Search - Philip Glass :: Roving Mars [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

An Interesting Medium

R. Guerin | Brooklyn, NY | 07/17/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"One can't help but seem fascinated by Philip Glass's choice of projects. Very hesitantly did the composer agree to score his iconic Koyaanisqatsi. Films that followed have been quirky indy projects covering a variety of subjects. "Mindwalk, A Brief History of Time, Fog of War, Mishima and Candyman" and others are hardly in the realm of the mainstream; but these films all offered something different and inspiring to Glass.

The same can be said of his score to Roving Mars. With its opening "Mars" bars we see an image of the (apparently) manacing Red Planet. The opening notes are straight out of Glass's "Music with Changing Parts". In this score, each of the NASA rovers receives its own music which reoccurs in different forms through out the score. The music is scored for small orchestra and the recording sounds nice.

Glass's mainstream film scoring has however yielded less interesting results (Secret Window, Taking Lives) with the exception of the remarkable "The Hours". Roving Mars is quite interesting, and at about 35 minutes it is short and sweet."