Dario Marianelli picked up his first Oscar for Atonement at last night's Oscar ceremony.  This is the first win for the composer, previously nominated for Pride and Prejudice.  It's the first time in three years since the Academy has awarded a score that has received a Golden Globe.  The last one was for Shore's music to The Return of the King, the final installment of The Lord of the Rings.  Of course, Shore has not been nominated since, even though he scored last year's Best Picture winner, The Departed. 

In some other news, Varese announced a few limited edition releases including a 4-disc set of Bill Conti's music for North and South.  The other discs include a pair of scores by Bernstein, North, and one by David Newman.  Those who decided to shell out their money for the Film Score Monthly multi-disc set of music from Superman films, likely breathed a fairly big sigh of relief.

ATONEMENT—Dario Marianelli

When I first heard Marianelli’s music it was for his last teaming with director Joe Wright, Pride and Prejudice.  Atonement musically bears some resemblance to that score and well it should.  Both have basically English dramatic themes and both are set in specific periods within British history.  Marinelli returns to the addition of a piano-driven texture but there is something far more fascinating about this particular score. 

There are character themes for Briony and Robbie in particular that are fascinating to hear unfold.  The stories of these two people are intertwined throughout and if you listen carefully you will hear Marianelli brign these two themes into contact with one another and often hear the texture and musical ideas take on some aspect of the other character’s theme.  We first hear in “Briony”a rhythmic connection to this character that begins with the sound of a typewriter.  A rhythmic pulse begins to provide rhythmic drive, not quite in a minimalist way, but it takes ona an almost ostinato quality that will shift to two-note piano pattern against a minor chord outline that serves to drive the music forward as well.  In the film it reflects Briony’s driving thoughts, ideas that impact those around her in ways that become dire.

Expert orchestration is a key aspect of each of the scores nominated each year.  You might wonder how that is different from past years, but listen to each of these scores and you will discover exquisite writing for most of the instruments and groupings in ways that are quite amazing.  Here we see Marianelli adapting the mid-20^th century orchestral sound favored by a host of English composers who lived during the time of the story.  “Farewell” is one of the most beautiful tracks on the disc with a real classic romantic film theme sound that truly breaks your heart without being too maudlin in a way that is reminiscent of some of the Merchant Ivory Richard Robbins scores crossed with just a hint of Gabriel Yared (The English Patient comes to mind especially here).

The interplay between the typewriter ideas and the piano lines create an interesting concerto of sorts.  This passes on to a cello and piano dialogue to great effect in “Love Letters.”  We also get several suggestions of fugato in the string lines when they take over from the keyboard instruments.  The use of this musical device, again orchestrated so that we can hear this if we pay even the slightest attention in the film itself, works to suggest the complexity of the story we are about to see.  It is an amazing use of musical foreshadowing that still manages to not reveal the ending of the film itself.

Marianelli tends to have a real romantic sensibility that plays against the slightly contemporary harmonic ideas and post-minimal ostinato patterns that appear in the score.  The thematic idea that he latches on to creates the proper glue to a score whose romantic undertone, with its sense of longing and missed opportunities, makes for an engrossing listen on its own.  This is one of those themes we may be hearing for some time to come, expressed best in the superb “The Cottage on the Beach.” 

“Elegy for Dunkirk” is a delicious blend of film music expectations where the diagetic music and non-diagetic lines are blurred.  The scene features a group of soldiers singing and as the characters come closer to the group the singing comes to the forefront as well making for an immensely moving piece of music.  (This sequence is similar to Rombi’s approach in several key scenes in another war film, Joyeux Noel.)  As the film progresses, there are scenes that just make you sigh or move you in expected ways and in “Come Back” we get the musical equivalent of matching that response as the romantic string sounds begin to take their intense sighing falls more often against the piano lines.  Things always are brought back into the realm of that opening track (“Briony”) with its dual keyboard sounds often launching the complex string writing that follows.

Five Reasons Why this Should Receive the Oscar

1.      The score is a true match to period narrative with its musical language in was often not seen.

2.      Rich thematic writing serves the picture in both overt and subtle ways—we tend to sense this music far more than we really hear it.

3.      The sequence at Dunkirk is a standout.

4.      The use of traditional instruments with something that might be considered sound design (the typewriter).

5.      The typewriter and Dunkirk scenes are both fascinating ways of blurring the roles of diagetic and non-diagetic sound in film.