This song, also from Baz Luhrmann's "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet", follows heart-broken Romeo on his hurried journey to find his "dead" wife, Juliet. On his way back into Verona, he is followed by police helicopters with machine guns among other things, and breaks down at the steps of St. Peter's Church, holding a priest at gunpoint while screaming at the police "Tempt not a desperate man!"
With exhilirating beats and choral pieces from "O Verona" stuck here and there, "Escape from Mantua" is one of my favorite movie score pieces. Truly a wonderful creation.
from William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet Volume 2 (Capitol 55567), available on CD
This track is really composed of a couple of almost no words. The verses are short and sweet, but the heart of the song is this incredible arrangement of harmonies. The song just gets better and better as it goes along until by the end you don't want it to end. Gorgeous.
This song is absolutely full of class and confidence - over 8 minutes long, and over a minute at the start is without drums or bass, just to get you into the groove. Then, they don't pull out the best tunes straight away - instead, they build up to them gradually with variations on the theme before building into a bigger and bigger climax. The tunes are as simple as you expect from Kraftwerk - the confidence to just hold a single note for 8 beats without changing is just fantastic - but the cumulative effect is brilliant.
The song is both hypnotic and euphoric and I can't recommend it too highly. When I looked at the iTunes stats as to what songs I had listened to the most, it turned out I had listened to this a heroic four times as much as any other song.
This song has clearly been hugely influential on groups like depeche mode and new order, and yet it somehow sounds quite separate from the things it has influenced. For example, just can't get enough by Depeche Mode is clearly influenced by this, but Europe Endless is much less poppy and commercial.
This whole album is fantastic - there is a kind of sister song to this one later on the album called Franz Schubert.
from Trans-Europe Express (Capitol 7243 5 81685 2 5), available on CD
A really beautiful arrangement of this classic film number which I just found out was written in 1944, not the 1950s as I had always thought. Superb orchestral parts move in and out of the texture, through which a lot of harmonic interest not present in other versions is heard. Shearing's divine pianistic touch is shown at several key moments. I don't always like Shearing's recordings, but this one is special.
from White Satin (Capitol ST1334) available on CD - The Best of George Shearing (Capitol)