Esther Abrami: Cinéma
Sony Classical

With a sizeable social media following and as a podcast host (“Woman in Classical”), Esther Abrami is in many ways a product of her times; that the album package shows her in no less than twelve photos indicates she's also comfortable in front of the camera. None of that, however, should obscure the fact that she's also a superb violinist whose versatility, curatorial taste, and technical mastery are documented splendidly by her second solo release Cinéma. Armed with a ravishing tone and expressive attack, Abrami performs fifteen pieces from film and television scores that capture her life in different ways, from ones that reflect her French and Jewish heritage to others representative of the movies that shaped her.

Accompanied by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Ben Palmer, Abrami, who studied at the Royal College of Music and earned her Master's at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, has fashioned a programme that combines Nyman, Tiersen, and others with Shostakovich, Piazzolla, and Tchaikovsky. Abrami's choices are varied and inspired, with selections from soundtracks to The Hunger Games, In the Mood for Love, Les Choristes, Capernaum, La vita è Bella (aka Life is Beautiful), and Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain appearing alongside pieces from Demon Slayer and The Witcher. Enhancing its value, Cinéma includes world premiere recordings of material by Anne Dudley and Rachel Portman.

The album endears the moment it begins with Toshio Masuda's “Alone Theme” (from the anime series Naruto), a sweetly melancholy setting that beautifully couples Abrami's sumptuous playing with the orchestra's lustrous textures. As lovely are her heartfelt renderings of “Youth (Romance),” taken from Shostakovich's film score for The Gadfly, Op. 97, and Tchaikovsky's Valse sentimentale, Op. 51, No. 6. Nyman's identifiable fingerprints are all over the emotionally expressive “If” (from The Diary of Anne Frank), and if the performance sounds particularly affecting it might be because Abrami's Jewish roots give the music a personal connection that makes it resonate all the more strongly. Composer Khaled Mouzanar created the arrangement of “Zeyn” (from the Oscar-nominated Lebanese film Capharnaüm) especially for the violinist, who delivers a powerfully moving performance. Similar in tone and impact is the sensitive treatment she and the orchestra give Nicola Piovani's “Buongiorno Principessa” (La vita è bella). Romance, on the other hand, is in the air when the violinist plays the yearning melodies from Shigeru Umebayashi's sinuous “Yumeji's Theme” (In the Mood for Love).

Blossoming from a hush into an epic orchestral statement, Go Shiina's “Kamado Tanjirou no Uta” (from the anime series Demon Slayer) plays like a stirring adventure saga packed into three minutes (it even includes a melodic gesture that recalls the “It doesn't matter much to me” part in The Beatles' “Strawberry Fields Forever”). In an interesting change-up, hints of blues and folk emerge in her treatment of James Newton Howard's “The Hanging Tree” (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Pt. 1). Meanwhile, the orchestra rests when guitarist Marcin Patrzalek joins her for a rousing duet performance of Piazzolla's Libertango. Portman reworked her music for The Little Prince with Abrami in mind, The Little Prince Orchestral Suite the charming result. All of the innocence, tenderness, and poignancy that makes the book enchanting informs the music too. Speaking of charm, Abrami amplifies the melodicism of Tiersen's “Comptine d'un autre été, l'après-midi" by using a loop station to accompany herself.

January 2024