After listening this record, that collects the music of two movies directed by Fernando Trueba (one of them, Belle Epoque, winning of the Oscar Academy Ward for Best Foreign Film), the listener has very clear, that the same as Trueba submerges us in luminosity and roguish in the case of Belle Epoque, and among gloom and distress in El Sueño del Mono Loco through the pictures, Antoine Duhamel makes the same from the score. In the case of Belle Epoque (1992), Duhamel develops themes filled with happiness and festivity, that go from the influences of Ravel and his famous Bolero to the most typical Spanish of Falla or Granados. It is precisely in these carnaval melodies, in which the French composer (and occasional collaborator of François Truffaut) fully succeed, while in other more incidental the composition turned more insipid and irrelevant. In El Sueño del Mono Loco (The Mad Monkey, 1989) occurs exactly the opposite, developing themes with a much more rich and subtle elaboration. And while in the first, what was interesting was to emphasize the appeased and jovial tone of the movie, in this last the intention of the composer is to portray the tormented and obsessive soul of the protagonist (the popular American actor Jeff Goldblum), and for this, the musician bases his orchestration in strings and winds, on their lowest registers, what converts it into an obscure and disquieting score (with some reference to Bernard Herrmann), distressing and dark (like the style of Howard Shore). Thus since, only left to wait that the mutual collaboration between the Spanish director and the Gallic musician keeps flowing -in spite of the American interlude of Two Much (1996)-, and which we rely it give us in a future more than interesting results. R.M.

/ MILAN 27931-2 / 73'