Hans Zimmer: LIVE

Amazing double-album of some of Zimmer's best recent score-work, re-arranged for live concert.

Hans Zimmer

LIVE

Sony Classical

Hans Zimmer’s work-rate is phenomenal, and around a decade ago now he started to take his studio soundtrack work out for a stroll on the stage. The concerts continue to blow minds, and are multimedia extravaganzas with visuals, dancers, and the sheer spectacle of the orchestra and band on stage – Zimmer a member of the group, rather than ‘just’ a conductor. He’s there with his guitar. He’s there rocking out. He’s there – back to his roots – as stage-performer.

This latest double-CD features newly arranged suites from some of his biggest scores. Blockbusters (Wonder Woman, Man of Steel, Pirates of the Caribbean) old and new are there alongside some of his strongest work of all time – namely Gladiator, Pirates and The Lion King. Fans of his work will love the inclusion of score suites from The Last Samurai, Interstellar, Dune, Dunkirk and The Dark Knight too. You could always want for more – given the breadth and depth of Zimmer’s work across, particularly, the last two decades. And a completist might crave some of his earliest work – but this is about recasting the soundtrack music; making it anew for the stage.

To that end, some of these suites feature heavier riffs, circle back to instrumental sections, and are generally more ‘rock’ oriented then their original incarnation – but it’s all handled with such great skill, and the audience captured as part of this new ‘soundtrack’ is so clearly approving too. It’s a great testimony to the skill and style of Zimmer, and his 00s/10s work in particular. And of course it is but a mere scratching at the surface.