Copenhagen Film Soundtrack
Enrique Fats
COPENHAGENFeature Film Soundtrack.Directed by Mark RasoCinematography by Alan PoonStaring Frederikke Dahl Hansen and Gethin Anthony music by Danish Artists brought to you by Supersonic Creative Music Supervisor David Hayman ://supersoniccreative.com/portfolio/copenhagen-feature-film-trailer/
To account for the continuing work of Jhann Jhannsson in proper detail is almost self-defeating. Not that it can't be addressed, but that it's so constant and ongoing, a reflection in process as much as, or even more so, than product. Copenhagen Dreams is on the one hand "just" another album from the Icelandic-born, Copenhagen-based musician, again assisted in part by a series of regular musical collaborators and performers, with an emphasis on the gently experimental and beautifully mood-setting. It is also another in the series of film soundtracks that have made up a vast swathe of his artwork, even beyond his standalone albums over the past decade. Copenhagen Dreams is not out to surprise, but to reaffirm and extend a body of work and a considerable reputation.
But leaving it at that is both unduly and unnecessarily bloodless. The film in question, originally released a couple of years ago by director Max Kestner, is the kind of documentary that a hundred years of motion pictures, television, and more has made into a kind of subtle genre, the documentary study of a city that relies on impression, editing, and visual and sonic sense presented to a viewer. From the multiple soundtracks created over time for Dziga Vertov's groundbreaking Russian study Man With a Movie Camera forward, the idea of crafting music for such a study is equally strong, whether to capture a hustle-bustle, a quiet contemplation, or a range in between. That Copenhagen Dreams tends toward the latter isn't a surprise given Jhannsson's work; it's the pleasure in hearing what he does that is the key to listening.
The choice of subject for the documentary does allow for more interpretive space than might be guessed. For nearly anyone who is not Danish or living in or near the country, it's arguably something near to a blank slate beyond name and location, its comparatively recent history, from Lord Nelson and Kierkegaard to Hans Christian Andersen and the Christiania district, at most the scope of trivia questions and random Wikipedia trawls. Musically the area may be most famous for the well established Roskilde Festival as much as anything else. Since Copenhagen is not Moscow or any similar large capital city that has colonized the imagination of millions, it allows Kestner to focus on the city as it is as opposed to what it must be or live up to.
As such the soundtrack to Copenhagen Dreams functions predominantly in its own right as impressionistic and not necessarily cohesive, a series of quick sketches that impress on the mind only in quick bursts. Yet for all the activity the film shows or implies, there's a general unity that essentially is Jhannsson as he has established himself, simultaneously classically-tried and placed in a 21st-century context with the technological possibilities provided. Straightforward piano-only songs such as "She Loves to Ride the Port Ferry When It Rains" intertwine with thicker arrangements and unsettled elements, perhaps its own reflection of a centuries-old city looking into an unknowable future.
"Eleven Thousand Six Hundred and Sixty-Nine Died of Natural Causes" is the name of the first track, a minute-long piece that starts with piano on its own before backward masking layers over the second half, a repetition of a simple melodic figure throughout. The melody recurs in "The Song About the Hyacinths", one of several moments in the album where themes play out once more; in this case, Jhannsson adds quickly plucked strings to not only distinguish the piece but to provide a crackling energy that further echoes elsewhere in the album.
Thus, the skittering glitch of "The Jewish Cemetery on Mllegade" floats above a subtle loop of keyboards before strings slowly move almost like a series of great sighs, distant tones adding to a feeling of alien activity, perhaps even a restlessness that belies the title's implication-- or suggests deeper feelings at work, especially notable in a country that was largely successful in saving its Jewish population from the depredations of Nazism. Similarly nervous-sounding tracks like "There's No Harm Done" contrast with moments of pure elegiac impact, such as the matching of piano and chimes on "Here, They Used to Build Ships", a suggestion of something magical but irrevocably departed. If the apparent formula is clear, the results still resonate, and when the strings appear towards the end, the result is a sudden crushing emotion, as if something else further were lost.
Those longer pieces that appear by default linger a bit more in the memory, but also tend to move beyond one core element, a chance for Jhannsson to stretch out within the confines of the film's requirements. "A Memorial Garden on Enghavevej" lets its central piano melody flow between relentless minimalism and a music-box prettiness, concluding with what could almost feel like sparkles, while the last piece "They Imagine the City Growing Out Into the Ocean", one of several tracks featuring mm's Hildur Gunadttir on vocals, has both a quality of benediction in its slow string beauty and a suggestion of a future, however melancholic. If that is to be considered "typically" Jhannsson at this point, it is no less powerful, or enjoyable, for that reason.
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I am a multi-genres flutist, composer, and educator based in New York City.
