John Corigliano enjoys a high reputation among contemporary composers, and many of his works are regular repertoire in major concert halls around the world, mainly orchestral, chamber music and opera. For example, the Dylan Thomas Trilogy and the Ghost of Versailles, based on the poetry of the famous poet Dylan Thomas, are large-scale classical orchestral works that attracted attention in the 1990s; the First Symphony is now regarded as the most important symphony of our time.
Like other composers dedicated to serious music, John Corigliano rarely dabbled in film soundtracks, and among his few soundtracks, "The Red Violin" is best known, which also earned him an Oscar.
The film was directed by the unknown Francois Girard. Previously, his only impressive work was Gould's 32 Short Films, and like the later Damien Chazelet, he seemed to have a particular preference for films with musical themes.
The success of "Red Violin" is largely due to the wonderful collaboration of Corigliano and violin master Joshua Bell. It is worth mentioning that Bell once collaborated with the bass fiddler Edgar Meyer on the crossover album "Short Trip Home", in which the title song of the same name was later widely adopted by major domestic television stations, including the media, but many people mistakenly believed that it was the work of Yo-Yo Ma.
Below, let's follow the track clues of the soundtrack to see how Corigliano and Bell interpreted this legendary musical story.
Anna, the wife of violin maker Nicola Bassotti, died in childbirth and was not spared the child in her womb. The distraught master colored a violin with his wife's blood, and the red violin was born.
Anna's Theme is the opening credits of the soundtrack and the central theme of the entire soundtrack, with Corigliano building on Anna's Theme to develop all the later sections. In the film, Anna's Theme is a small melody that Anna often hums, like a lullaby for a child in her belly. With Anna's chant as the core motivation, the composer developed the melody into a poignant, mournful, mysterious and deep section, thus unveiling the legendary prelude to the red violin.
The soundtrack revolves around the fate of the violin, and is divided into five parts in the order of the location of the story, namely Cremona, Vienna, Oxford, Shanghai and Montreal.
The first part, which originated three hundred years ago in Cremona, the birthplace of the violin, includes four pieces that developed using the core motivations in Anna's Theme, and for the first time appears the full theme of the red violin. These pieces fully represent Anna's death and the violin master's process of creating an immortal and mysterious red violin for his dead wife and unborn child.
The ensuing story goes to Vienna in the classical period. The red violin was passed into the hands of Casper, a musical prodigy of the monastery, while he was on a journey to Vienna.
Monastery opens with a Baroque chamber music sketch, followed by Kaspar's Audition/Journey To Vienna with a solo by Casper, depicting Casper's journey to Vienna, the musical capital. Etudes/Death Of Kaspar begins with an etude played by Casper, with the melody accelerating with the metronome, showing Casper's increasingly refined piano skills; the second half evolves into a mournful elegy with Casper's violent death.
Since then, the story has been set in a change from Austria to the Uk, and the opening scene, The Gypsies, Journey Across Europe, presents a gypsy style that is very different from the second part. Under the guidance of this piece, the red violin was transferred from the gypsies to the hands of the British player Pop.
Pope's Gypsy Cadenza is a pop improvisation based on gypsy tunes, showing the musical genius's rebellious disposition. Similarly, Pope's Concert's improvisational performance at the concert also showed his arrogant personality, and the core motivation of Anna's Theme appeared in this performance.
Coitus Musicalis and Pope's Betrayal are both impromptu performances by Pop inspired by carnal eroticism. In Pope's Bertrayal, the music culminates in a rainstorm and comes to an abrupt halt when Pop's lover shoots the red violin, taking the fate of the red violin to another time and space– Shanghai in the 1960s.
The music is still based on Anna's Theme, while the variations are more depressing and dignified, while also combining a mass song of the time to point out a unique era background.
After hundreds of years of displacement, the red violin finally appeared at auction in Montreal, Canada. Through investigation, the identification experts confirmed and unveiled the origin of this legendary piano and the truth of the red luster.
In presenting this part of the plot, Corigliano on the one hand highlights the suspenseful atmosphere of the appraisal experts stealing the day at the auction, and at the same time gradually brings the music back to cremona's emotional atmosphere, poignant and elegant. In End Title, Anna's Theme returns to its original state, emerging with an ethereal female chant, symbolizing the red violin's three-century drift before finally reaching its final destination.
Many of the pieces throughout the soundtrack appear in the form of actual performances of the characters in the film, thus becoming an important part of the plot and becoming a direct participant in the development of the story. In order to make the characters of the film more vivid and personal with the image of the red violin, Corigliano composed many wonderful solo pieces, from Baroque chamber music to violin etudes of the Romantic period, which always closely matched the background of the era reflected in the film.
Joshua Bell's violin performances were equally brilliant, especially those that reflected the debauched man Pop, which Bell played with excitement and excitement. Combined with the exaggerated playing posture of the characters in the film, it is easy to bring the audience into a state of high excitement.
I am afraid that even the director François Gillard must admit that it was the music that ultimately made this film. Only this series of wonderful movements by Corigliano and Bell is worthy of the red violin dyed with blood in the film.