Film Music arrives in the West with little in the way of context. Without any context, actually, beyond the basic information provided on the sticker that adorns the front of the set. Born in 1931, Mikael Tariverdiev became hugely popular in his home country of Russia. In addition to ballets, suites, concertos, and even operas, he scored more than 130 Russian films from the 1950s until his death in 1996, most of them directed by Mikhail Kalik. Goodbye, Boys!, from 1964, is arguably their most famous collaboration, but none of the films represented on Film Music are available in the United States at this time.
Gathering mostly instrumental excerpts and miniature suites on 3 LPs, Film Music is his first comprehensive release in the West, essentially introducing him to half the world, which makes it a major collection, albeit a puzzling one. Soundtracks are a curious musical format, by nature secondary to the visuals they’re meant to accompany; in execution the music ought to work subliminally, becoming part of the fabric of the film itself, not unlike set design, wardrobe, or blocking.
Listening to Film Music without having seen the films, in other words, can be an odd, unsettled experience. You have no idea what Tariverdiev might be reacting to, what he might be trying to achieve, how he might be using musical cues to complement visuals. Nor do you have any of his previous works to provide a clearer portrait of the composer. So we are left with music that is presented in a setting for which it perhaps was never intended. And yet, it is to Tariverdiev’s immense credit that the music sounds so evocative, so immediate, so transporting even without its visual anchor. Rather than forbidding, Film Music is immersive: a box set to get lost in.
These excerpts sound simultaneously simple and complex, austere and lush, straightforward and elusive, adventurous and modest. Typically Tariverdiev spotlights only one or two instruments at a time, usually with minimal backing: A piano daydreams at a sidewalk café on "Prelude for Ket," the spare percussion suggesting the clink of silverware and the chatter of passersby. A robust and red-faced saxophone bursts into "The Last Romantic" to deliver a pining solo that sounds like a eulogy. The tracklist has an easy, unforced range that covers humble piano suites, knockabout American jazz, pliant folk, rambunctious klezmer, erotic chanson. This is specific, even programmatic music, allowing you to infer character, setting, and even story.
Tariverdiev’s eclecticism allows these songs to exist apart from the films that inspired them and to speak to Western audiences. In fact, Film Music gives you a strong, yet fleeting impression of Russian cinema during the latter half of the 20th century. You would imagine any film accompanying this music would balance whimsy and melancholy, humor and tragedy, naturalism and fantasy, hope regarding the future and nostalgia for the past. For Tariverdiev, the thing itself—whether a musical instrument, an artistic tradition, or a political idea—is much less important than how it interacts with other things. That may be the guiding theme of Film Music, which is all the more evocative for arriving with so much of its compelling mystery intact.
