The collaboration between filmmaker Peter Greenaway and composer Michael Nyman has always been a productive one. Nyman's playful formalism perfectly matches Greenaway's, and where they diverge -- with Greenaway's visually explosive artistic sensibilities balanced out by Nyman's simple, minimalist tendencies -- they are complementary rather than contradictory. For many people, the peak of their collaboration came with the celebrated soundtrack to Greenaway's most successful film, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover; and there's no denying that the relentless, operatic score to that film, with its nearly ten-minute main title sung with compelling gusto by a castrati, is a winner. But for our money, the best example of Michael Nyman and Peter Greenaway putting their heads together was the soundtrack to 1988's clever, inventive formalist masterpiece, Drowning By Numbers. It was the first full album where Nyman assembled the Michael Nyman Band -- a chamber orchestra put together specifically to perform film music, and it shows -- the performance is as tight as hell, and perfectly suited to the short form of the score. At no point do Nyman's musical style and Greenaway's cinematic tendencies blend so perfectly together, and that's why this is a soundtrack worth owning on its own or in conjunction with the movie.
Driven by members of the prestigious Balanescu Quartet, and led by the outstanding saxophone player John Harle, the vibrant, energetic score had its genesis when Peter Greenaway suggested the use of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra". Using some of the Mozart piece's main figures as a jumping off point, Michael Nyman composed a score both evocative of the classics and wholly original. The plot of Greenaway's bizarrely perfect little murder-comedy -- a trio of identically named women plot the murder by drowing of their respective husbands/boyfriends -- contains a number of his typically quirky but effective formalist touches (the numbers 1 through 100 appear on screen, in order, from the beginning of the movie to the end) and a fascination with game-playing. These elements are reflected in the score, both in the playful tone and in the repetitive structure of the pieces. In the film, the county coroner, Mudgett, is a compulsive game-player, and Nyman names his compositions for the bizarre little games he's always inventing -- and which ultimately lead to his downfall. The music is a charming combination of romanticism and minimalism, and Nyman's piano-playing and conducting on everything from the string quartet to full-orchestra tracks is strong and enjoyable.
BEST TRACKS: The powerful, energetic "Wheelbarrow Walk" is the best track here -- it's a driving, compelling, and remarkably catchy song with a clever hook and just the right combination of percussive strings and a lilting melodic line. But it's only the pinnacle of a whole album worth of winning tracks; there's lots more to love here. Amongst the other winning tracks are the charming "Sheep and Tides", a string-driven number with a lifting, spirited tune that sounds like was written to accompany the recruiting film for an English public school; "Drowning By Number 2", a slow, thoughtful tune evocative of Philip Glass and supported by a haunting French horn; and "Fish Beach", another horn-driven number that conveys a great, elegaic sense of loss and sadness in its repetitive, looping ostinato miminalist figure.