MOVIE MUSIC UK

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

Conclave is the latest film from German director Edward Berger, whose last film All Quiet on the Western Front won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and was nominated for Best Picture, in 2022. It is based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Robert Harris and stars Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Sergio Castellitto, and Isabella Rossellini. Fiennes plays Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, an English catholic priest who is called into action by the Vatican when the Pope dies of a heart attack. Lawrence is charged with organizing and overseeing the papal conclave – a gathering of the Roman Catholic cardinals from around the world which is convened to elect the next pope – but quickly finds himself at the center of a firestorm, investigating allegations and scandals inside the church, while also navigating his own personal crisis of faith.

Conclave presents itself as a political thriller, but it is actually much more than that. In many ways it is a distillation of the different elements of corruption that exist within the contemporary church, and it touches on a number of difficult issues, ranging from child sexual abuse scandals to the role of women within a patriarchy, the clashes between conservative and liberal religious dogmas, financial fraud and bribery, inter-faith issues between Christians and Muslims, and so much more. It is a powerhouse of acting – Fiennes, Tucci, and Lithgow are especially excellent, as is Carlos Diehz as the mysterious Cardinal Benitez. It is visually striking too, with Berger and his cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine pulling out all the stops to make what could otherwise have been a staid, talky film into something cinematically arresting; their use of a distinctive color palette, red, white, and black, is especially noteworthy.

The score for Conclave is by German composer Volker Bertelmann, sometimes known as ‘Hauschka,’ who won the Oscar for Best Score for his work on All Quiet on the Western Front. As anyone who read my review of it will know, I thought that score was terrible; in my review I wrote the following concluding paragraph: “I have often said that 99% of all film scores work in their film, and the one thing a film composer should never do, under any circumstances, is make their film worse. With All Quiet on the Western Front, Volker Bertelmann comes perilously close to being a part of that 1% and breaking that cardinal rule. As I said, I understand the conceptual thinking behind a lot of the score. I understand why it sounds the way it sounds. I just think that the final execution of these ideas and concepts was remarkably poor, and that when heard in film context the music never achieves any sort of connection with its audience – instead, at times, it intentionally breaks that connection, and ruins scenes that would otherwise have been much more emotionally powerful and dramatically potent.”

What’s interesting about Conclave is that, by and large, Bertelmann’s approach to scoring it is intellectually similar to his approach to scoring All Quiet on the Western Front. It is dominated by one specific sound – a string chamber orchestra, recorded in Hungary – and features one particular imposing ‘central sound’ that dominates the film, which in this instance is a huge and aggressive three-note string motif (as opposed to a 100-year old detuned harmonium that sounds like a siren).

Interestingly, this is actually contradictory to what Berger said he wanted; in an interview for Indiewire Berger said he asked Bertelmann to try something different. “Can you do something that you’ve never done before?” he asked him. “I want to be surprised by the music, and it takes me on a different journey. [Bertelmann] is a wonderful researcher in terms of which instrument would be right. How can I distort it? How can I make it different? I want him to go against the images. You put the image and the music into clash, and that creates something interesting that wakes me up. I get hit in the face, and now I have to pay attention.” As I mentioned, these are mostly the same underlying emotional drivers that existed in All Quiet on the Western Front, but whereas in that film I found them distracting and obnoxious, I found the opposite to be true here.

To me, quite a lot of Conclave revolves around the notion of being ‘stuck’. The work of the papal conclave is tedious and repetitive – endless rounds of voting on small pieces of paper, the repeating of liturgical phrases over and over, a process that has existed changelessly for centuries – and part of the story revolves around Cardinal Lawrence’s rejection of that, and his desire for the church itself to change and modernize. Bertelmann captures this concept perfectly in his music, which continually engages in endlessly repetitive cyclical string patterns that also feel ‘stuck’: low sustains, groaning noises emanating deep from within the violas, and cello ostinatos backed by highly classical fluttering violin passages, often ending on one of those big, booming, in-your-face chords.

Some cues (such as the opening “Overture of Conclave,” “Route of Fear,” and “Second Day”) feature subtle electronic manipulation, some of it sweetening, some of it distortion. Some cues (such as “Soon Enough”) use a modern drum kit percussion section. Some cues feature a very subtle sampled choir to enhance the liturgical undertones of the entire piece, whereas other cues (such as “Prayer,” “The Abyss Calls Out,” the soothing “Not What We Had Hoped,” the introspective “I Would Choose John,” and “It’s Official”) use glassy organ-like textures from an instrument called a cristal baschet to achieve a similar effect.

