CLINT MANSELL LIVE AT THE BARBICAN

Posted on 2014-10-13

Grammy and Golden Globe nominated Clint Mansell was at the Barbican this week for a special performance of the highlights from his two decades of soundtrack composition. It was a class act from start to finish: Clint’s nephew installed on the merchandising stand downstairs, and a Clint-imposed ban on smartphones which was miraculously obeyed.

Fans of Mansell’s long-standing and very successful creative partnership with Darren Aronofsky would not have left disappointed by the evening: tracks from Pi, Requiem for a Dream, the Wrestler and Noah were all brilliant in performance, layered and arresting. And although I won’t be as crass as to mention the coincidence of the huge moon lurking above the Barbican towers this week, tracks from Duncan Jones’s 2009 Moon stood out for me.

The visuals accompanying the tracks were not taken from the films, and why should they, given Mansell’s music can more than stand up on its own.

Clint the Composer didn’t have an awful lot to do as Clint the Performer – most of the actual music-making was left to his band and the scratchy-when-they-needed-to-be Sonus Quartet. Most inspiring was Carly Paradis on piano though, who incredibly stayed cool even when holding up the stunning ‘Not At Home’, in accompaniment to the floating, singing head of Peter Broderick. But even though Clint was often at a loose end on stage, only, as he himself admitted, treating us to the two-finger keyboard, the two fingers (and some perfectly pitched chat) were enough for me.

Photography Ivan Bideac
Words Rosie Hore

www.clintmansell.com
www.barbican.org.uk