Golden Globe-winner Dario Marianelli wins Oscar and Bafta-Nominations for Atonement score using Sibelius 5

STOP PRESS: Dario wins Oscar for Best Music (Score) for Atonement

London, UK, 9 January 2008 – Dario Marianelli, composer of the Golden Globe-winning and Oscar and Bafta-nominated score for Atonement has been revealing the thinking behind the acclaimed score, and how Sibelius 5 helped his creative process. The composer has also used Sibelius to repurpose the score for a live performance-taking place at London’s Wigmore Hall in March.

The Italian-born and London-based composer used Sibelius 5 to help craft the score that includes many out-of-the-ordinary flourishes, such as typewriter keys beating time to the music to signify the obsessive writing of one of the central characters, Briony.

On the thought press behind the score he says: “From a really early conversation with Joe [Wright, the Oscar-winning director who also worked with Dario on 2005’s Pride and Prejudice], I knew that Atonement needed two distinct musical themes. There’s the relentlessness of Briony – we called her the girl with faulty brakes, she just can’t stop until she’s wrecked everyone’s lives! Then there’s the intense love story between Keira Knightley’s character, Cecilia, and Robbie” (played by James McAvoy).

To create the first of these two themes, Dario built up an evolving, percussive composition, and then amplified the tension further by adding the metronomic sound of Briony’s typewriter keys over the top of each beat. “That was just one of those crazy ideas, and it just really worked”.

For the love story theme, the composer used a more traditional, strings-based approach, which matched the mood and also the wartime period of the film.

“Panorama view in version 5 of Sibelius really helped me with arrangements of both these themes – because I don’t think in pages, I just think in music. With Panorama, there are no breaks in your thinking, you can think more laterally.” said Dario. Panorama  view hides page breaks in scores, instead, displaying them on an infinitely wide page.

“My orchestrator, Benjamin Wallfisch, is able to send me proofs of the orchestrated cues at an incredible speed, and I can check and correct them directly on the screen, adding to the orchestration as I go along.”

“I think Sibelius 5 is a really fantastic program. I haven’t found anything that I can’t do with it yet. And I don’t think I ever will.”

At the request of the solo cellist who played on the recording, Caroline Dale, Dario has also used Sibelius to distil much of the score down into a cello and piano suite, which will be performed on the 17th March in London’s Wigmore Hall.

For more information on Sibelius for film composition, visit www.sibelius.com/genres/film.