JoAnn Falletta & London Symphony Orchestra - Ranjbaran: Persian Trilogy (2004)

Lush and highly atmospheric, Behzad Ranjbaran's Persian Trilogy for orchestra is a clever feat of orchestration, vaguely comparable to Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade or Stravinsky's Firebird in its lavish tone painting and exotic effects. Yet the score's sumptuous timbres and shimmering surfaces barely conceal its extremely derivative and predictable music, and Ranjbaran's late twentieth century score might well be construed as a pastiche of post-Romantic tone poems, or mistaken as a score for an adventure movie. Based on epic tales of the hero Rostam in Ferdowsi's eleventh century poem "Shahnameh," the trilogy was composed between 1989 and 2000 and appears to be a labor of love for Ranjbaran. Even so, the device-filled but unmemorable music has a slick Hollywood feeling to it, and it is overloaded with clichés -- glistening string and harp passages, frantic chase music, distant brass calls, skittering woodwind runs, ominous bass rumblings, and blazing climaxes -- which bring modern action heroes to mind rather than a legendary Persian and his exploits. The London Symphony Orchestra, directed by JoAnn Falletta, plays with the same dispassionate polish and anonymous efficiency it reserves for blockbuster soundtracks. Delos provides clear sound, though it lacks warmth and resonance.