CD REVIEW - Gabriel Yared Film Music Vol.4 - La Lune dans le Carniveau (The Moon in the Gutter)
Cinefonia Records CFY-004 (France)
16 Tracks 45:15 mins

Gabriel Yared's first collaboration with director Jean-Jacques Beineix, with whom he was famously to work with on 1985's Betty Blue, was for this 1983 film and again the composer commenced work on the score before the film was even shot, as the director planned to broadcast the music on the set, whilst shooting the scenes. Source music was required for the tango in the bar and Bella's erotic dance on the swing, but demos were also recorded of the main themes.
The film boasts two notable themes in particular, the first, for Loretta, is a rhapsodic love theme for piano, violin (sensitively performed by Lionel Gali) and large string orchestra, which is also transformed into the piano-lead Valse de Loretta; the second, for Catherine, is a magical, shimmering motif for strings, which receives a number of variations throughout the score. With Folie ouvriere, Yared again demonstrates his fondness at the time for unusual, repetitive, percussion-driven music, and there are other somewhat more conventional motion-filled tracks, like Fugue de la cathedrale, La Folie des docks, and the strident strings of Entree de l'hopital. Danse de Bella is a rhythmic, percussive dance, and Tango de L'Impasse, the splendid, if slightly quirky, tango previously mentioned. The final and title track presents fragments of some of the above, preceeded by bird sounds.
Five bonus tracks of previously unreleased cues, some the aforementioned demos, plus a brand new solo piano performance by the composer himself of Valse de Loretta round out the disc, which again comes with Yared's fascinating notes on the project in the accompanying booklet.