Zimmer's soundtrack finally trembles with a respectful grandeur that can fan tall flames of free thought all the way from the vast, gleaming floors of the Louvre to the most compact secret of the Priory of Sion. Indeed, let's give the spotlight to women in music, too: It's time for a Three Sopranos. Like Kathleen Battle's vocal arcs in Vangelis' 2001 "Mythodea," Plitmann's glissandi sail above the petty pulpits of earthly doctrine with an ethereal ease that argues for Plitmann's pairing with Battle or Dawn Upshaw - or both. That track, "CheValiers," already has begun appearing quite high on world-soundtrack charts.Īnd why not? Those who know Brown's book will understand the plaintive beauty of soprano Hila Plitmann's lonely solo in "Poisoned Chalice" and other parts of the soundtrack. Without aping sacred texts, Zimmer relies in "CheValiers de Sangreal" on gathering beams of strings and muted brass-glow to fan out across the centuries of doubt between us and the origins of Christian mythology. Brown's novel is controversial because it imagines a profoundly central position for women in the Christian faith, one that could challenge the Church of Rome's male dominance. That conversation is urgent, as well it must be. This isn't as close to Carl Orff's galloping "Carmina Burana" as it is to the plainsongs of Hildegard von Bingen, a medieval Benedictine visionary abbess and composer.īy the time Zimmer describes "The Citrine Cross" in the CD's 10th track, a Bartok-wondrous celeste ushers in nothing more threatening to the Holy See's traditions than a gorgeous soprano conversation - no more modal than Thomas Tallis, no more avant garde than Ralph Vaughan-Williams and as devoutly assured as both. A walk down his Via Dolorosa may invoke sorrows disallowed by mainstream scriptural tradition, but you'll find this music mercifully untainted by the "Ave Satani" nonsense of Jerry Goldsmith's 1976 "The Omen" soundtrack. Urbi, as if to the city-state of the Vatican, Zimmer delivers a quiet, meditative rustle of commanding majesty.
(CNN) - Hans Zimmer's soundtrack for "The Da Vinci Code," Ron Howard's anxiously awaited cinematic gospel according to Dan Brown, is that most powerful of envoys: A model of restraint.