Philippe Sarde – Romy Schneider, Un Portrait Musical – Double Vinyl Records

Description

Philippe Sarde – Romy Schneider, Un Portrait Musical – Double Vinyl Records

Romy Schneider, Un Portrait Musical approaches a film star’s work through the music surrounding some of her most important performances. The collection draws on Philippe Sarde’s scores for four films directed by Claude Sautet and starring Schneider: Les Choses de la vie, Max et les ferrailleurs, César et Rosalie and Une histoire simple. Spread across two records, the program creates a portrait through recurring musical sensibilities rather than a spoken biography. Themes, songs and short dramatic cues reveal how a composer can respond to an actress’s presence and to the changing emotional world of successive films.

The first section centers on Les Choses de la vie, beginning with “La Chanson d’Hélène” before moving through the title music and cues associated with the film’s accident and its consequences. Sarde’s writing can establish a melodic idea with remarkable economy, then alter its significance through orchestration or a change of setting. “La Rochelle,” “Pierre et Hélène” and the more explicitly dramatic cues show different sides of that process. Heard together, they make the relationship between memory, intimacy and disruption audible, allowing a film’s emotional structure to emerge through the sequence of the music.

Max et les ferrailleurs introduces a different atmosphere, with the title material placed alongside “À la longue vue,” “Juke-box chez Saïdani,” “Lily et Max” and “Le Bal des ferrailleurs.” The shift is useful because it prevents the album from treating Schneider’s screen identity as one fixed mood. César et Rosalie then opens another space, including “La Maison sur la plage,” “La Lettre de Rosalie” and the final theme for César, David and Rosalie. The collection is attentive to the way songs and instrumental cues can carry different kinds of narrative information while remaining part of the same film’s musical world.

The Une histoire simple selections occupy the final side, moving through “Solitude,” “Le Temps qui passe,” “Serge et Marie” and related cues before the album closes with the Italian version of “La Chanson d’Hélène.” That return gives the collection a useful point of connection across its four-film structure. Sarde’s writing remains recognizable, but the changes in instrumentation, pace and melodic emphasis keep each section distinct. The album also includes the specially recorded “La Maison sur la plage,” allowing a song associated with the César et Rosalie project to take its place within this broader musical portrait.

The double vinyl configuration preserves the four-part structure, with each side largely devoted to a different film. This makes the release particularly inviting for listeners interested in French cinema and the expressive possibilities of soundtrack composition. It is neither a general survey of Sarde’s entire career nor a collection of unrelated film themes. Its focus is the meeting of a composer, a director and an actress across a specific body of work, with the music revealing connections that become easier to hear when the four scores are placed in conversation with one another.

Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic

Track Listing

A1. La Chanson d’Hélène
A2. Les Choses de la vie (générique)
A3. Prélude à l’accident
A4. L’Accident ralenti
A5. Les Choses de la vie
A6. La Mort
A7. La Rochelle
A8. Vision de la mort et cauchemar
A9. Pierre et Hélène
B1. Max et les ferrailleurs (générique)
B2. À la longue vue
B3. Juke-box chez Saïdani
B4. Lily et Max
B5. Le Bal des ferrailleurs
B6. Destruction et rédemption de Max
B7. Max et les ferrailleurs
C1. La Maison sur la plage
C2. César et Rosalie (générique)
C3. Le Cortège et la course
C4. La Lettre de Rosalie
C5. Après Sète
C6. César
C7. César, David et Rosalie (final)
C8. Thème (piano solo)
D1. Une histoire simple (générique début)
D2. Solitude
D3. Le Temps qui passe
D4. Serge et Marie
D5. Concert et bandoneon
D6. Duo
D7. La Mort
D8. Ballade
D9. La Canzone di Hélène (Italian version)