GD 205 NANOUK LESQUIMAU and DRACULA, music by Christian LEROY

Christian LEROY
Metarythmes de l'air

Issued: 1999
Style: Classical Music
Company: Gega New, GD205
Sound-tracks by by Christian Leroy

This GEGA NEW release demonstrates a tendency toward including ever more spheres of the musical art in the company's catalogue. It presents music by Christian LEROY (b.1952), the Belgian composer and founder of the famous trio METARYTHMES DE L'AIR. Later it was transformed into a quintet in which besides Christian Leroy (piano, percussion, synthesizer) participate Philippe Saucez (clarinet), Jose Bedeur (double-bass) and Jeannot Gillis (violin). The ensemble became famous for its international performances and its spirit for experimenting. Leroy is well known as author of the music for modern synthetic shows and is sought after by eminent poets, painters and directors. His music for the film Nanouk L'Esquimau (shot in 1921) through the skillful use of the quintet renders the atmosphere and the nature of the extreme North. Leroy has an amazing insight for sound, which he treats like expression of colours, and for combinations of sounds, radiating certain impressions (morning in the North, the sun shining in the eyes of the Eskimo children, etc.). Both with Nanouk l'Esquimau and Dracula (shot in 1931) Leroy revives the passed tradition to make the sound-track on live, to illustrate feelings and conditions through the music and in this way sends us back to the age of the silent movie and the light music. In fact Dracula (directed by Tod Browning) is the first of a series of pictures on this topic. The fragments registered on the CD give an idea about the mastership of Leroy and the performers in the genre of film music.