Music - His Dark Materials : The Musical Anthology Featuring Original Music by Lorne Balfe

By Mulder, 31 october 2019

The first installment of music from the highly anticipated series His Dark Materials will be digitally released Sunday, November 3rd on Silva Screen Records, which is also the day of the U.K. series premiere. The music comes from Grammy Award-winning composer Lorne Balfe, who hand-picked and worked with a team of diverse and exquisitely talented musical artists to help bring the mystical score to life. If you're interested in receiving a download of the album, please feel free to reach out. Thanks in advance for your coverage on this soundtrack release!

In this introduction to the music from the television series, composer Lorne Balfe delves into the story and character themes from His Dark Materials, the new adaptation of Philip Pullman’s acclaimed trilogy. Performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the soundtrack album has attracted a stellar cast of additional contributing recording artists. The series will have its global premiere on Sunday, November 3rd on BBC One and on Monday, November 4th on HBO. The first soundtrack album – one of two soundtrack releases for the series – will release digitally on November 3rd followed by CD and vinyl releases later.

For His Dark Materials, Lorne Balfe has assembled a superb, diverse, and devoted cast of performing artists to present the exquisitely crafted new musical themes. Already fans of the book and wanting to contribute to the show, the album connects singer KT Tunstall, drummer Chad Smith (Red Hot Chilli Peppers), cellist Tina Guo (Hans Zimmer Live and The World of Hans Zimmer), post-modern composer-cellist Peter Gregson, steam punk influenced violinist and dancer Lindsey Stirling, classical horn player Sarah Willis, BAFTA award winning composer, multi-instrumentalist Richard Harvey and Vanya Moneva’s Ethnic Bulgarian Choir.

Presented on this soundtrack album are the opening title theme, together with key character themes for the young protagonists Lyra, Roger and Will and the adults Mrs. Coulter, Lord Asriel and Lee Scoresby. Other themes present the majestic locations of Oxford and Svalbard, the people that Lyra encounters on her epic journey, the Gyptians, the Witches of Lake Enara, the machinations of The Magisterium, and The Alethiometer, the device that helps set all the events in motion.

“Since the beginning, myself and the rest of the music team knew we wanted a mixture and a hybrid,” says Lorne. “What I wanted people to feel when listening to the music is they don’t necessarily know if it’s real or not or whether it’s in the present or in the past. There are no rules and musically, it’s constantly evolving. Another crucial element we strived to accomplish was to always have a clear journey of each character’s theme. I wrote their themes separately as a journey, so that we knew musically what would happen throughout the series.”. The leading cast for His Dark Materials includes Dafne Keen as Lyra, Ruth Wilson as Mrs Coulter, Lin-Manuel Miranda as Lee Scoresby, James McAvoy as Lord Asriel, Clarke Peters as The Master of Jordan College, James Cosmo as Farder Coram and Anne-Marie Duff as Ma Costa, with Will Keen as Father McPhail and Ariyon Bakare as Lord Boreal.

Lorne Balfe (Mission Impossible: Fallout, The Lego Batman Movie, Churchill) is a Grammy Award-winning, EMMY and BAFTA nominated composer. Whether on an impossible mission, the heartbreak of the Queen, the perils of the cape crusade or the soul of a genius, Lorne Balfe creates a musical voice that reflects the characters and the stories that embody them. Originally from Inverness, Scotland, Balfe has created music in virtually all genres and for all visual media with projects ranging from major studio to independent films, tent-pole video game franchises, beloved animated feature films, critically acclaimed television series, and documentary features.

His Dark Materials is produced by Bad Wolf and New Line Cinema for BBC One and HBO.

Tracklisting:
1. His Dark Materials
2. The Alethiometer
3. Lyra: The Child of Prophecy
4. The Settling of a Daemon
5. Scholastic Sanctuary
6. The General Oblation Board
7. The Life of Roger Parslow
8. The Machinations of Lord Boreal
9. A Gilded Cage
10. The Strength of Gyptians
11. A Plea to Fate
12. The Legacy of Svalbard
13. Mrs. M. Coulter
14. The Magisterium
15. The Path Foretold
16. Release the Spy-Fly
17. The Tales of Lee Scoresby
18. The Compass Points North
19. The Witches of Lake Enara

Synopsis
His Dark Materials is set in an alternative world where all humans have animal companions called dæmons, which are the manifestation of the human soul. The series follows the life of young Lyra (Dafne Keen) who is an orphan living with the scholars at Jordan College, Oxford. As in Pullman's novel, Lyra discovers a dangerous secret that involves Lord Asriel (James McAvoy) and Marisa Coulter (Ruth Wilson). In her search for her missing friend, Lyra also uncovers a series of kidnappings and its link to the mysterious substance called Dust. Director Otto Bathurst explained that some elements of the book and film had been changed to give the series a more modern feel, compared to the original's Victoriana fantasy.

His Dark Materials
Based on His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
Written by Jack Thorne
Starring Dafne Keen, James McAvoy, Ruth Wilson, Clarke Peters, Lewin Lloyd, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Anne-Marie Duff
Composer : Lorne Balfe
Executive producers : Carolyn Blackwood, Toby Emmerich, Deborah Forte, Julie Gardner, Chris Irving, Philip Pullman, Jane Tranter, Piers Wenger
Producer : Laurie Borg
Cinematography : Justin Brown
Editors : Niven Howie, Nick Arthurs, Dan Roberts, Chris Gill, David Fisher
Production companies : BBC Studios, Bad Wolf, New Line Cinema, Scholastic
Distributor : BBC Studios (United Kingdom), HBO (international)
Original network : BBC One (United Kingdom), HBO (international), OCS (France)

Photos : Copyright HBO / BBC Studios

(Source : press release)