PRÉPAREZ VOS MOUCHOIRS

World Premiere CD release.
More than 35 minutes of music, including one unreleased track.
8-page CD booklet with French and English liner notes by Nicolas Magenham.

In collaboration with EMI Music Publishing, Music Box Records presents on CD the slightly expanded score from the original motion picture Bertrand Blier’s Préparez vos mouchoirs (Get Out Your Handkerchiefs) composed by Georges Delerue in 1978. The film received rave reviews and won the César Award for Best Original Music, as well as the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Préparez vos mouchoirs constitutes the third and last collaboration between Bertrand Blier and Georges Delerue, after the documentary Hitler, connais pas in 1963 and the cult success Calmos in 1976.

The film tells the story of Raoul and Solange (Gérard Depardieu and Carole Laure), two lost souls in a suffocating world dominated by the conformism of a dead-end relationship. Raoul is driven to despair by his wife Solange’s lethargy, which is why he asks a stranger he meets in a bar (Stéphane, played by Patrick Dewaere) to “pay her some attention”, so she can finally recapture a taste for life. The two men’s scheming ends up turning into an obsession, matched only by their passion for the music of Mozart.

Through his brilliant Mozart pastiches at the request of director Bertrand Blier, the composer of Contempt and Day for Night gives us a contemporary vision on the work of the Austrian composer (the use of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K.467 - Andante conducted by Delerue himself). Georges Delerue’s delightful score is catchy and plays charmingly with the narrative arc.

This present edition, fully remastered from the recording sessions master tapes, features one previously unreleased track (the alternate version of the lively track La poursuite). The package includes 8-page liner notes by Nicolas Magenham discussing the film and the score.

PRÉPAREZ VOS MOUCHOIRS (1978)

1. Solange et Christian (7:07)
2. La menace (1:50)
3. Dans la forêt (1:58)
4. La poursuite (1:47)
5. Solange sort de l'hôpital (0:36)
6. Le rapt (1:43)
7. Solange endormie (1:53)
8. Les tests (2:13)
9. Raoul et Stéphane abandonnés (0:45)
10. Après l'accident (2:04)
11. Christian dans la forêt (0:41)
12. Solange et Stéphane (4:07)
13. La poursuite (unreleased) (1:49)
14. Concerto pour piano et orchestre n°21 en do majeur, K.467 : II. Andante (7:35)
Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conducted by Georges Delerue

Total Time • 36:42