Barocco / Les soeurs Bronte

Quartet Records, in collaboration with Gruppo Sugar, presents the CD release of a Philippe Sarde and André Téchiné double-header: Barocco and Les soeurs Bronte.

Barocco (1976) stars Isabelle Adjani and Gérard Dépardieu in a Hitchcock-like thriller, strongly inspired by the doppelgänger plot of Vertigo. As a blackmailing plot goes south, a young woman finds a strange fascination with a man who looks just like her boyfriend whom he had just killed. Sarde's score is Herrmann-inspired with repetitive, fragmented thematic material rounding out the mystery of mistaken identities. The soundtrack also includes the original song "On se volt se voir" performed by Marie-France Garcia. Philippe Sarde won the César Award for this score, which is one of his best and most valued works.

Les soeurs Bronte (1979) stars Isabelle Adjani, Marie-France Pisier and Isabelle Huppert as the Brontë sisters, whose singular contributions to British literature such as "Wuthering Heights" and "Jane Eyre" marked a new era for awakening female authors. Sarde's elegant work for this film was to adapt several classical pieces, especially by Schumann, as an underscore.

This CD release issues complete versions of both scores. Barocco was already quite well-represented on the original LP, but the three bonus tracks fill in the remaining gaps in the score. For Les soeurs Bronte, an original music-and-dialogue LP was released in 1979; now we present the score in six movements as conceived by Sarde, without dialogue.

This album has been produced by Edouard Dubois and the composer, and mastered by Chris Malone from first-generation master tapes provided by Gruppo Sugar. The richly illustrated package features liner notes by Gergely Hubai discussing the films and scores.