The soundtrack album for Mime Newell's cinematic adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez's novel, Love in the Time of Cholera is a minor masterpiece. Antonio Pinto's original score moves through its 19 cues with a wonderfully understated sense of the dramatic, which of course, as a piece of music, makes it all the more so as a listening experience. Strings -- including many nylon string guitars -- make masterly use of space and texture and are woven into a fabric where Latin folk styles, classical music, and sonic atmospheres are all used sparely enough to be able to talk to and through one another to the listener. The music is more expressionistic than direct; for those who saw the film, this music will no doubt conjure recollections of the various images and scenes from it. For those who haven't, the music stands on its own as a powerful and evocative work that paints a very sensual, alluring, and emotional soundscape. Add to this three original songs by Latin vocalist Shakira that precede the score, and indeed set the stage for it by using not only traditional instruments but folk song structures (no pop), and you have something worth paying your hard-earned money for. Recommended.
© Thom Jurek /TiVo