Casanova (2005 Lasse Hallstrom film) [Soundtrack]

Alexandre Desplat (Composer), Jean-Philippe Rameau (Composer), Antonio Vivaldi (Composer), Giovanni Paisiello (Composer), Vicente Martin y Soler (Composer), Leonardo Leo (Composer), Francesco Durante (Composer), Tomaso Albinoni (Composer), Sonny Kompanek (Composer), Michael Novack (Conductor) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Conductor: Michael Novack
• Composer: Alexandre Desplat, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Antonio Vivaldi, Giovanni Paisiello, Vicente Martin y Soler, et al.
• Audio CD (December 20, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Label: Hollywood Records
• ASIN: B000BYR9YK
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #164,672 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The action in this tale about the 18th century adventurer and (at least in popular lore) seducer is set in Cassanova's native Venice in the mid-1700s, so it makes sense that the soundtrack would be loaded with Baroque pieces. The Venice-based Tomaso Albinoni is featured prominentaly, along with heavyweights such as Antonio Vivaldi, Jean-Baptiste Rameau, and George Frideric Handel, and lesser-known composers such as Arcangelo Corelli, Francesco Durante, and Alexandre Desplat. Er, actually Desplat is a contemporary French film composer who also released his score for the couldn't-be-more-different Syriana shortly after Casanova came out. Of the two pieces he penned here, "A Venetian Virgin" is in pure Baroque style, while "Inquisitor Pucci" betrays a more modern film-music vibe. Meanwhile, orchestrator Sonny Kompanek rearranged a couple of the tracks and authored the tense "The Plume's Nom Is Casanova," which doesn't sound embarrassing sandwiched between pieces by Albinoni and Handel. Overall, it would have been nice to get longer excerpts from the pieces--many feel chopped into too-small fragments--but the music's innate grace and elegance can't be beat for a period film. Or for any film, really: Vivaldi's Concerto in C Major ("The Doge's Decree") will be familiar to buffs, who will remember it featuring prominently in the Dustin Hoffman-¬Meryl Streep showdown Kramer vs. Kramer back in 1979. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Authenticity can sound great as well!, July 11, 2006

By 

Tromba Prima (Elgin, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Casanova (2005 Lasse Hallstrom film) (Audio CD)

As an avid baroque music listener and performer, I can attest to the delightfully pleasing performances on the soundtrack as well as the painstakingly accurate performance practices utilized in the recording of this soundtrack.

The producers of this film fortunately went to the trouble of hiring some of the top period performance musician-specialists in the country (perhaps in the entire world) to record the soundtrack to Casanova. I know, because several of them were faculty members of the Oberlin Conservatory Baroque Performance Institute who went AWOL to Hollywood in June 2005 for the recording sessions. We all forgave them, and were actually quite excited that period music performance was having its day on the silver screen.

Do not miss this exquisite potpourri of wonderful baroque composers' works performed as closely as humanly possible to the way that they heard their works during their lifetimes! The film may not have been intended to be historically accurate (part of the fun), but the music certainly ended up that way. Not only that, but it sounds heavenly (unlike Casanova's antics) and up-to-date, not musty and old as if it were sealed in a museum case.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sheer Beauty for the Ears, July 24, 2006

By 

James C Smith (MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Casanova (2005 Lasse Hallstrom film) (Audio CD)

For those that purchased this CD, I need not get into how masterfully infectious the movie was. After the first viewing, I found it charming, but after the second, I was hooked by the witty, clever story holding fun twists all along the way. So while I could go on and on about the movie and all of its wonderful aspects, the score was simply priceless. Apt in every scene, and all done with incredible baroque music that I had never had the opportunity of hearing before the film.

The disc walks you through the movie with no changes that I could tell from the original score. The only omission I found was that the song dubbed "Casanova's Theme" is played in much greater length in the closing credits, and that didn't seem to make it to the CD. Not a terrible loss.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a little world of baroque sound, February 25, 2006

By 

John W. Ridder (Las Vegas, New Mexico USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Casanova (2005 Lasse Hallstrom film) (Audio CD)

Lots of interesting baroque music unknown to me and
put together in dramatic sequences that add zest and
class to the listening experience. Also wonderful to
play in auto while driving thru boring country or in
slow moving traffic!
This CD will get a lot of play from me.
5 Stars!