FRENCH CINEMATIC ICONS: BOLLING AND BEYOND / Roberto Alvarez & Friends / Review

 

FRENCH CINEMATIC ICONS: 

BOLLING AND BEYOND 

Roberto Alvarez & Friends 

Alliance Francaise 

Sunday (10 November 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 12 November 2024 with the title "Music from movies showcases magical power of sound".

Music in movies have the capacity to touch and move, and very often the melodies are better remembered than the films themselves. As a prelude to the French Film Festival, Singapore Symphony Orchestra flautist Roberto Alvarez and his friends crafted a very attractive programme as a reminder of the magical power of sound. 

Does anybody remember the star-studded California Suite, for which the late Maggie Smith won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress? Arguably more memorable was French jazz composer and pianist Claude Bolling’s score, with its highly syncopated and catchy Main Title, with pianist Kseniia Vokhmianina obliged to jump through many hoops accompanying Alvarez’s silvery lines. 

Together with bassist Julian Li and percussionist Ramu Thiruyanam, this cosmopolitan quartet followed up with movements from Bolling’s Suite for Flute and Jazz Trio, his most often-heard work. The formally-trained Bolling was so adept in merging jazz and classical idioms that his fusion pieces are equally beloved by artists across the stylistic divide. 

Sentimentale is already an established classic, the flute’s legato passages well contrasted with the movement’s groovily rhythmic central section. The jig-like bantering of Fugace was in the form of a fugue, the tricky counterpoint of which J.S.Bach would have been proud. The easy swing of Irlandaise (Irish) would soon give way to frenetic pulse of Veloce, which closed the concert’s first half with stunning aplomb. 

While this music sounds easy to the ear, it is very difficult to pull off convincingly. The quartet was not just on top of their game, but also having great fun. 

The oldest piece on show was Camille Saint-Saens’s shimmering Aquarium from Carnival of the Animals, which made an appearance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. 

Far more recent was the music of Yann Tiersen, whose La valse d’Amelie and Comptine dun autre ete, l’apres-midi in The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain had little to do with Ravel or Debussy, but more the drolleries of Erik Satie married with minimalism. 

Roberto played the piccolo in this piece.

From Ludovic Bource, George Valentin and Waltz for Peppy from The Artist had ragtime and dancehall influences, sounding as elegant and insouciant as French music could possibly be. Ramu tapping on wood blocks was a sight to behold. The ubiquitous Michel Legrand had to feature sometime, his bittersweet minor key melodies of Windmills of Your Mind (The Thomas Crown Affair) and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg being greeted with knowing approval. 

Photo: Chris P. Lim

A suite of movie melodies were thus paraded, from Alexandre Desplat’s Elisa’s Theme from The Shape of Water (a waltz of touching simplicity), Francis Lai’s A Man and A Woman (a swinger known only to people of a certain vintage) to Carlos D’Alessio’s End Credits to Delicatessen (appropriately cheerful for a black humour horror pic about cannibalism). 

Photo: Chris P. Lim

It was, however, back to Bolling that the fab four returned for an encore, the Love Theme from California Suite. That was simply charming.

Kseniia's daughter Aurelia joins
the quartet on stage for the final bows.