Customer Reviews

Sylvia [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

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

 

 

A moody, atmospheric score by Gabriel Yared to accompany the woeful "Mental Illness Lite" treatment in the 2003 Plath biopic. Yared's beautiful main theme and accompanying cuts are far superior to his concurrent Cold Mountain background score. A winner that unfortunately will be overlooked because of higher-profile Cold Mountain as well as this misguided filmed attempt at seriousness.

If you like to invest in 45 minutes of tender and sad music, this is one you should try. The use of strings is pervasive and carries the melancholy and sadness very well. The piano's role is minimalistic, almost monodic; very appropriate. There are hardly any long, memorable melodies, but rather phrases that are treated in different ways and linger (something most gfilm composers do, as a matter of fact). Forty five minutes for a CD might seem short value nowadays, but with this music, it is just about perfect.

I have heard this only once, but suspect it might grow with repeated hearings. Even if the subject matter is tragic, this is not tragic music, rather, it is full of sadness, tenderness, poetry and no self-pity; as it should be.

Ah, Sylvia Plath; what a tragic figure she was, but how current and compelling.

It's a beautiful score that I often listen to when writing. I only wish Gabriel Yared would compose more scores as enjoyable as this one is.