Nothing could be further from the truth. It is both more concentrated and less discursive than the Gardener film music. There is some mild dissonance, but melody is still the dominant element. Scoring is richly colorful and transparent. Bitonality is employed gently, as in the most attractive works of Milhaud.
Thematic material is compressed, but never abandoned entirely.
Snippets of melody pass by in rapid succession and through constantly shifting timbres. I sincerely doubt that Le Flem's teacher, Roussel, would have found anything shocking or surprising here. Only the chattering, seven and one-half minute finale overstays its welcome. The performances are about as good as we've come to expect from Marco Polo. The Rhenish Philharmonic is competent enough, though its strings are thin, tentative, and not always uniform in pitch.