Elsewhere in the score, I really like the dark and brooding piano textures that run through “Still No Result,” addressing the impending sense of doom felt by the liberal side of the conclave as results keep going against them. There is also a moment of disorienting electronic confusion after the “Explosion” that rocks through the Sistine Chapel and changes the course of the conclave in an entirely unexpected direction.

Mostly, though, the strings dominate every cue. Some people may find the lack of development of this music throughout the score frustrating – almost every cue is a variation on this one, single, core idea and group of related textures – but as I said, to me, I really appreciated the fact that Bertelmann was having his music tap into one of the film’s main conceptual ideas, while simultaneously acting as dramatic underscore. What also happens is that, as the score progresses, you can feel the score slowly, gradually, imperceptibly, becoming ‘un-stuck,’ as the different factions within the church reveal their secrets and their demons, until one clear choice for pope remains.

Thematically, there is really only one identifiable recurring motif – a vibrating 12-note cluster which first appears in “Tears” and is significantly prominent in numerous subsequent cues, notably “Rumours,” the boldly dramatic “Seal the Room,” the agitated “Arrival,” “First Election,” the angrily emotional “I Don’t Want Your Vote,” “You Should Be Careful,” and “Walk Through Rain,” the latter of which is one of the only cues to blend the main motif with the glassy cristal baschet sound. I guess the theme can be ascribed to Cardinal Lawrence’s investigations, as it tends to appear at times when he discovers (or is made aware of) one of the long-buried secrets relating to one or more members of the conclave vying to become pope, but truthfully it’s really not that specific, and Bertelmann mostly uses it as a simple acknowledgement that something notable has occurred.

The conclusive “Postlude of Conclave” is the score’s 6½ minute end credits piece, and is a staggering explosion of thematic congruity that – in context – celebrates the fact that following the events of the film’s finale the papal conclave – and, indeed the church itself – seems to have finally emerged out of its endless ‘stuckness’ and is now rejoicing in a hopeful new era of positive change. The theme that runs through the cue had been introduced earlier, with subtlety, in the moody cello-heavy “Innocent,” but here it is presented as a vivid expression of triumphant exultation. The piece is a classically opulent, florid, unexpectedly beautiful development of the music heard throughout the score, and it offers a side to Bertelmann’s writing that I had never fully experienced before through more than a dozen other scores. It’s probably the best single cue he has written in his career to date.

Conclave has been getting a great deal of awards buzz, for its acting, directing, writing, and for numerous technical elements, and although I doubt it will seriously challenge my own Top 10 of the year, I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see Bertelmann’s score emerge as a genuine contender for the 2024 Best Score Oscar. However, unlike All Quiet on the Western Front, I think that this score deserves its acclaim. It is outstanding in the film, adding weight and seriousness to the underlying themes and its central mystery, while also subliminally acknowledging many of the issues affecting the church today in terms of its relevance to the modern world. When you combine this with the immensely positive effect of its brilliant end credits piece, its overall impact is undeniable.

Buy the Conclave soundtrack from the Movie Music UK Store

Track Listing:

• Overture of Conclave (1:27)
• Tears (1:47)
• Rumours (1:59)
• Seal the Room (2:03)
• Arrival (2:01)
• Soon Enough (1:36)
• Prayer (0:45)
• The Abyss Calls Out (0:59)
• First Day (0:44)
• Walk of Doubt (1:10)
• Route of Fear (1:08)
• First Election (1:11)
• Not What We Had Hoped (1:43)
• Evening Prayer (0:35)
• Second Day (1:22)
• Still No Result (2:23)
• I Don’t Want Your Vote (1:16)
• Withdraw Your Name (0:48)
• You Should Be Careful (4:11)
• Discovery (0:58)
• I Would Choose John (0:48)
• Explosion (1:36)
• Walk Through Rain (1:27)
• Innocent (1:55)
• What Is Troubling You? (0:58)
• It Is Official (0:41)
• Postlude of Conclave (6:37)

Back Lot Music (2024)

Running Time: 44 minutes 08 seconds

Music composed by Volker Bertelmann. Conducted by Robert Ames and Péter Pejtsik. Performed by The Budapest Art Orchestra. Orchestrations by Jan Andrees, Gregor Keienburg and Raffael Seyfried. Featured musical soloists Karina Buschinger, Marc Chouarain, Yair Elazar Glotzman, Moritz Kolb, Eve Littlefair, Andy Miles, Tom Walley and Laura Wiek. Recorded and mixed by John Barrett and Daniel Kresco. Edited by Richard Armstrong. Album produced by Volker Bertelmann.