Lawrence Sieberth ’s Musique Visuelle: Music for Piano Trio and Orchestra is a gargantuan endeavor, rich with emotion and densely layered. Calling it cinematic would be too easy, but since its title invites us to envision the music, I think it’s appropriate. The album traverses a landscape of experiences so expansive they could only play out on the silver screen. The multicultural musical influences cue the listener to envision France, Brazil, Africa, or Spain in the sleek, exotic way of a James Bond film or the Riviera of Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief. It’s not a literal representation of one place or another, but rather the stylized idea of a life of excitement, mystery, passion and glamour. It’s an atmosphere of deep emotions. A stream- of-consciousness of moments appearing and disappearing the same way a chase scene might take Cary Grant through the kitchen of a hotel, across a dance floor, and then speeding along a highway against the glitter of the Mediterranean.

The composition, execution, and engineering that went into its production took the album on its own journey from New Orleans to New York to Nashville and back again. The fact that it’s polished, brilliantly executed, and cohesive is a testament to the peak skills of all of the artists involved. Musique Visuelle is a world of sound in glorious Technicolor.