| Product Summary | | Label: Universal Classics | | UPC: 00028947415022 | | Release Date: 10/22/2002 | | Buy.com Sku: 60575510 | | Item#: MQ39WC | | Buy.com Sales Rank: 25050 | Format:  CD |
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(P) 2002 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg
(C) 2002 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg
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| | Album Notes and Credits |
Notes & Personnel Info |  | This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files. | | Original score composed by Elliot Goldenthal. | | Recorded at Manhattan Center, Zarathustra Hall, New York, New York and Churubusco Studios, Mexico City, Mexico. Includes liner notes by Elliot Goldenthal. | | This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files. | | Personnel: Elliot Goldenthal (piano); Ernesto "El Canella" Anaya (vocals, guitar); Bill Ruyle (dulcimer); Javier Martinez (harp); Garo Yellin, Richard Locker (cello); Harvey Estrin (flute); Gil Goldstein (accordion); Bruce Williamson (saxophone); Valerie Naranjo (marimba, percussion); Jamey Haddad (percussion). | | Audio Mixers: Joel Iwataki; Lawrence Manchester. | | Liner Note Author: Elliot Goldenthal. | | Recording information: Estudios Churubusco, Mexico City, Zarathustra Hall, NY; Manhattan Center Studio, NY. | | Photographer: Mario Cravo Neto. | | Unknown Contributor Roles: Lila Downs; Caetano Veloso; Chavela Vargas. | | There is always a question, when a composer works on a project set in a culture of which he or she is not actually a part, a project intended for an audience that goes beyond that culture, how closely the composer should hew to the music of the culture itself. Broadway composers, for example, often have employed musical motifs and an instrument or two indigenous to the setting of a musical set in, say, Siam or Czarist Russia, while the overall score would betray its roots in 20th century American show music. Elliot Goldenthal, a New York-based composer who often works with his romantic partner, director Julie Taymor, follows a more contemporary trend to go native in his score for Taymor's Frida, a biopic about the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). On this soundtrack album, a third of the tracks are actual Mexican folk songs performed by Mexican artists. For the rest, Goldenthal presents a score based on traditional Mexican music. ~ William Ruhlmann | | There is always a question, when a composer works on a project set in a culture of which he or she is not actually a part, a project intended for an audience that goes beyond that culture, how closely the composer should hew to the music of the culture itself. Broadway composers, for example, often have employed musical motifs and an instrument or two indigenous to the setting of a musical set in, say, Siam or Czarist Russia, while the overall score would betray its roots in 20th century American show music. Elliot Goldenthal, a New York-based composer who often works with his romantic partner, director Julie Taymor, follows a more contemporary trend to go native in his score for Taymor's Frida, a biopic about the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). On this soundtrack album, a third of the tracks are actual Mexican folk songs performed by Mexican artists. For the rest, Goldenthal presents a score based on traditional Mexican music. In his liner notes, he makes a point of discussing the limitations of this approach, referring to the music's "proud avoidance of over-complex harmonies," and essentially saying he had to simplify his writing. "The few times I tried to reach for more complex harmony and structure," he notes, "the movie kicked me out with pointy Mexican boots." It's not clear that there is that much difference between a Western composer only employing elements of indigenous music in a score or in effect condescending to the perceived limitations of that music in attempting to re-create it. But Goldenthal's method is the fashion in "authentic" composing. The result is a score partially made up of genuine Mexican folk music and partially made up of a composer's ersatz versions of same. ~ William Ruhlmann | | The first cut of this beautifully haunting soundtrack to an exotically seductive movie sums it up; Lila Downs's impassioned vocal and the almost ambient Latin overtones of the instrumental backing all point to a compelling trip through a mysterious Mexico that in the mid-20th century was still terra incognita to most Westerners. FRIDA is packed with musical jewels, such as the inclusion of Chavela Vargas's "Paloma Negra," recorded 40 years earlier. Vargas, a former lover of Frida Kahlo's, gives a performance that's more like a force of nature than anything else, devoid of sentimentality and yet viscerally affecting. But it's Lila Downs, who's featured throughout this soundtrack CD, who carries the show, particularly in her performance with the legendary Brazilian musician Caetano Veloso on "Burn it Blue," penned by the movie's director, Julie Taymor. Atmospheric instrumentals abound, and wonderful folk song vignettes are interspersed throughout, giving FRIDA an air of authenticity and purpose that lifts it head and shoulders above the usual run-of-the-mill Hollywood soundtrack collection. |
Producer: Elliot Goldenthal; Teese Gohl |
Engineer: Jacobo Lieberman; Joel Iwataki; Lawrence Manchester |
| | Associated Artists and Works |
| | Technical Info | | Release Date : 10/15/2002 | | Original Release Date : 2002 | | Catalog ID : 474150 | | Label : DG | | Number of Discs : 1 | | Runtime : 52m : 36s | | Studio/Live : Studio | | Mono/Stereo : Stereo | | SPAR Code : ADD | | UPC : 00028947415022 |
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