The English Patient: Original Soundtrack Recording

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Anthony Minghella’s Oscar-winning realization of Michael Ondaatje’s intricate romance deservedly earned comparisons to David Lean’s sweeping screen epics derived from strong literary sources. Like Lean, Minghella sought an equally thoughtful, yet ravishing musical counterpart that fleshes out a sympathetic orchestral score with allusions to the story’s cultural milieu. The equation begins with Gabriel Yared’s tender, brooding symphonic score, which mingles the film’s poles of fate and passion with subtlety and restraint, then adds the exotic, mesmerizing voice of Marta Sebestyen (best known for her work with Muzsikas, the brilliant Hungarian folk revivalists, who also appear here), whose presence provides a literate clue to the title character’s true identity. The film’s ’40s time-frame gains resonance and dramatic irony by pop songs from that era, including Benny Goodman swing classics and two versions of Irving Berlin’s “Cheek to Cheek” (by Fred Astaire and Ella Fitzgerald, respectively). Add a pivotal Bach cue and this is a film package that works even if you don’t know the film–and that much more powerfully if you do. –Sam Sutherland

Product description

1. English Patient 2. A Retreat 3. Rupert Bear 4. What Else Do You Love? 5. Why Picton? 6. Cheek to Cheek 7. Kip’s Lights 8. Hana’s Curse 9. I’ll Always Go Back to That Churc 10. Black Nights 11. Swoon, I’ll Catch You 12. Am I K. In Your Book? 13. Let Me Come In 14. Wang Wang Blues 15. Convento Di Sant’anna 16. Herodotus 17. Muzsikás-Szerelem, Szerelem 18. Ask Your Saint Who He’s Killed 19. One O’Clock Jump 20. I’ll Be Back 21. Let Me Tell You About Winds 22. Read Me to Sleep 23. The Cave of Swimmers 24. Where or When 25. Aria 26. Cheek to Cheek 27. As Far as Florence 28. En Csak Azt Csodálom