s, and whether that's a positive or a negative is left to the listener to determine.

Carter Burwell's darkly mysterious orchestrations play a significant stylistic role in both Barton Fink and Fargo, two of the best films from acclaimed independent filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, particularly in light of the oft-violent content of the Coens' stories: violence can of course be laughable when the characters are too goofy to be believed, and tragic when the characters are too believable to be goofy, but the Coen brothers' creations are somewhere in between. They strike a precarious balance between a broadly comic Beckett-esque absurdism and a more straightforward, three-dimensional naturalism. Consequently, Burwell's grave, sweeping scores are a crucial reassurance that the Coens are not taking their characters' personal tragedies less seriously than are their audiences.