This release by violinist
Renaud Capuçon is of the sort that comes with a disclaimer: although he enjoyed film music,
Capuçon says, and even owned two albums of the stuff by
Itzhak Perlman, he had "reservations" about recording it as a classical musician. The point of such displays of reluctance is not clear; few these days would contest the value of good film music, French as well as American.
Capuçon touches on both, as well as some famous Italian pieces by
Ennio Morricone and others. Despite his reluctance, he goes into full crossover mode and does it competently, extracting the maximum amount of sentiment before breaking the mood with more dramatic material and with one vocal interlude from
Nolwenn Leroy. He pushes his basic lyrical tone into heavy-vibrato territory, but never goes over the edge, and both the violinist's basic fans and those in search of a French-flavored collection of film music (sample the unusual "Camille" from
Jean-Luc Godard's Le Mépris) are likely to find the results satisfying.
Capuçon gets strong support from the
Brussels Philharmonic under
Stéphane Denève. Highly recommended. ~ James Manheim