Gauche the Cellist is one of my favorite animated movies, and when I mentioned how much I loved the soundtrack, I was directed to the official soundtrack album released in Japan. And here it is...well, the photos from a recent Ebay auction, at least.
Michiyo Mamiya and his orchestra deliver a spectacular performance of Beethoven's "Pastorale" 6th Symphony. I still haven't found a better recording. I also love how director Isao Takahata breaks up Beethoven throughout the movie, weaving the music out of sequence, small segments, major movements. It's not the simple 1-2-3-4-5 progression; this isn't another Silly Symphonies direct interpretation, but treated as an equal character in the greater play.
This soundtrack LP is pretty rare, so if you find a copy, expect to spend a lot of money. The cover design features an original color illustration on the front, and a cast illustration on back. Numerous movie screenshots, and a full-size poster, are included in the package. Very impressive, overall. I just wish more copies were available, and that prices were a bit lower. Ah, well, it's all part of being a diehard collector, right?
1 comment:
What a beautiful item, classic Japanese quality - lovely glossy printing, film screenshots, full colour poster etc. It's so sad that of all of the soundtracks, this one doesn't get a reissue, especially given the immense importance of music to this most understatedly joyful of films.
Spent a while looking for a copy of this one for sale on the internet in all the usual places (amazon.jp, yahoo auctions etc.) to no avail. Very sad! I'd love to own one of these, but there seems to be very little information on this release at all, not even a Discogs entry. Even those with cash to spend have no options! Hopefully one day a good quality vinyl rip/recording gets posted to the Internet, I spend too much time already declicking & denoising rips from interesting & obscure JP vinyl. One can only hope :)
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