In The Bin [Issue #24]
Various
World Trade Center (CD Sony Classical)

Removed from their dramatic settings, orchestrated film scores can resemble cantatas. Craig Armstrong’s score for Oliver Stone’s film about the 9/11 tragedy comes across as a series of solemn instrumental chamber works, with a haunting and mournful, yet vaguely hopeful leitmotif. Armstrong’s piano and guitar are abetted by the Hollywood Studio Symphony and Hollywood Film Chorale, providing occasional operatic touches to the sad, subdued tone.