BARON DE MUNCHAUSEN/ THE SMURFS AND THE MASIC FLUTE

“I've always liked the world of animated films; it's where the impossible becomes possible. Imagination has no limits there; it doesn't run into a wall. Cartoons... are windows onto worlds much greater than those you would see through the lens of a camera.” The great Michel Legrand was talking about his vision of cartoons, a world he caused to scintillate in the Seventies. After writing the music for the television series Oum le dauphin, his first animated feature-film came in 1975 with The Smurfs and the Magic Flute, the first adventures on the silver screen of the famous Smurf comic-book characters created in 1958 by Peyo. The partnership between the Belgian comic-strip artist and the French composer gave birth to several songs, together with a sweeping, symphonic score in which Legrand returned to the characteristics of Peau d’ane: fairy-tale fantasy, wonder and innocence. ''You have to create music with two levels of understanding,'' explains Legrand; ''it has to show a certain ambition, and at the same time it has to mean something to children.'' His score for the Smurfs' famous Magic Flute left screenwriter/director Jean Image spellbound, and so Jean invited Michel to write the music for his own version of the Fabuleuses aventures du legendaire baron de Munchausen. It was an opportunity to create a vast soundtrack filled with heroism and grandeur, yet also sparkling humour, with unusual strokes of inspiration. Specially restored for the occasion, his orchestral scores for Baron de Munchausen and The Smurfs and the Magic Flute result in a thematic album whose implicit subtitle could well be ''The Cartoon according to Michel Legrand'', and it reveals little-known treasures in the composer's repertoire. It's a sparkling record, indispensable not only for fans of Michel Legrand but for lovers of animated films everywhere.
Booklet includes an interview with Michel Legrand

14 tracks, 47 min