Despite living in Europe, my knowledge of European film is embarrassingly hopeless. I should probably qualify that by noting that European in this sense rarely seems to mean British, rather more French and Italian, a truth reinforced by the track listing for Silva's shiny four disc collection. No such compilation would be complete without a good dose of Ennio Morricone, but with a sensible emphasis on his more romantic notions such as the exquisite Cinema Paradiso, The Red Tent (often cited by fans as his best theme, although a couple of dozen could easily claim that title), The Professional, Novecento and others. Georges Delerue only gets two outings, but the jaunty neoclassical Chorale from Day for Night and the jazzier Jules et Jim are perfect examples of Delerue's fine craft.

Of the classic European film composers, the best was undoubtedly Nino Rota and it's his glorious Amarcord which opens the album (if more my accident than design, the album is an A to Z) and couldn't sum up the archetype of European cinema composing any more if it tried. Rota's other efforts for Fellini are represented by 8 1/2, Fellini Satyricon, La Dolce Vita and La Strada, all equally sublime efforts from a film music legend, mixing sweeping lyricism with a lighter, carnivalesque sound, with effortless joie de vivre. Only one well known Hollywood composer gets a look in and that's Miklos Rozsa (yes, I know he was Hungarian, but you know what I mean) and his sweeping waltz for Providence manages to fit alongside the native composers, while still sounding every bit like typical Rozsa.

The flourishing contemporary scene is well represented with a mixture of the traditional and the modern. At the latter end of the scale is Eric Serra; his music isn't to everyone's taste, but the epic suite from Atlantis (no relation to the Disney version) is terrific, and his synth based scores for The Big Blue, La Femme Nikita and Subway are not without interest. However, much finer are Bruno Coulais' haunting choral score for Les Choristes, Nicola Piovani's delightful Life is Beautiful and Zbigniew Preisner's dark The Double Life of Veronique (easily the best track from an otherwise slightly disappointing score album). Philippe Sarde must be one of film music's most overlooked composers, but having recently discovered a good deal of his work, it's well worth checking out. Despite the martial sounding title, Fort Saganne has an exquisite, rapturous theme as gorgeous as any by Morricone or Delerue. It's just unfortunate that it's the only entry on the album, but as fine a start as one could wish for.

Sarde's contemporaries Michel Legrand (the justly famous Umbrellas of Cherbourg and less well known, but equally fine The Young Girls of Rochefort, not as cheesy as it sounds) and Maurice Jarre (the rather obscure Tin Drum, Jarre having done most of his best work in Hollywood) are also represented. Of Silva's four disc collections, this probably has the greatest amount of material liable to be novel to even the more rabid fan. In some ways it reinforces the clichés of European film music and there are plenty of tracks one could imagine enjoying with a coffee on the Champs Elysée or giving one the urge to sell up, buy a 2CV and running away to Provence, but the repertoire is much wider than that and there are plenty of unsung composers who are give their due here. The performances are uniformly splendid, one of Silva's most engaging collections.

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The track listing can be found here at Soundtrack Collector as I'm hopelessly lazy, as you well know...