Track Listing

1. Poet Acts
2. Morning Passages
3. Something She Has To Do
4. For Your Own Benefit
5. Vanessa And The Changelings
6. I'm Going To Make A Cake
7. Unwelcome Friend
8. Dead Things
9. Kiss
10. Why Does Someone Have To Die
11. Tearing Herself Away
12. Escape
13. Choosing Life
14. Hours

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12984 in Music
• Released on: 2003-02-10
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .27 pounds
• Running time: 114 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
How better to score a movie that takes place in three tangentially related time periods than with music that strives for timelessness? The hallmarks of Philip Glass's minimalism serve The Hours well. The film, based on Michael Cunningham's novel, tells the stories of three women--Virginia Woolf in the early 1920s, a housewife just after World War II, and a book editor in the present--whose days relate in different ways to Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway. Yet rather than construct a sonic montage of these three time periods (perhaps some Ravel for Woolf, some Max Steiner for the housewife, some Enya for the editor), Hours producer Scott Rudin turned to Glass, a contemporary-classical composer who has had a substantial side career in film, most notably with Koyaanisqatsi. The familiar Glass sounds--the endlessly layered violins, the static melodies, the glacial rhythms--all lend a consistent aural foundation to a story that moves fluidly back and forth in time. The music is scored for orchestra, string quartet and piano. Those plentiful strings lend a thick cushion, a triumph of tonal suspension, for the piano part, which Michael Riesman plays coolly, emphasising what are often single notes separated by thoughtful silences, as well as short sets of scales cascading in slow motion. Not only will these compositional themes be familiar to fans of Glass's work, so too will several of the melodies. Some sections of the score are derived from his albums Glassworks and Solo Piano and from his opera Satyagraha which, incidentally, involved the stories of three legendary men active in different eras. --Marc Weidenbaum

Customer Reviews

noticing
Last night I watched The Hours. What was most notable about the film, from a sound perspective, was that as the credits rolled, I listened to a beautiful piece of music. One that I had clearly heard before, but was hearing in a way I had not heard before.... What came to me was that the mastery of this soundtrack was how it was unnoticable. Every scene, every emotion, tension, light relief; was communicated by sound, by a score that exactly replicated what was seen and felt on screen, so perfectly, it became unnoticable. Until that final moment where the genius of it came to light. As the credits rolled. I have never seen or heard sound and picture fused with this level of awareness and heart.

A wonderful way to spend your hours
Film soundtracks are a strange animal: some work only if you've seen the film, whilst others don't require this. The soundtrack to "The Hours" is definitely the latter.

If you have seen the brilliant film, you will be more than aware of the haunting and achingly beautiful music that accompanies the wonderful acting, intelligent script and visual imagery that is "The Hours". Even if you haven't seen it - and you should! - Philip Glass's soundtrack is a must.

Fans of Glass's work will buy this regardless; other customers will find themselves in possession of a CD containing music of sheer beauty. Since buying this wonderful soundtrack, it has become a near-permanent resident in my CD player. And that is no bad thing.

So, what do you get for your money? Glorious, evocative music, beautiful packaging, and some of the best sleeve notes and design I have seen for some time. Even the pefectionist Virginia Woolf would approve, I fear!

Highly recommended.

Fantastic combination
I read the book. I watched the film and I was amazed how the Glass music "fixed" the film so well. I thought that the book was unfilmable until I saw the film and a really strong part of its success is how the music tells you where you are. Not since the great Bernard Herrman enhanced the films of Alfred Hitchcock have I heard a score that is such an integral part of the film itself. As a piece of Glass music it stands by itself so I hope that a suite from The Hours will soon be heard in recital. I can not speak too highly of this amazingly charged recording.