Japanese composer
Joe Hisaishi
is best known for his
Takeshi Kitano
and
Hazao Miyazaki
scores -- and yet the two directors couldn't be more different.
Kitano
's films are mostly adult crime dramas, while
Miyazaki
's are mostly animated family features. But both are wildly adventurous and deeply (sometimes even secretly) romantic.
Hisaishi
has done excellent work for each, most notably
's masterful
Hana-Bi
's epic
Princess Mononoke
. If his soundtracks for
tend to have a more elegant, elegiac tone (
's taciturn protagonists often die at the end), his soundtracks for
tend to be more sweeping and majestic (no matter what comes their way,
's plucky young heroes and heroines always triumph at the end).
Spirited Away
fits the latter description to a T. As is the custom with a
film, a vocal track plays during the closing credits. In this case,
Youmi Kimura
sings the lilting
"Always With Me"
in Japanese (the CD booklet includes an English translation). The rest of the score features instrumental pieces performed by
the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra
, with whom
has worked for several years. ~ Kathleen C. Fennessy