Beau Soir
Emmanuel Pahud (Flute), Mariko Anraku (Harp)
EMI Classics 5 57739 2 0
Listening to this CD, you feel it's no coincidence that Mozart wrote his Concerto for Flute and Harp in Paris. The particular combination of instruments feels distinctly French, a sense certainly derived from the music of Debussy, but perhaps going back much further. Be that as it may, this attractive CD is devoted to French and Japanese music for the two instruments. It's beautifully recorded, and if you listen to it while eating dinner you may well enjoy the illusion that you are some minor Central Asian potentate of yore being entertained in his carpeted tent by a private duo, ready to bow out at the wave of a princely hand. Many of the items inevitably have been adapted from pieces written for different instruments.
Master and Commander
Original Sound Track
Decca 475 398-2
There's quite a lot of classical and traditional Irish music on this evocative Original Sound Track, as those who remember Russel Crowe and Paul Bettany miming playing duets in the captain's cabin in the film will expect. Irish fiddle, pipe and drum numbers also feature prominently, with Richard Tognetti, one of the score's composers, himself on violin on these occasions. The film was strong on using music that was current in the Napoleonic Wars era, together with specially composed atmospheric material. Consequently you have short extracts from Bach, Corelli and Mozart. The extraordinary thing, though, is that the most catchy tune of all, and the one that in the event was used to end the movie, was not a specially composed item but an arrangement of a Spanish-style piece by the 18th century composer Luigi Boccherini (track 14).
This is, all in all, a very attractive product.
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