Customer Reviews

The Hours (Score)

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I must admit to not being very familiar with Philip Glass' music, although being a movie fan I'm sure that I've heard him before. Sitting through the monumental film, "The Hours", you realize that this music is a flawless marriage of screen and soundtrack, and immediately, after the film ended, I found myself in the nearest music store, soundtrack in hand.

"The Hours" weaves a complex tale of the seemingly intermingled lives of three complex women, all dealing with various internal crises at significant points of their lives. Virginia Woolf, Clarissa Vaughn, and Laura Brown lives orbit around each other, as each feels their lives are insignificant, yet their significance reigns supreme around the lives of the other, hidden, deep, penetrating.

A film of this calibar requires an equally complex, moving score, and Glass not only provides it, but inspires the movie. Each piece illuminates and frames each scene without imperfection. In the theater, you sit in awe at the methodical action on the screen as your ears hear the fluid, grand movements and it's as if Glass is reading the mind of the audience scoring the movie as you think it should be. It is impossible to imagine this movie without the music, and the music without the movie.

While it is impossible for me to select a favorite piece among all of them, for this is a soundtrack which each pieces lends autheticity to the next, I must profess a love for the second track, "Morning Passage". There is a section towards the end of that piece when I was listening to it, I literally stopped what I was doing and listened intently, and then replayed it several times before continuing, a very strange act indeed.

I highly recommend this work: the emotional depth and honesty, the sadness and enlightment it provides is truly revolutionary.

His music inspired the movie-literally. Michael Cunningham, the author of The Hours, was inspired by Glass in the writing of this novel and adeptly describes his influence in the leaflet of this soundtrack.

To begin with- he breaks all the rules. I bought the piano sheet music to "Dead Things" and where I naturally felt I should crescendo, he purposely demands pianississimo- very, very quiet. He purposely silences the most moving elements, as if to say "wait. just feel it first- dont take it."

I hate when people think his music is plain - if one understands music, they know that his work is composed of silk-thin layers of delicated melodies- triplets with one hand, doublets with the other. For those of you out there that dont read music, try to divide a second into 3 equal time frames and tap that beat with your left hand. Then take the same second and divide it into 2 equal time frames and tap that beat at the same time with your right hand. Intuitively, its difficult to do. This is his trademark- he forces musicians to play against their intuition.

As another example, try to tap your pinky and middle finger at the same time. Then tap your ring finger and thumb at the same time. Now alternate quickly. Try to do it for 5 minutes and when you have got that down- do it with your other hand. But use different fingers. And do that 3-2 ratio beat thing.

Confusing? I would certainly think so.

It seems as if such a product could only be made by an eccentric and unyielding mathematician- but when you listen, it has a depth of emotional delicacy that could only be compared to trying to hold onto something you truly love over the edge of the world, with a gradually thinning silver string.

I guess what Im saying is- pay the 10, 15 bucks. Its worth it.

"The Hours" tells the story of three women in three different time periods -- 1923, 1951, and 2001. Their stories are interwoven exquisitely, and arch together in a profound, moving fashion. It is the best film of 2002. The score, composed by Philip Glass, tells the story of that story in such a beautiful way that, without it, the film would be a lesser entity, devoid of part of its essence.

This is like listening to a symphony, in 14 Movements. Having seen the film, this score will have quite a bit of meaning to you, but even if you haven't seen the movie, the score will should still resonate. It could easily be a stand-alone classical music piece. The tracks all have a similar sound, but yet, are uniquely different. This is a sad score, for it is a (mostly) sad film. Track 3, titled "Something She Has To Do", is probably my favorite. So somber, so moving.

Philip Glass has received an Oscar nomination for his score for "The Hours". It is well-deserved. His use of strings and piano are excellent. His ability to capture the feeling of the film is top notch. I can't recommend this score, or the movie it was written for, enough. The booklet which accompanies this music is quite comprehensive, featuring an introduction by Michael Cunningham, author of "The Hours", and then a description of the three women in each of the time periods covered in the movie.

As a remembrance of the movie, or as a piece of music all its own, the score to "The Hours" is a sumptuous aural experience that should be treasured for the great achievement that it is.

a lush, mournful feeling all its own. The soundtrack to Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters (1985 Film) has long been one of my favorite CDs by Philip Glass. The Kronos Quartet delivered a richly emotional performance then that finally revealed the emotional potential of Glass's compositions. With The Hours, the Lyric Quartet and Michael Riesman deliver in the same vein.

I bought this because it was the latest from PG. So I haven't seen the movie and can't comment on how it works for the movie. But I can say with all candor that listening to this soundtrack has given me a powerful desire to see the film. Something that I wouldn't have imagined ever wanting to do.

There are some recycled bits of music in this soundtrack (notably from Satyagraha), but even that track is transformed from a largely choral piece to a purely instrumental one and benefits thereby.

For those whose only exposure to PG is Glass: Einstein on the Beach (1993 Recording) (ugh) or Koyaanisqatsi (1998 Re-recording), this will be a pleasant surprise. The tone is warm and emotional, the pace langorous rather than forced.

Judged purely as a composition, The Hours will be placed as a footnote in the PG canon. Little, if any, new ground is broken. But I can't say it enough - this is passionate, powerful music that is moving and eminently listenable. I know I've already listened to it more than anything I've heard in the last six months.

The Philip Glass score was an essential part of the film.
Yet the music really stands on its own with this CD. The Hours is a kinder and gentler Glass that is accessible to people who are new to his music. For those of us who are hard core Glass fans, this CD is also a joy because its so beautiful. The piano solos are my favorite. I really think Glass should win the academy award for this score.

