Ken Burns' 14-hour documentary on the Second World War features a broad range of music, including an original soundtrack by
Wynton Marsalis, popular music of the time, and an eclectic mix of music from the classical tradition. There's so much music, in fact, that RCA has released four albums of music from the series, including a standard soundtrack CD, two collections of popular music (including remastered 78s), and this CD of classical selections. The unnamed music editor for the series did a terrific job choosing a variety of works with the depth and seriousness to accompany such a horrifying, sad, and heroic story without trivializing it. Even without seeing the film, it's easy to imagine how each of these pieces would be expressive of some element of the war's impact. The selections range from the Romantic to the Contemporary, and include mostly European composers, but
Copland represents the United States with several substantial selections. The pieces are of outstanding quality; each could probably be described as a masterpiece in its own right. The scale ranges from a single instrument (
Messiaen's "Abîme des Oiseaux," for solo clarinet, from his Quartet for the End of Time, written when he was a prisoner of war in a German camp, and
Liszt's Nuages Gris, for piano) to a number of orchestral pieces. The Lamento from Ligeti's Horn Trio, the most starkly modernist piece, expresses desolation so vividly that it would be hard for even the most conservative listener to deny its evocative power and the impact of its emotional honesty. The CD is bookended with works by British composers. It begins with "The Death of Falstaff" from
Walton's film score for Henry V, written as a passacaglia, one of the musical forms that since the Baroque era has been closely associated with grief. The CD closes with the serenely elegiac "Nimrod" movement from
Elgar's Enigma Variations. The performances, taken from some of the most distinguished in the RCA/Sony catalog, are uniformly superb, featuring artists such as
Yo-Yo Ma,
Benny Goodman,
Copland,
Emanuel Ax, and
Kurt Masur. The quality of the selections and of the performances makes this a CD that should appeal to any listener who loves beautifully performed instrumental and orchestral music of a serious character.