Conclave

Mutantは、Back Lot MusicおよびFocus Featuresとの提携により、アカデミー賞にノミネートされたフォルカー・ベルテルマンによる映画『教皇選挙』のスコアをお届けできることを誇りに思います。
ベルガーとベルテルマンがタッグを組み、数々の賞に輝いた2022年の『西部戦線異状なし』に続くコラボレーションとなる本作『教皇選挙』は、カトリック教会の新ローマ教皇選出のプロセスを取り巻く、密室で繰り広げられる緊迫した出来事を描いています。独特の儀式、暗い秘密、裏切り、そして政治的な駆け引き ――『教皇選挙』は、現代の民主主義のプロセスに煌びやかな鏡を突きつけ、その姿を浮き彫りにする作品です。
「ベルテルマンは、いつ温度を上げるべきかを熟知した達人であり、このスコアは緊張感を沸点にまで高めています」と、Mutantの共同設立者であるMo Shafeekは語ります。「幾度も繰り返されるメインメロディは、旋律的で強く心を惹きつけます。枢機卿たちの間の脆い同盟関係のように、ステレオの左右を行き交い渦巻きながら甲高く響き渡るストリングスは、物語が二転三転するたびにさらなる謎めいた魅力を加えています。本作は、数々の賞に輝いた彼のモダン・クラシック(現代の傑作)に続く、見事な最新作と言えるでしょう」
本CDは、箔押し仕様のスリーブに収められています。

Although not Volker Bertelmann’s first film score after his Oscar-winning turn for 2022’s All Quiet on the Western Front, 2024’s Conclave is a stylist cousin. Returning is an unsettling, minimalist approach, but instead of the high-contrast alternating of ambiance and the pounding, distorted percussiveness of war, Conclave’s steady, suspenseful ungirding serves what is a high-stakes yet insular character drama, often dubbed a political thriller. With many of its cues featuring only a handful of instruments, the music was performed by the adaptable London Contemporary Orchestra and Budapest Art Orchestra, and while Bertelmann’s Hauschka project is known for its experiments with prepared piano, he selected the Cristal Baschet as this score’s main instrument, saying he wanted something acoustic that could sound like a synthesizer. A crystallophone, the Cristal Baschet consists of chromatically tuned glass rods, which one plays by rubbing them with wet fingertips. Between the wishes of director Edward Berger (also of All Quiet on the Western Front) and the concepts of the composer, other guidelines for the score included avoiding Renaissance and Baroque styles for the Sistine Chapel-set story, and encouraging the use of jittery ricochet string bowing technique. Bertelmann also decided to create themes for situations rather than characters. The results include the tense “Seal the Room,” which mixes ghostly atmosphere with urgent, staccato strings; “Still No Result,” which employs low piano, timpani, and unidentifiable tonal gurgling under strings that mark time like a ticking click; and the uncanny, beguiling “The Abyss Calls Out,” a track that showcases the Cristal Baschet. The Conclave score avoids more-traditional, symphonic classical music in general until the end credits’ “Postlude of Conclave.” ~ Marcy Donelson