Is John Ottman better editor that musician?. Right now is difficult to answer since Ottman has not yet been lavished much in both fields, and though his labor is commendable in this movie (above all in the editing -attention to the scenes in the hospital-), he will have quite a lot of things to demonstrate yet; what is considerable is the definition of a style that with each work earns more nuances and loses more references. Even though the soundtrack composed for Apt Pupil has a strong effectism, something, by the way, totally legitimate if take into account the nature of most of the scenes, in the same way is let to feel an intelligent use of the music to express the mutation of Todd (Brad Renfro) and the consequences that this generates. Grubbing the wrong pleasure with that ironical and risky Hebrew introduction of the basic subject at charge of a violin solo, then amplified by the percussion and the choirs (Main Titles), Ottman impresses on those disquieting initial images the tragic principal theme that symbolizes the transformation of the young protagonist, orchestrated from a weak ostinato in the harp, that suggests the illusory manipulation that Todd believes he is submitting the nazi Kurt Dussander (immeasurable Ian McKellen), and that then introduces the laden principal theme with fatalism that is associated with the real manipulation, that one which is suffering the own Todd. For extension the theme, with those ominous choirs, recreates the infernal suffering of the condemned in Jadwiga or Auschwitz, with that sort of kaddish that pretends the analogy that is established between hic character and the thousands of Jews that suffered the tortures and the hideous crimes of that monster called Dussander; in this sense seems that the Requiem would be a warning, a conspiracy from beyond the grave whose purpose is to avoid that Todd crosses the door for which the nazi invites him to happen, and that will convert him into a malicious and obscure being, created by the matter from which Dussander is constituted. Such and as asserts Ottman in an interview conceded to the magazine "Soundtrack" (Vol.17, nš 67), there is no two musical themes that identify respectively to the two main characters of the movie, but only a theme that defines both through the instrumentation; at the beginning for the nazi (Main Titles, shaded by the introduction of a short and obscure military march) and finally to Todd (End Titles, that begun with a short and triomphal waltz that pretends that Todd has completed his "training" at Dussander's side). Thus, throughout the score, Ottman is going threshing the rich melody and granting it multiple nuances that allude that the spiritual mutation process is completed with the incorporation of the popular song Das Ist Berlin. So we find ourselves in front of the more involved and complex of Ottman's scores, perhaps the most arid of all he has composed and, as himself recognizes, the most difficult to listening outside the context for which has been created. With all, an interesting soundtrack. D.R.C.

/ RCA VICTOR 09026-63319-2 / 46'