This Greek composer and pianist continues her association with Theo Angelopoulos, his latest film picking up the Golden Palm at last year’s Cannes Festival. Augmenting her ensemble with strings from the Athens-based La Camerata, the main theme is magnified from the simple piano fragment of ‘By the Sea’. Sometimes Karaindrou and Angelopoulos’s working relationship is so close that her music arrives before his images are shot. This score provides a lesson in gradual embellishment, its small groupings of violin/cello/accordion (or clarinet/horn/mandolin) reiterating the theme against the droning groundswell of the strings, echoing the Greek folk music techniques Karaindrou uses for her inspiration. ‘Depart and Eternity Theme’ frames a smeared French horn solo from Vangelis Skouras, while ‘To a Dead Friend’ paints clarinettist Manthos Halkias into the misty foreground. Although broken up into 18 short pieces, it’s all really one long tonal exploration, suitably conveying the desolation and nostalgic yearning of Bruno Ganz’s terminally ill lead character, its recurrent melody offering each new surge of reaffirming, though temporary, optimism.'