I Want To Be A Shellfish Soundtrack Review
Beautifully Restrained and Heartfelt Hisaishi Score
Mar 16, 2009
Japanese film scoring legend Joe Hisaishi is best known for his amazing scores to the anime films of Hayao Myazaki, but his music for live-action films is just as magnificent in its technical brilliance and swooning emotion, as heard in The Legend of the Four Gods and Kikujiro.
His recent score for the Katsuo Fukuzawa drama I Want To Be A Shellfish is astonishingly gorgeous and dripping with cascades of melodic beauty, punctuated by occasional bursts of militant bravado and gripping tension.
Typically Gorgeous Hisaishi Main Theme
I Want To Be A Shellfish is saturated in Joe Hisaishi's distinct, eloquent style: the music is purely orchestral and is defined by its remarkable restraint and harmonious, classical flow. The main theme is a delicate waltz, floating elegantly through its enjoyably memorable progressions and satisfyingly developed through the album's running time. Introduced at the very outset of the score on high solo piano in "Prologue," it bears a striking stylistic similarity to Hisaishi's own Howl's Moving Castle, although here the tone is greatly matured and even somber.
The actual melody of the theme raises memories of Mancini's carousel theme from Charade, although the two themes share only a measure or two of similarity, and Hisaishi's harmonies and orchestration are far more complex and mournful than the bouncier, jazzier Mancini theme.
Thematic Development in Joe Hisaishi's Music
The theme receives more than ample showcasing in the score, with a cycling, prancing series of statements in "Rendezvous/Main Theme", and exquisite exploration of the idea with light percussion, plaintive piano, swooning strings and melting woodwind solos. It is an unassumingly beautiful piece, and explores so many instrumental and tempo variations on the main theme that it serves a perfect suite to represent the entire album. It is reprised with very attractive results in “Shiomi Coast/Beloved” and many other cues, culminating in a stunning, sweeping arrangement for the final reprise cue, “I Want to Be A Shellfish.”
Tonal Variation in Shellfish Score
Indeed, much of the score follows the general tone and instrumentation of the main theme cue, but there are occasional moments of abject and unmerciful tension (“Big Northern Hill Incident”, “Hauled Off”), as well as a few cues showcasing strident military bravado and brute strength, as in the bombastic “Soldier Practice.” But while such music is driving and muscular, it never loses its classical refinement and compositional depth.
The unsettlingly beautiful main theme, coupled with these moments of captivating sorrow and darkness, make this album a wonderful counterpoint to Hisaishi’s unreservedly cheerful and innocent Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, although I Want To Be A Shellfish is not without its warmer moments: “Friendship I” and “Friendship II” both contain fine trumpet solos expressing themes of tender contemplation, good-natured and affable, but mature and stable, unlike the sprightly dances and childlike wonder of the concurrent Ponyo.
Summary
All in all, the album is decidedly more somber and introspective than Hisaishi’s lighthearted work for Studio Ghibli, but it retains the same precise magnificence and thematic memorability as the most classic of his other efforts, and it easily claims its place as one of his finest scores to date. It is currently available as a direct import from Yes Asia, and it is unequivocally recommended.
See also: Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea Soundtrack Review
 |
 |
