A Symphonic Celebration (Music from the Studio Ghibli Films of Hayao Miyazaki)

For followers of Hayao Miyazaki’s Japanese anime films for Studio Ghibli, the name of composer Joe Hisaishi will be very familiar. Hisaishi’s numerous soundtracks for Miyazaki’s movies are given the full orchestral treatment here with Hisaishi himself conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. A short suite from the delightful Kiki’s Delivery Service highlights the graceful elegance of Hisaishi’s score, with its atmospheric splashes of percussion. The sound palette of the darker Princess Mononoke is radically different, its rumbling drumbeats and baleful choral interjections summoning a violent world of feud and conflict. Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away, and My Neighbor Totoro are among the other soundtracks featured, all in Hisaishi’s own transparently attractive arrangements.