Performed by Polar Music Prize winning conductor Valery Gergiev's Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre, Russian composer Andrey Sigle's score for Alexander Sokurov's award-winning drama Alexandra, is an immensely beautiful and emotional film score with a distinct classical sound. The film, which was nominated to the 2007 Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, tells the story of an elderly woman who visits her grandson at his army camp inside Chechnya. Sigle's orchestral score is both intimate and grand, filled with evocative themes and warm and passionate orchestrations...

Alexandra is an interesting classical score which works incredibly well as a stand alone album - packed to bursting with beautiful themes and intricate movements. Fans of classical music will appreciate this old-style score, which sounds more like one of the classics than it does an accompaniment to a Russian film.

Running throughout this album is a famous piece of classical music - the original composer of which annoyingly escapes me. I couldn't work out why this had been used, as I'm sure Sigle could have written a more moving central theme.

The last track, 'Monologue', consists of a collection of quotes from the movie accompanied by 'Parting' playing over the top of it. To me this seemed a bit of a waste of time - mainly because I haven't seen the movie, nor do I speak Russian. So it's not clear whether this is one long scene from the film (which I suspect, because of the pauses in dialogue where you can hear people moving around) or clips taken throughout the movie.

If you're looking for a soundtrack that blurs the lines between film score and classical music, you've found it.

8

Darren Rea