Score of the Month #3 - Moonlight by Nicholas Britell (2016)

I'm a little behind on my monthly posts folks, but rest assured, I'm picking up where I left off!  You may have guessed it based on my Tweets over the past few weeks; but Nicholas Britell's score for Moonlight has definitely taken 1st place this week! It's been on heavy rotation at home, in the car and walking around the street; thus making it my #ScoreOTM

I've always been a sucker for those Vivaldi-Esque virtuosi arpeggiated violin performances which can be heard clear as day in the 5th album cue, "The Middle of the World"; and I can't not mention those harmonic arco notes, which just sound emotionally painful as the player slowly performs the notes.

Being a bit of an existentialist, Moonlight spoke to me as it told a very lonely and emotionally complex story of an individual at various stages in his life; all very personal to him and his own life experience. In terms of the score, the use of a simple musical idea and a handful of players captured close-miked throughout, I feel Britell voiced this perfectly! As a member of the audience, his score provided enough of an emotional bed to draw me in and observe the scenes without over speaking.

Our main character's theme is heard on various occasions thought the film, but as the story progresses and the character grows older, we hear slight changes, especially in timbre, mood and presentation relevant to the character at that time; the core theme, however, stays identical throughout! I personally loved this, I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but to me, it was a way of musically stating that this character while now grown up, is still the same at his core... Listen to "Little's Theme", "Chiron's Theme", "Chiron's Theme Chopped & Screwed" and finally "Black's Theme" for a comparison of this!