• Composed by Georges Delerue
• Varèse Sarabande / 2012 / 45:55

Not that many people remember Bruce Beresford’s 1986 black comedy starring Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange and Sissy Spacek, Crimes of the Heart.  Mostly the people who made it, and film music fans.  Georges Delerue was not a composer for whom leaving an impression was ever much of a problem.  Through all those great European films in the first half of his career, the sometimes not-so-great Hollywood films of the second half, to watch a film scored by Delerue was (so often) to fall in love.  He did it again on Crimes of the Heart, reissued in 2012 as part of the Varèse Encore series.  The original album was hard to find for so many years, many Delerue fans were probably only familiar with the score thanks to its appearance on The London Sessions, so it’s an ideal opportunity to catch up with it.

In Richard Kraft’s wonderful liner notes, he says that every Delerue score seems to contain a “Joy of Living theme” and that’s certainly true of this one, the magnificent main theme seeing the gorgeous melody played first by alto sax before being taken up by the familiar wash of strings and winds.  A secondary theme, first heard in “Meg”, is a simpler affair, heard most frequently for keyboards, also attractive.  The standalone “Broom Chase” is a delightful scherzo; “Willy Jay” a much darker interlude for a while (but even that ends on a much sunnier note).  Kraft: “I am so fortunate to have known Delerue as a person, but in reality, anyone who has listened to his music knows exactly who he was.”  So true.  Sitting swooning over Crimes of the Heart, there’s really little doubt about who Delerue was; and the album – as with so many by this unique film composer – plays like a celebration of life.  Unmissable.  *****

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