I hold a BA degree in Classical Flute Performing Arts from the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem, where I studied also Jazz and Electronic Music Composition. I lived in Copenhagen and relocated to NYC in 2005 as Fulbright scholar, and studied Composition at NYU, and Hunter College. I hold an MA degree in Music for Social Change, from Empire State College (NY).
My performance and commission credits span over Europe, Israel, Japan, USA, and Canada. My body of work includes: Progressive Urban Electro-acoustic Jazz, Contemporary, Classical, Tango, Free Improvisation, Electronic-Acoustic live soundtracks for legendary silent films, and Music for Choreography. I performs also therapeutic concerts at hospices, shelters for domestic violence survivors, Juvenile Detention Centers, and charity concerts for social causes.
I teaches locally and globally Flute, Masterclasses, and Interactive Music Appreciation.
AWARDS and GRANTS:
Danish-American Fulbright Commission Scholarship, NY Foundation for Contemporary Art, Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance, Lower Manhattan culture Council, American Scandinavian Society, Copenhagen Culture Foundation, Danish Art Council, Danish Artists Union, Danish Jazz Foundation, Fresh Fruit Festival, International Women in Jazz, and more.
I wish it had a soundtrack but this is a brilliant archive film from the 1960's and 70's in Amsterdam, showing the lowest point in the city's proud cycling history. Copenhagen was on a parallel journey at the time so it even offers a Copenhagener insight into what this city was like after over a decade of urban planning revolving around the car. Images of the modern cycling cities of Amsterdam and Copenhagen are now freely available on the internet, so this film is an excellent way to see how bad it was when the car was given free reign as well as seeing the transformation from then to now. Narrow streets choked with cars now calmed with bicycle infrastructure and car-unfriendly intiatives that not only served to bring back the bicycles but also re-transformed the city into a liveable place. A place for people. Look at all those cars. I wonder where they went? "Yeah, but where do all the cars go?" is the latest desperate grasping at straws by the cycling Pamplonan boys who enjoy a brisk 'running with the bulls' and the accompanying rush of blood to their lycra shorts. Hating on bicycle infrastructure, fighting tooth and nail the promotion of cycling for regular citizens and now using 'where do we put the cars?!?!' as an excuse. I realised something the other day...
"Biking simply becomes the way to get around town. Bicycle traffic changes gradually from being a small group of death-defying bicycle enthusiasts to being a wide popular movement comprising all age groups and layers of society from members of Parliament and mayors to pensioners and school children. "Bicycle traffic changes character dramatically in the process. When there are many bicycles and many children and seniors among them, the tempo is more stately and safe for all parties. Racing bicycles and Tour de France gear is replaced by more comfortable family bicycles and ordinary clothing. Cycling moves from being a sport and test of survival to being a practical way to get around town - for everyone.
"This shift in culture from fast slalom bicycle trips between cars and many infringements of traffic regulations to a law-abiding stream of children, young people and seniors bicycling in a well-defined bicycle network has a big impact on society's perception of bicycle traffic as a genuine alternative and reasonable supplement to other forms of transport. The shift in culture also brings bicycles more in line with pedestrians and city life in general, and is one more reason that bicycles have a natural place in this book about city life."
Anne Walker-McBay: The Newton Boys producer
Last year, 20th Century Fox simultaneously shopped two separate, period-piece soundtracks to major label buyers. They reportedly offered the first soundtrack, Titanic, to the Polygram group, but were turned down, because the label apparently doubted James Cameron's ability to direct a love story. Similar doubts were also expressed about the second project, the soundtrack to indie filmmaker Richard Linklater's largest, most expensive undertaking yet, The Newton Boys: Would Matthew McConaughey and Ethan Hawke (along with Skeet Ulrich and Vincent D'Onofrio) be able carry the film, let alone sell the soundtrack album of re-recorded standards from the Twenties? Apparently not, said conventional wisdom; even Arista/Austin, the locally-based major label affiliate, passed on the project. Eventually, both soundtracks found a home at Sony Music, which, after spending most of January and February trying to meet consumer demand for the Titanic soundtrack, released The Newton Boys album on Tuesday. Now that both soundtracks are in stores, the main difference between the two - give or take some 15 million units sold - is the fact that one is a glorified Enya release and the other is basically a big-budget Bad Livers album. Not only does that represent a night/day musical difference, it also represents a sizeable gamble on the part of Linklater; the filmmaker's insistence that he hire two novices - the Bad Livers' axis of bassist Mark Rubin and banjo/mandolin/guitarist Danny Barnes - to fashion the music for his movie has already become local lore. Sure, both Rubin and Barnes are noted music historians, but neither had dealt with a Hollywood studio before, or even a major label, and today both admit they had little idea of the crash course they were in for.