The Master and Margarita in soundtracks

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The films telling the story of The Master and Margarita may be criticized many times, often the critics would agree that their soundtracks are good and even impressive.

The first film trying to bring the story of The Master and Margarita in the movies was made by Aleksandar Petrovic in 1972. The movie is - I think rightly - criticized on many points, but still Petrovic could attrack the famous Italian composer Ennio Morricone for comosing the soundtrack. His most famous composition of this film is the song The Encounter. It's a gentle, poetic melody in the typical Morricone style.

In 1993, the Russian director Yuri Kara asked composer Alfred Schnittke to make the soundtrack for his film Master i Magarita. The film was planned to be the most expensive post-Soviet production ever. For various reasons, however, it took 17 years before it was shown in the cinema theatres. The CD with Schnittke's soundtrack was released in 2005 though. However, when the film was released in 2011, it seemed to be greatly reduced in time and in various scenes Schnittke's was left out or replaced by other, not necessarily more appropriate, music. Like, for example, Woland's ball, for which Yuri Kara used Maurice Ravel's Bolero.

The most recent in line is the impressive soundtrack written in 2005 by Igor Kornelyuk for the Russian TV series Master i Margarita directed by Vladimir Bortko. First the composer Andrei Petrov was commissioned, but those plans were changed. Of course, we will never now how it would have looked like with the music of Petrov, but the music of Kornelyuk certainly contributed to the success of the TV series. It was used with images of The Master and Margarita by hundreds of amateur filmmakers on Web sites like YouTube.

There's a possibility that I missed some soundtracks. So if you know about others, please don't hesitate to contact me.

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