The Wings of a Film: The Music of Hans Zimmer

Composer/former Buggles keyboardist Hans Zimmer helped pioneer the fusion of traditional orchestral music with synthesized sounds that both seamlessly mock and supplement the traditionally acoustic. What listeners sometimes mistake for a symphony orchestra in full voice is often but shrewdly manipulated digital samples. Thus, this concert performance (recorded at the 2000 Flanders Film Festival) adds a welcome, truly organic dimension to the best of Zimmer's canon. The composer is featured as a performer (with Dirk Brosse conducting the fine efforts of the VRO Flemish Radio Orchestra), as are many of his frequent collaborators; Lisa Gerrard adds her distinctive vocals to the included Gladiator excerpts, while guitarists Pete Haycock and Heitor Pereira add their familiar flourishes to cues from Thelma and Louise and Mission: Impossible 2, respectively. Reworked music from The Lion King and The Power of One supplement the already familiar, but it's Zimmer's haunting, emotionally compelling "Journey to the Line" (from The Thin Red Line score) that is the collection's unlikely high point. --Jerry McCulley