Not few composers would have failed in a way or another writing the score of The Hi-Lo Country; the own Burwell could even have been terrifyingly comedian if it had followed letter by letter the indications of Stephen Frears that requested him to compose a soundtrack at the style of Dimitri Tiomkin. Fortunately, Burwell maintained the poise and knew how to convince the director that the movie required a treatment, although not very different, something subtler. This way, although certain segments of the work have to do in certain way with the style of Tiomkin -the main title (The Cattle Drive , On To California ) that takes back the whole epic and flavor of the old westerns, and the use of leitmotivs-, a great quantity of their pages gives homage to the Jerry Fielding of Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo García (1974), mainly the theme for acoustic guitar and Spanish guitar that he associates with the character of Woody Harrelson, Big Boy, and the ethnic passage of Silver Springs -that which is not casual, because the film has a strong Peckinpah aroma-. The search of that curled atmosphere that it must reflect the important transitions that leave gestating in the movie and the musical study of the geographical beauty of New Mexico melt convincingly in a score with epic affections, but wisely controlled by the composer that practices the composition of a nostalgic and twilight music, resuscitating the old sounds of the cowboys land and at the same time applying a certainly avant-garde musical writing that knows how to keep the distances with the style of Tiomkin, deriving everything it in an extremely poetic and beautiful score. Point out, lastly, that the almost twenty-five minutes of Burwell's score are completed with a series of songs. D.R.C.

/ TVT SOUNDTRAX TVT8290-2 / 54'

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