The Various Columns

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Check This Out: Alexandre Desplat Dissects "The Imitation Game" Score on Song Exploder

With the Oscars only a day away, it is likely that everyone has seen all of the nominees, or at least the ones that matter. With director Morten Tyldum's The Imitation Game racking up a lot of nominations, it is one of the prime competitors going for various awards, including Best Picture. However, there is one category that you should be paying attention to it in: Best Original Score. If you don't believe that the music is any good, check out this recent episode of Song Exploder, which details the impressive feats that composer Alexandre Desplat used to make the music pop.

If there is one thing that is immediately striking about The Imitation Game, it is the score. Much like the film's subject regarding computers, there's a mechanical feel to the score with layers playing over each other to create a new, impressive orchestration that doesn't sacrifice melody. In fact, it compliments the movie nicely and definitely earns its place as one of two Desplat nominations for the year (the other being The Grand Budapest Hotel). 

But what drew Desplat to the rich, orchestral sound through computers? Song Exploder is a podcast on the Maximum Fun Network that has musicians dissect their songs instrument by instrument to unveil their inspiration for each tone. The subjects in the past have been as diverse as metal band Converge to rapper Ghostface Killah to indie rock band The National. Each conversation lasts around 15 minutes and includes the final track in full at the end of the episode.

In the case of Desplat, he decided to dissect the theme:


As you can hear, there is a lot of impressive things going on in the orchestration. Check out the episode here where you can listen and download for free. For music fans, or people who simply want to know how this Best Original Score nominee was crafted, this is a worthwhile listen that will give you further appreciation for an already amazing score.

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