Angels in America: Music from the HBO Film
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Composer: Thomas NewmanEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language); Hebrew (Original Language)
Format: Soundtrack
CD Release Date: 2003-12-02
Music Label: Nonesuch
Soundtracks:
- Threshold of Revelation - Thomas Newman
- Angels in America (Main Title) - Thomas Newman
- Lesionnaire - Thomas Newman
- Ellis Island - Thomas Newman
- Acolyte of the Flux - Thomas Newman
- Umdankbar Kind - Thomas Newman
- The Ramble - Thomas Newman
- Ozone - Thomas Newman
- Pill Poppers - Thomas Newman
- Quartet - Thomas Newman
- Solitude - Duke Ellington
- Bayeux Tapestry - Thomas Newman
- Spotty Monster - Thomas Newman
- Mauve Antarctica - Thomas Newman
- Her Fabulous Incipience - Thomas Newman
- The Infinite Descent - Thomas Newman
- A Closer Walk With Thee - Lewis, George & His Ragtime Band
- Broom of Truth - Thomas Newman
- Submit! - Thomas Newman
- Plasma Orgasmata - Thomas Newman
- Delicate Particle Logic - Thomas Newman
- The Mormons - Thomas Newman
- Prophet Birds - Thomas Newman
- More Life - Thomas Newman
- Black Angel - Thomas Newman
- Garden of the Soul - Thomas Newman
- Heaven - Thomas Newman
- Bethesda Fountain - Thomas Newman
- The Great Work Begins (End Title) - Thomas Newman
- Tropopause - Thomas Newman
- I'm His Child - Zella Jackson-Price
Free Music Notes for Angels in America: Music from the HBO Film
Free Music Review: How a Leap of Faith Leads to a Revelation
Hit: 5 Stars
It was the score for "Angels in America" that brought the HBO miniseries to my attention in the first place. I've been a stalwart fan of Thomas Newman's excellent film music for some time now, and when I first heard of the score for "Angels" I knew I'd have to hear it. I took a leap of faith and purchased the CD without having heard a note of it, and I have to say that the risk was well worth it.
Newman's music for "Angels in America" is much like the miniseries itself -- at times whimsical, at times dramatic, at times serious but with a soft touch, it sets the tone perfectly. Newman's compostions here ride the fine line between hope and heartbreak, creating a memorable soundscape which can be listened to alone (as I first did), but also accompanies the action of the miniseries incredibly well. This is emotional, honest, and complex music for a complex story with powerful themes.
While "Angels in America" is a unique score overall, it is also recognizably Thomas Newman's, and one can certainly hear hints of Newman's other work in it. The first few minutes of "Quartet" remind careful listeners unfailingly of one of the darker pieces from "The Shawshank Redemption," and the surprisingly light tone of "Pill Poppers" hearkens back to themes heard in "Finding Nemo." However, Newman is nothing if not original, and he doesn't spend a lot of time borrowing from himself for this score. The main title music is unforgettable and instantly recognizable as belonging to "Angels in America," but avoids the trap of sounding catchy. Early tracks like "Lesionnaire", "Mauve Antarctica" and "Her Fabulous Incipience" help establish different scenes and characters, while later pieces like "Delicate Particle Logic," "The Mormons," "Tropopause," and especially the excellent "More Life" each use the main theme in subtly different ways to evoke different and unexpected emotions.
As with many Newman scores, there are a few tracks here not composed by Newman. Duke Ellington's "Solitude," a ragtime version of "A Closer Walk With Thee," and a revival performance of "I'm His Child" were all heard in the series, and are important in some way to the themes expressed there. I can see why they were included, but frankly, I purchased this CD for Newman's music alone, and while the other three songs are all good songs, it is his score that makes me put this in the CD player again and again.
"Angels in America" is a rich, moving score which I first got to know before I even really knew what the HBO miniseries was about. Now that I've seen the miniseries, and listened to the CD many times over, I can only say that the experience is that much richer. This is the ideal music for the miniseries from beginning to end, and one of the best examples of why Thomas Newman is a groundbreaking composer of modern film music.
Angels in America: Music from the HBO Film Poster
Playwright Tony Kushner adapted his sprawling meditation on the AIDS epidemic of the 80's into an equally epic, Mike Nichols-directed HBO miniseries. But while Thomas Newman?s score spans that dramatic landscape with rich stylistic diversity, the young champion of the daunting Newman family musical tradition (his father was Fox legend Alfred; his brother fellow film scorer David; his cousin songwriter/composer Randy) never lets musical bombast get in the way of compelling emotional introspection. Anchored by a delicate wind and string-driven main theme that?s as mature as it is bittersweet, Newman proceeds to explore some of the same adventurous, rhythmically restless soundscapes that characterized his work on Erin Brockovich and American Beauty. But that typically moody experimentalism is leavened elsewhere by moments of neo-baroque choral exultation, smokey 30's jazz (courtesy of George Lewis and his Ragtime Band and Duke Ellington) and even flashes of gospel and orchestral post-modernism, all of it served up with a masterful sense of irony-free restraint that?s become one of the composer?s most refreshing hallmarks. It?s easily one of Newman?s -- and 2003's -- most accomplished and satisfying film scores. --Jerry McCulleyMiscellaneous Music CDs
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