"The Hours" is a compelling drama involving the lives of three women in three cities in three decades and are somehow connected to the novel "Mrs. Dalloway." Throughout this universally acclaimed movie, we are guided through a myriad of themes including depression, suicide, child abandonment, AIDS, broken relationships, and physical illness. Hardly a feel good movie of the Disney variety, but it's a wonderful adaptation of the Michael Cunningham book that excels on the strength of its award-calibre performances. Now, I don't profess to be a guru of classical music, nor do I pretend to be terribly familiar with the work of Philip Glass. But I do know an excellent score when I hear one, and "The Hours" is such a score. The music is as much a character as the other cast members, and it adds emotional impact and depth to the film's more powerful scenes. "Morning Passages" is a beautifully composed piano number, while "For Your Own Benefit" and "The Poet Acts" are also strikingly good. You don't necessarily need to see "The Hours" to appreciate this CD (though it would certainly help), but this is one of the most elegant pieces of instrumental music I've heard in a while. It won an Academy Award nomination for Best Score, and it's very easy to see why.

While I don't count myself an expert in regard to the Minimalist school, if one can call it that, I've had enough exposure to it to have become accustomed to what most people hear as endless repetition. For most this makes minimalism very dull, but for me the emotional content of the music of composers such as Steve Reich, John Adams, and, of course, Philip Glass arcs above the repetition and has a more subtle but perhaps even more powerful impact than does the emotion of the music of Beethoven and Mozart, for example.

Philip Glass is one of the leading composers working in the minimalist idiom. He has scored a number of films, most of them art films (with some exceptions like Candyman). The vast majority of his compositions take patience that most don't have; the subtlety of his music tends to escape one if one isn't focused entirely on the music's flow. The score to The Hours is different. It is still repetitive in its way and it has all the hallmarks of Glass' style, most notably the arpeggiated "melodic" lines and a dark, brooding stone. However, there is more variety in this score than in most of Glass' other music, and this makes it much more easily accesible than, say, Einstein on the Beach. The conciseness of each small vignette makes this album easy to listen to, and the treatment of the piano lines make the music ache with beauty.

I highly recommend this soundtrack as an opening to Glass' work and as an emotional experience. It may take some patience that other forms of classical music don't, but if you can fit yourself inside the repetition it is one of the most rewarding albums you'll ever listen to.

I don't usually buy soundtracks, but this one I had to have since the movie was so great. "The Hours" soundtrack reminds me of various scenes in the movie, but this music is strong enough to stand on its own. I think that even people who haven't seen the movie will find this music as deceptively simple -- and therefore, powerful -- as I did. The fourteen tracks, or sections, clearly form a unified musical experience without all sounding alike. Especially memorable are the strings that pulse and throb, reflecting the emotional turmoil in the characters. In general, I find this music to be evocative, introspective, haunting, and very, very accessible. I heard and liked some of the music as I watched the movie, but I appreciate being able to focus on the music alone through the CD -- without the actors and the situations "taking over" the music and dividing my attention. The best selections are "Morning Passages," which plays as the camera cuts back and forth among the three women as they prepare for their day, "For Your Own Benefit," and "Escape!" I was not familiar with much of Glass' music before this -- I had heard one symphony of his, I think the Symphony #5 -- but this soundtrack immediately attracted and enveloped me while seeing the movie, and still does. This soundtrack is modern music, as current as it gets, and it's terrific.

Phillip Glass is such a prolific, accomplished composer that he is actually the Beethoven of our time. He has already composed brilliant music, such as the scores to such films as Tod Browning's "Dracula"(Bela Lugosi version), Cocteau' "Beauty and the Beast" of which he also composed an opera of, the documentary "Anima Mundi" and the mysterious, mystic symphonies.

Phillip Glass has composed elegant chamber music, and makes use of this in The Hours, as well as the twentieth century music technique of minimalism. The Hours is scored for a chamber orchestra, violins and a piano. The music perfectly captures the haunting, reflective, serious nature of the film. After all, the film, based on Michael Cunningham's book, is a tragedy containing pain and struggles, death and the less romantic but life-affirming aspects of reality. Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) commits suicide by drowning herself in a river after a lifetime of feeling herself an outsider, Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep) feels the pain of her husband's suicide, an Aids victim and poet and Laura Brown (Juliann Moore) is a troubled woman who abandons her family.

Especially striking are the opening "The Poet Acts" and "Morning Passages", but the score seems to be more expressive, more dark in "Why Does Someone Have To Die ?" and in the final segment "The Hours". The haunting piano passages almost recalls Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata- a haunting three notes that become variations. Three is a significant number in the film because we are watching, to quote the film, "the lives of three women in a single day, and in that day, her whole life".

The climatic scene of Virginia Woolf's suicide in the river is accompanied by appropriately somber music and seem to echo even her last words which she wrote to her husband and publisher Leonard, "Always the years between us, always, the hours".I thought the music was the best from the movies and encourage its purchase and addition to your collection.

I've been a film score lover for ages, and I'm still amazed with every new release from those classical composers such as John Williams, Elmer Bernstein, Thomas Newman and Philip Glass. The Director Stephen Dladry couldn't have done a better choice than this - a composer that really know how to compose about how time pass us by, or better, The Hours. He has done marvellous compositions on his previous scores about this theme on such films as "Koyaanisqatsi", "Powaqqatsi" and "Naqoiqatsi".
But this time he outdid himself in original, touching, breathtaking and heartbreaking compositions, every single note is ispiring and reachs the very bottom of your soul bringing feeling sometimes similar of the main characters themselves. The highlight is obviously the piano, which fits perfectly in each theme and flows in a light yet deep way.
The best tracks are defenetly "Morning Passages" and "The Hours" which are worth the value of this purchase alone.
Go ahead and check it out to see Philip Glass in his own particular way of bringing emotion of the movie to every single space in your heart and soul.