Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T19:38:52.034Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Antonio Sanchez, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. Milan M2-36689, 2014, CD.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2016

Gretchen Carlson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Media Reviews
Information
Journal of the Society for American Music , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , May 2016 , pp. 229 - 233
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Music 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 A few examples of predominantly improvised film scores throughout cinematic history are Miles Davis's score for Louis Malle's Elevator to the Gallows (1958); Mark Isham's score for Alan Rudolph's Afterglow (1997); and Bill Kirchner and Marc Copland's score for Marlyn Mason's film short, The Right Regrets (2013).

2 Alejandro González Iñárritu, quoted in Lorraine Ali, “Antonio Sanchez's Soaring Beat Takes Flight in Birdman,” Los Angeles Times, 9 December 2014, http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-et-mn-birdman-antonio-sanchez-20141209-story.html.

3 Ibid.

4 Alejandro González Iñárritu, liner notes to Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Milan M2-36689, CD, 2014.

5 In addition to Sanchez's original score are six classical pieces at the end of the soundtrack album: Mahler's Symphony No. 9 in D: Andante Comodo; Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 Op. 64 in E minor: Andante Cantabile; Mahler's Ich Bin Der Welt Abhanden Gekommen; Ravel's Passacaille (Trés Large); John Adams's Prologue: Chorus of Exiled Palestinians; and Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27: Allegro Molto. In the film, these pieces function as the score for Riggan Thomson's play-within-the-movie. While heard as underscore, they have a diegetic function. I must also note that three of Sanchez's original score tracks—“Get Ready,” “Fire Trail,” and “The Anxious Battle for Sanity”—briefly contain additional music by Víctor Hernández Stumpfhauser and Joan Valent edited into the recording of Sanchez's improvisations.

6 Matt Collar, “Birdman (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack),” AllMusic, 14 October 2014, http://www.allmusic.com/album/birdman-original-motion-picture-soundtrack-mw0002796520.

7 Fortunately, a plethora of interview-based articles have been released in the aftermath of Birdman’s critical success, in which Sanchez has offered his own perspectives on the soundtrack development. They are too numerous to list here, but may be easily located through an Internet database browse.