Concert Review: Journey to the Center of the Soul

The New York Philharmonic drinks our milkshake.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Pipe line: Daniel Day Lewis in There Will be Blood.
Image © 2008 Ghoulardi Film Company, Paramount and Miramax.

Ten years ago, Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood rumbled, whistled and roared into movie theaters, anchored by a heaven-storming performance by Best Actor winner Daniel Day-Lewis and the American sense of guilt and horror that this nation's relentless march of progress has left in its very wide wake. On Wednesday night, the New York Philharmonic opened its annual Art of the Score Festival with the orchestra's first performance of the film's complete score, a polyglot creation anchored around the music of composer Jonny Greenwood. Conductor Hugh Brunt made his podium debut.

Recordings Review: A Little Old Fashioned (But That's All Right)

Unraveling Jonny Greenwood's Phantom Thread.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

One of the hidden messages in a dress from Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread.
Image © 2017 Focus Features/Universal.

On Oscar Night 2018, the Paul Thomas Anderson film Phantom Thread won only one major award: that for costume design. While it is not surprising that a film about a 1950s London dressmaker garnered that particular Academy Award, a listen to the lush, creative and emotive soundtrack (available on Nonesuch) to that film by composer Jonny Greenwood indicated that this picture may have had a shot at Best Score as well. (That Oscar went to Alexandre Desplat and his work on The Shape of Water, and it was a well-deserved win.)