MovieScore Media release the score to Czech movie The Affair (also known as The Glass Room in certain markets). The movie tells the tale of two romantic triangles entwined with each other. When wealthy newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer move into the glass house built for them, relationships get entangled as Liesel’s friend Hana starts nursing unrequited romantic feelings for her while Viktor is caught in the act with nanny Kata. When the couple flees to neutral Switzerland, on the eve of Nazi invasion, Liesel must face her true feelings for Hana...

While Antoni Komasa-Lazarkiewicz's score for The Affair is beautifully melancholic, it does rely on very few themes and repeats them, with little variation, endlessly. And while the main offender is a wonderfully enriching piece of music, there are only so many times you can listen to it without wanting a little more variety.

Discussing the project, Komasa-Lazarkiewicz, says: "In The Affair, the main tension is built between the timelessness of the main artifact: the house, a building with a personality of its own, and its ever changing inhabitants. The music needed a beating heart and a human soul. The first element was provided by the string orchestra, the second - by the sound of solo cello, played by my friend, the Virtuoso Karol Marianowski. I allowed myself to be very melodious and passionate, shattering the coldness of the Glass House."

The album contains 13 tracks (48 min, 31 sec) but it seems so much shorter. I loved the music, I truly did, and I wanted to like this album more but it was just so repetitive.

As beautifully sweet as this score is, the ever present main theme starts to outstay its welcome before the end of the album. A little bit more variety would have been welcomed.

7

Darren Rea