Ten years after Laurent Charbonnier’s Les Animaux amoureux, Philip Glass gets back once again into the animal world, with a portrait of the famous primatologist Jane Goodall. The woman who spent most of her life studying chimpanzees was filmed for over 50 years by Hugo Van Lawick, a director employed by National Geographic (and future husband of the scientific). Brett Morgen, to whom we owe an acclaimed documentary on Kurt Cobain (Kurt Cobain, a Montage of Heck), has sorted these hundreds of hours of archive images, and has edited them in a movie put into music by the world famous contemporary composer, known for his minimalist works, among which film scores such as Woody Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream, Martin Scorsese’s Kundun, Peter Weir’s The Truman Show and Stephen Daldry’s The Hours. Performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Miriam Nemcova, Glass’ soundtrack is like two locomotives travelling in parallel but different tracks: on one side, it’s on a reduced scale, for the scenes where caterpillars are filmed in close-up for example, or those depicting intimate moments between the protagonist and the chimpanzees. The impact of these human size scenes is enriched by the contribution of pianist Michael Riesman and his delicate touch (Time In Gombe). On the other side, music sometimes takes a broader point of view, when it highlights the majesty of African landscapes and Goodall’s outstanding destiny (Perfect Life). In the last case, Glass’ partition realizes Brett Morgen’s will to direct some kind of cinematographic opera with a universal humanist discourse. In this particularly poignant and poetic soundtrack, we find Philip Glass’ usual processes, such as his obsession with repetitive arpeggios, whether played by the solo piano or by the orchestra (Mother). The arpeggio is associated with musical learning, as this succession of notes forming a chord is part of the obligatory exercises of a novice pianist. The idea of the composer is thus to reflect the “young” and innovating aspect of Goodall’s scientific work. As pointed out by the title of the track Time Of Discovery, Jane Goodall is a true modern-day discoverer. Glass’ music also reflects the idea of a somewhat biased familiarity. Therefore, the harmonies from the main theme (In The Shadow of Man) operate on a scale that on the surface may seem overwhelmingly simple, in the most common mode possible (the major mode). But before arriving safe and sound, the scale deviates towards unexpected chords, causing some kind of unease for the listener. The chimpanzees’ behavior disturbingly resembles human behavior, but there are differences of course, expressed by this “distorted” major scale. With such ideas, Glass proves once again that he is a great composer whose music accompanies with intelligence and emotion what happens on screen. © NM/Qobuz