This useful five-CD clamshell box set collects the soundtrack music from the Tarkovsky films Ivan's Childhood (1962), Andrei Roublev (1966), Solaris (1972), Mirror (1975) and Stalker (1979). The first two featured scores by Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov. Eduard Artemyev created the music and what can only be called soundscapes for the latter three. The set's title, Tarkovsky, does not give away what it includes.
Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov (Вячесла́в Овчи́нников, 1936–2019) first worked with Tarkovsky (Андрей Тарковский, 1932–1986) on the 1960 short film The Steamroller and the Violin. The composer’s first symphony was completed over 1955 to 1957, while the future director was still a film student: The Steamroller and the Violin was Tarkovsky’s graduation project. Ovchinnikov would go on to be a major musical figure. As well Ivan's Childhood and Andrei Roublev, his film-related work includes Sergei Bondarchuk’s monumental adaptation of War and Peace.
Eduard Artemyev (Эдуа́рд Арте́мьев, 1937–2022) followed a slightly less standard path. He, too, had been at the Moscow Conservatoire but, in 1960, when he graduated became interested in synthesised sounds. He found his way to the ANS Synthesiser, a complicated Russian-Soviet instrument which produced sounds by optically reading sheets of glass – discussed in a Music Reissues Weekly piece in 2023. The collection looked at back then included some of Artemyev’s music created for the Solaris soundtrack.
From the outline biographies of the two composers, it’s pretty obvious that what accompanied the imagery of Ivan's Childhood and Andrei Roublev was different from what soundtracked Solaris, Mirror and Stalker.
While Andrei Roublev moved on from Ivan's Childhood’s conventional orchestral scoring to a formulation incorporating an audio collage with choral and solo voices, it was not as innovative as what was fashioned by Artemyev for the three later films. Solaris is the benchmark – mysterious, placing Bach selections in settings mostly not otherwise wedded to either a rhythmic throughline or traditional structure. The sheet-metal, verging on white noise, sound typifying the ANS Synthesiser rings through loud and clear. Listening to these 17 tracks divorced from the film is akin to slowly passing alongside a series of doors opening to reveal a sequence of interrelated musical scenarios.
As a listening experience, Mirror is more unified. It could have been a stand-alone album as such, albeit one which is challenging with what is a benchmark in proto-industrial ambience which is interspersed with a Flamenco-esque segment, a short organ sequence and a few orchestral passages. Overall, there is a familial relationship with the Tangerine Dream of the period. Stalker is even more cohesive, interlacing the rippling synthesiser with flute, harpsichord and the Iranian stringed-instrument the tar. A spectral choir adds to the otherworldly ambience. Again, this could have been issued as an album. Amazing stuff, and not-too far from Popol Vuh at their most exotic.
None of these soundtracks were issued when any of the films came out. Ovchinnikov’s music for Ivan's Childhood and Andrei Roublev seems to have first been issued on a couple of Japanese albums in 1995 – there does not appear to be any earlier releases. The past situation with Eduard Artemyev’s Tarkovsky works is similarly confounding, equally obscure: Solaris cropped up on a Japanese LP in 1978 while re-recorded extracts from the Stalker and Mirror soundtracks were on a 1990 CD. The actual music from Solaris and Stalker was then on Japanese albums in 1995 (issued by the same label as the Ivan's Childhood and Andrei Roublev soundtracks) (pictured left, the Japanese Solaris LP). Until now, getting this material has been difficult.
The new box set does not collect re-recordings – what’s heard is as per the films. The audio sources are not detailed. A licensee is noted as TMP Ltd. What did this organisation supply as the sources from which to master? Disappointingly, there are no liner notes and/or contextualising/explanatory text. There are, however, postcard-style reproductions of old film poster images.
Tarkovsky is – as per its minimal, unilluminating title – an enigmatic release. Little is given away. A bit like watching Stalker. Nonetheless, it makes these soundtracks easily available for the first time, collects them in one place and sounds great. Anyone who has been seduced by these films will need this box set.
- Next week: Jet Black Berries' 1985 LP Sundown On Venus gets another day in the sun
- More reissue reviews on theartsdesk
- Kieron Tyler’s website
