Alexandre Desplat Albums (7)
What The Critics Say
For the children's fantasy adventure The Golden Compass, Alexandre Desplat delivers his most sweeping score to date -- this is music rich in ideas, approaches, and textures, and if at times it moves in too many opposing directions, it nevertheless derives consistency from the depth and purity of the composer's vision. Desplat's bold, richly appointed melodies are ideally matched to the symphonic grandeur of the arrangements -- the action themes crackle with energy and suspense, and even the more intimate moments benefit from the larger-than-life scale, underlining the epic drama of the onscreen narrative. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
'Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium'
Release Date 11/13/2007
Tracks 37
Label Varese Sarabande
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What The Critics Say
The score for the 2007 children's fantasy Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium teams composers Alexandre Desplat and Aaron Zigman, a yin-yang proposition that pairs the darker, more raucous sensibilities of the former and the lighter, more heart-tugging approach of the latter to fine effect. Although the liner notes fail to delineate which composer wrote what, it's fairly obvious that the more fantastical cues belong to Desplat and the more ethereal themes to Zigman, and given the limited stylistic and emotional palette of most contemporary film scores, the extremes of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium make for a refreshing change of pace. That being said, however, the individual themes originate from such different perspectives that the score as a whole lacks cohesion -- at nearly one hour in length, it's a sometimes frustrating listening experience, and much less than the sum of its myriad parts. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
French composer Alexandre Desplat, who took on an assignment to score a period Asian drama with The Painted Veil, returns to the same sort of milieu for director Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, set in Shanghai in the 1940s. Desplat has no interest in evoking traditional Chinese music; rather, his is a thoroughly European approach. He employs almost all strings and lots of them, adding only the occasional piano, his own flute, and "programming." This is slow, contemplative music with strong melodies, all contributing to a dark, romantic tone. Alain Planes' performance of Brahms' "Intermezzo in A-Major, Opus 118, No. 2" fits right in, and, surprisingly, Lee himself takes to the piano on "Nanjing Road." This is a restrained, low-key score for a film of mystery and naunced feeling. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'Jacques Audiard'
Release Date 1/30/2007
Tracks 21
Label Silva America
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What The Critics Say
As far as most American filmgoers are concerned, Alexandre Desplat came out of the blue with his Golden Globe-nominated score to Girl with a Pearl Earring in 2003 and right onto the Hollywood A-list of composers who do the music for as many as three or four big-budget movies a year (in 2005, The Upside of Anger, Hostage, Casanova, and Syriana; in 2006, Firewall, The Queen, and The Painted Veil). But Desplat had a résumé of more than 50 European features before he started turning up regularly in U.S. multiplexes, and fans of film music can begin to catch up with this album, containing music for four films directed by Jacques Audiard that use Desplat's cues. That's Desplat's entire output: Regarde les Hommes Tomber (See How They Fall; 1994), Un Héros Très Discret (A Self-Made Hero, 1996), Sur Mes Lèvres (Read My Lips, 2002), and De Battre Mon Coeur S'est Arrêté (The Beat That My Heart Skipped, 2005). The music shows a development from the inventive and playful See How They Fall, in which Desplat (who says this "is the movie in which I started to show myself and take some risks") must make do with a relatively small orchestra and does some interesting things with accordion, to A Self-Made Hero, in which the pizzicato strings mix with acoustic guitar, and on to the more formal later films, particularly the lengthy suite from The Beat That My Heart Skipped, a remake of James Toback's Fingers about a young man trying to decide between a career as a concert pianist and a life of crime. The last score, composed the same year as some of Desplat's Hollywood features, is closer to a typical mainstream effort, though still with its striking passages. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'The Painted Veil'
Release Date 1/9/2007
Tracks 19
Label Deutsche Grammophon
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What The Critics Say
Alexandre Desplat's score for director John Curran's film adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham novel The Painted Veil, about a British couple who travel to China in the 1920s, is not specifically Oriental in tone. But it does have a sense of reserve and a contemplative feel much of the time. The dominant soloist is young Chinese classical pianist Lang Lang, although Vincent Segal's electric cello is also given generous solo space. Desplat provides a lovely "River Waltz," played both orchestrally and as a piano piece by Lang. "The Water Wheel" is a percussion-heavy cue with Desplat himself contributing. (He also plays flutes, piano, and keyboards himself on the soundtrack.) "Cholera," a cue coming toward the film's climax, has the repetitive rhythm of a Philip Glass piece, but that's as assertive as Desplat gets in a score that manages to maintain a mood simultaneously restrained and ominous. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'The Luzhin Defence'
Release Date 10/2/2000
Tracks 17
Label Silva Screen
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What The Critics Say
Director Marleen Gorris' The Luzhin Defence is a tale of illicit and tragic love set against an international chess match played at the Italian Lakes in the late '20s. Thus, composer Alexandre Desplat, conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, had the task of providing musical accompaniment to two kinds of conflict: romantic and intellectual. He does so with a score that alternates between lush sections full of long melodic lines and sharp passages of quickly played, percussive notes. On the one hand, his music is full of feeling; on the other, it seems meant to accompany complicated analysis. On a soundtrack album, that makes for sounds that can be soothing one moment, stimulating the next. Despite the dichotomy, the music is of a piece, except for the intrusion of "Waltz No. 2 From Jazz Suite No. 2" by Dimitri Shostakovich (played by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Paul Bateman), which for some reason appears twice on the album. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
