{"id":483,"date":"2013-04-01T22:14:41","date_gmt":"2013-04-02T02:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=483"},"modified":"2013-04-01T22:14:41","modified_gmt":"2013-04-02T02:14:41","slug":"the-greatest-film-score-youve-never-heard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2013\/04\/the-greatest-film-score-youve-never-heard.html","title":{"rendered":"The Greatest Film Score You’ve Never Heard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Silvestre Revueltas\u2019s Redes <\/em>is one of the greatest of all film scores. That it remains virtually unknown is a function of Revueltas\u2019s own neglect and the neglect of the 1935 film itself, an iconic product of the Mexican Revolution. Unlike such renowned film scores of Prokofiev\u2019s Alexander Nevsky<\/em> and Virgil Thomson\u2019s The Plow that Broke the Plains<\/em>, the music of Redes<\/em> is so organic to the film that it does not register as a concert suite. You have to see the movie.<\/p>\n

And the movie is a mixed bag. Its cinematography, by Paul Strand, is unforgettable: visually, Redes<\/em> is a poem of stark light and shadow, of clouds and sea, palm fronds and thatched huts, with Strand\u2019s camera often tipped toward the abstract sky. Metaphor abounds: a rope is likened to a fisherman\u2019s muscled arm. Pregnant, polyvalent, the imagery invites interpretation equally poetic: music. For a child\u2019s funeral, Revueltas furnishes more than a dirge: his throbbing elegy combines with Strand\u2019s poised, hypersensitive camera to fashion a transcendent tableau. The recurrent visual motif of nets (\u201credes\u201d) that catch fish subliminally suggests the confinement of rural fishermen: a metaphor underlined by the musical motif of massive tolling brass. At every turn, Strand and Revueltas elevate the film\u2019s simple tale to an epic human drama. But the script is weak and so are the actors \u2013 with few exceptions, actual fishermen filmed onsite in Alvarado (near Veracruz). <\/p>\n

While the ultimate significance of Redes<\/em> may be considered political (both Revueltas and Strand were activists on the far left) or photographic, for me it is first of all an essay in marrying sound to the moving image. The film completes the music.<\/p>\n

That is: Revueltas\u2019s astonishing score partly comprises a series of set pieces applied to silent footage: the weary processional of the child\u2019s funeral; the surging exhilaration of the season\u2019s first catch; the epic thrust of a final act of proletarian rebellion. The last of these, in particular, is as powerful a swath of musical cinema as was ever conceived. Revueltas\u2019s score is here shaped by the pulsing oar-strokes of the fishermen, storming the hacienda where they\u2019re underpaid and undervalued.<\/p>\n

Because music rarely overlaps dialogue, it becomes possible to screen Redes<\/em> with live orchestral accompaniment \u2013 a revelatory opportunity. It\u2019s been done by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, by the Santa Barbara Symphony, by my own PostClassical Ensemble<\/a> \u2013 and most recently (last week) by the Louisville Orchestra, conducted by Jorge Mester, as part of the NEH\u2019s \u201cMusic Unwound\u201d consortium. <\/a><\/p>\n

In Louisville, Redes<\/em> ignited a standing ovation. Next season, the Austin Symphony, the North Carolina Symphony, and PostClassical Ensemble (again) present Redes<\/em> with live symphonic accompaniment. PostClassical Ensemble will also record Redes<\/em> for a Naxos DVD that will once and for all make the film widely available with a proper soundtrack (the 1935 Mexican sound recording is execrable). <\/p>\n

Sooner or later, Revueltas will be widely revealed as a major twentieth century composer. He far eclipses his compatriot Carlos Chavez. He bears comparison with his precise contemporary Aaron Copland (who drew inspiration from Mexico, and from Redes<\/em>). Meanwhile, we will have to suffer the increasingly popular Noche de los Mayas<\/em>, passed off as a four-movement Revueltas symphony by Gustavo Dudamel and other enthusiasts. This vulgar film score, for a vulgar film, was in fact never turned into a symphonic composition by the composer; what we hear in the concert hall is a concoction by another hand, created long after Revueltas\u2019s death in 1940. It does Revueltas a disservice \u2013 and so (alas) does the Redes<\/em> Suite created by Erich Kleiber, and increasingly performed in the concert hall.<\/p>\n

Would that for every half dozen presentations of Alexander Nevsky<\/em> or Charlie Chaplin\u2019s City<\/em> Lights<\/em> with live music we could see and hear at least one Redes<\/em> performance. Assuredly, Revueltas is a composer whose time will come. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Silvestre Revueltas\u2019s Redes is one of the greatest of all film scores. That it remains virtually unknown is a function of Revueltas\u2019s own neglect and the neglect of the 1935 film itself, an iconic product of the Mexican Revolution. Unlike such renowned film scores of Prokofiev\u2019s Alexander Nevsky and Virgil Thomson\u2019s The Plow that Broke […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-483","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-7N","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}