On track: America's alchemist of minimalist chic

By WILLIAM DART

There's just under an hour of music on Philip Glass' soundtrack for The Hours but, if you're not struck on minimalism, those wafting piano arpeggios and repeated string chords might well seem to persist for two or three.

In the cinema, it's perfection, as the American composer again proves himself a musical alchemist. An accompaniment for a Virginia Woolf sequence evokes the pastoral spirit of the Vaughan Williams brigade and, when we shift to contemporary New York, the same music is Big Apple chic.

To some, this soundtrack might flirt with the feared "classical chill-out" genre, and there are a few moments of drop-jaw banality (just programme The Kiss for a few seconds). But faith can be restored by the luminous chamber music of Morning Passages and the startling visceral thrust of Why does somebody have to die?

The ultimate recommendation comes from Michael Cunningham, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. In the CD booklet, he tells how he lured fellow-students into his dorm to hear Glass' Einstein on the Beach; now he considers the composer's music to be "part of everything I've written".

You won't need to search out a specialist dealer to buy The Hours, and nor should you for Jealousy, the debut album from Auckland's Vivo trio. Jealousy may be a few notches below William Schimmel's Tango Project series of the 1980s, but Miranda Adams, Tatiana Lanchtchikova and Evgueni Lanchtchikova deliver their 19 classic tangos molto spiritoso and, where required, agreeably con fuoco.

There's a real joy in this music and it's infectious. Adams' violin is the eternal gypsy temptress in Piazzolla's Tzigane Tango while her Russian colleagues duet sweetly on accordion and bass during the title number. Minor concerns include a Libertango which is fussy where it should be as sleek.

I'm niggling though, for this is a winner, with few competitors in the territory. And, who knows, it just could start a craze for tango parties.

Philip Glass: The Hours (Nonesuch 79693); Vivo: Jealousy (Unsung Records UNS 108)