DEUX HEURES MOINS LE QUART AVANT JÉSUS-CHRIST (REMASTERED REISSUE)

Newly remastered and expanded edition.
8-page CD booklet with French and English liner notes by Nicolas Magenham.

In collaboration with Pathé Films, Music Box Records presents the remastered reissue of complete score for the 1982 comedy film Deux heures moins le quart avant Jésus-Christ (Quarter To Two Before Jesus-Christ), composed by Jean Yanne and Raymond Alessandrini.

The music for Deux heures moins le quart avant Jésus-Christ - just like all other aspects of the film - is characterized above all by numerous anachronisms, not lacking a certain impish playfulness, but always undertaken with extreme care. But the most subtle anachronisms of Jean Yanne’s film’s soundtrack are doubtless most evident in the numerous pastiches of scores composed by Miklós Rózsa for the great historical epics of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Former collaborator with Michel Magne (composer for Yanne’s first films), but also studio pianist for Georges Delerue, Lalo Schifrin, Elmer Bernstein, and Alfred Newman, Raymond Alessandrini is above all a composer for the screen. He wrote delightful melodies and themes with grandeur and seriousness for this comic historical epic.

Oscillating without cease between homage (brilliantly executed by the musicians employed in the same period by John Williams for George Lucas’ Star Wars trilogy) and humour, these outstanding tracks allude to a music that is itself anachronistic: the explicit allusions to the pop culture of the 1970s and 1980s, to Serge Gainsbourg in his reggae period and to the electronic music composer Giorgio Moroder.

This new 2021 reissue contains the same music as the previous edition (including the entire RCA LP selection plus several previously unreleased cues) but with greatly improved sound quality. The CD comes with a 8-page booklet with liner notes by Nicolas Magenham, discussing the film and the score including comments by Raymond Alessandrini. The release is strictly limited to 200 units. 

1. Générique début (3:27)
2. Jouez transistors, résonnez cassettes (4:15)
Performed by Jean Yanne & Mimi Coutelier
3. Deux heures moins le quart avant Jésus-Christ (1:39)
4. Homosexualis discothecus (4:30)
5. Ah ! la belle nana (2:41)
6. Aerobic connection (5:09)
With Jean Yanne & Mimi Coutelier
7. Marches romaines (2:31)
8. Cleopatra lied (2:10)
Performed by Mimi Coutelier
9. Marches romaines bis (1:22)
10. Motel music (3:38)
11. Hebraïomania pour cordes (3:53)
12. Duo de ces pyramides (5:29)
13. Palais de Cléopâtre (2:37)
14. Le J.T. avant J.C. (0:48)
15. Bivouac (2:33)
16. Le Secutor (1:06)
17. Flash-back (1:42)
18. La chorale césarienne (2:24)
19. Les jeux du cirque (3:09)
20. Genericus negare (3:24)

Total Time • 59:16