Roeland Hendrikx Ensemble * Beyond Vertigo [New CD]

When film composers turn to classical music, they shed a straitjacket rather than lose a safety net. In his Metamorfosi di Violetta, Ennio Morricone dissects the unravelling of La Traviata's heroin with filmic acuity. Tigran Mansurian's Agnus Dei oscillates between chant and dissonance to evoke unresolved grief. John Corigliano's Soliloquy turns inward even further, transforming private loss into quiet radiance. Bernard Herrmann never sought classical abstraction, yet Hitchcock's musical alter ego - the composer of the Psycho and Vertigo scores - provides this program's piece de resistance: Souvenir du voyage, a nostalgic gem with profound cinematic sensibility.