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| Nicole's Pick to Click: Bach Fugues | 
Price: $16.98
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Released: March 25, 2008
 | Following its most successful recording, The Art of Fugue, the Emerson String Quartet again dedicates its mastery to the music of J.S. Bach. The quartet, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2007, presents the world-premiere recording of the four-part fugues from the famous Well-Tempered Clavier as arranged for string quartet. The Emerson Quartet's 2003 release of The Art of Fugue was a critical and commercial success selling 50,000 units worldwide. Repertoire from this world-premiere recording will be included in the Emerson Quartet's touring program. |
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| Scott's Pick to Click: There Will Be Blood | 
Price: $18.98
Label: Wea/Atlantic/Nonesuch
Released: December 18, 2007
| This album marks Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood's first high-profile soundtrack--and one that's also easily among the most striking offerings of 2007. Music is particularly important for director Paul Thomas Anderson (remember Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love?) and here, his choice of Greenwood is a gamble that more than paid off. The score is extremely string-heavy, and tension (of which there's plenty in the Upton Sinclair-based movie) derives from them instead of the usual percussive Hollywood tropes (indeed, percussions are almost entirely absent from the CD). "Henry Plainview" and "Proven Lands" are part of a larger piece, Popcorn Superhet Receiver, that Greenwood wrote as Composer-in-Residence at the BBC; both cues display the musician's imaginative use of strings, suggestively scary on the first, pounding and creepy on the second. But Greenwood also knows when to bring in a new instrumental voice, as with the Satie-like piano on "Prospectors Arrive." Equally at ease writing for a string quartet and for a larger orchestra, Greenwood has come up with compositions closer to the new-music world that to the vast majority of scores coming out of Tinseltown--something we should be really grateful for. This is a new, exciting direction for film music. --Elisabeth Vincentelli |
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