Elmer Bernstein was, without a doubt, a volcanic composer, wouldn't you agree? Just recently, for example, I was revisiting a smaller 90's effort by him, The Good Son, and to gracefully gush forth my feelings, they're very few main titles that have encouraged the beauty and shape, or flight, that of which lies throughout the disc, and (obviously) within its cinematic counterpart.
The strings and piano dance so beautifully that it's quite hard to imagine them existing on opposite levels, thematically. As the track establishes its instrumentation (opening with piano), one could eagerly want the emotion to last... well, forever, but perhaps the small, tight, simple, melodic amount of time is why the magic of Bernstein can shine so enormously? (Too many adjusted minutes can potentially shade, or stale, a theme, don't you think?) Anyway, the final forty seconds of the cue, where the woodwinds -- fully dressed -- angelically state their height, has always remained some of my most treasured moments of motion picture music.
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