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Caldera Records proudly presents Peter Salem’s score for the film “Alive & Kicking” from 1996.

Partly because of his HIV infection, Tonio is afraid of committing himself to a new relationship. At the same time, he refuses to let the virus define him. It’s a delicate balancing act, one that finds its allegory in the film’s extended dance sequences, a dream for any composer. “Why aren’t you angry,” is a recurring question in Nancy Meckler’s acute, sensitive film starring Jason Flemyng, Anthony Sher, and Bill Nighy. It is asked repeatedly by Tonio’s new acquaintance Jack. He knows the answer, of course. It is obvious to him that Tonio tries everything to keep himself from falling apart, to let nothing and nobody get close. And how would anger help anyway?

In the course of his ballet rehearsals Tonio learns a valuable lesson: you work with your disease, not against it.

The film’s high point is the challenged performance of a challenging ballet. It is also the high point of Peter Salem’s score, a British composer most famous for his celebrated ballet works. Both director Meckler and composer Salem dislike sentimentality, which meant, among other things, that they agreed to underscore visual sequences and montages rather than scenes of dialogue to strengthen an emotion already suggested by the respective words and gestures. To put it another way, neither Salem nor Meckler were keen to put a hat on a hat and thus be overly manipulative. They chose instead to trust their audience. Correspondingly, Meckler and Salem agreed to infuse the film, particularly its montages, with driving, playful, upbeat music. Neither wanted the music and therefore the characters in the film to appear “self-pitying,” as Salem puts it. His piece “The Dance” for the elaborate ballet sequence in the film is the score’s standout-piece, a ravishing melody orchestrated for medium-sized ensemble that invokes the spirit of Michael Nyman, Michael Torke and, at times, Rachel Portman, while always staying uniquely captivating.

“Alive and Kicking” is an astonishing feat of a score, particularly considering that it was written by a composer who at the time was inexperienced in writing for the big screen. Since it is a rather sparse score, we decided to add other titles from Salem’s oeuvre, namely a quartet and selected pieces from the 2003 BBC production “Caravaggio” which ran as the first part of the Simon Schama’s show “The Power of Art,” a docuseries with re-enactments.

The 73rd CD-release of Caldera Records features a detailed booklet text by Stephan Eicke and elegant artwork by Luis Miguel Rojas. The CD was mastered by Richard Moore and produced by Stephan Eicke.

ALIVE AND KICKING
01. The Dance (5:45)
02. Opening Titles (2:06)
03. Restaurant (1:20)
04. Workout (1:11)
05. Lovemaking (1:24)
06. Ramon’s Death Bed (0:38)
07. Ramon’s Flat (1:23)
08. Ice Cream (0:48)
09. Montage/Dance Practice (1:55)
10. Greece (1:52)
11. Restaurant Piano (1:30)
12. Together (0:43)
13. Dream (0:28)
14. Park Bench (1:20)
15. Montage (0:40)
16. Dress Rehearsal (0:48)
17. Wheelchair (1:39)
18. End Credits (3:12)
19. Quartet (5:00)

CARAVAGGIO
20. Gloria (1:56)
21. Opening (2:10)
22. Caravaggio Goes to Rome (2:19)
23. The Tavern and the Light (2:11)
24. Martyrdom of Matthew (1:53)
25. Death and the Madonna (1:39)
26. John the Baptist (4:08)
27. Praying to the Madonna (1:00)
28. Anger (0:44)
29. Goliath and the Last Steps (4:22)