Nyman’s score is a highly effective advertisement for Andrew Niccol’s thoughtful science-fiction film. Based on the subject of genetic engineering, Gattaca focuses on the oppression of the human spirit in a world obsessed with perfection. To this end, much of the music dispenses with the chugging insistence of some of Nyman’s best-known previous work, evoking instead a profound sense of melancholy epitomized by a brief, haunting solo brass figure which recurs throughout the score. Nyman is well-known for his technique of adapting musical material by earlier composers. This happens here in a most unnerving fashion: the music rotates around a deeply macabre interpolation, occurring halfway through the recording, involving Schubert’s Impromptu, D899 No. 3 in an adaptation for a genetically engineered 12-fingered pianist. Silly as this may seem on paper, the result is genuinely chilling, the subtle perversion of the original condensing the film’s disturbing theme into three minutes of piano music. The production of the recording is perhaps too literal-minded in its detachment, but the music shines, though darkly. Roger Thomas