While the events of the film unfold over decades, the actual composition and production of this score were completed on one of the shortest timelines in my film career to date, and I could not have completed it without the support from everyone around me. A limited run of signed CDs will be available exclusively from La-La Land Records next Tuesday, May 14th! Speaking of the soundtrack album, I am thrilled that it is available now, in all major digital formats, including Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, and on CD, from my label, Sparks & Shadows. With its melancholy lyric, pensive harmonic language, and Melanie’s soaring vocal, I realized that “When I Am Dead” would be a perfect fit for this dramatic sequence in the film, so I returned to the material once again, reinterpreting it and reshaping it to fit the film’s narrative’s needs. ( I wrote an entire blog entry about it, here.) “When I Am Dead” was recorded that year, performed by the ever-impressive Melanie Henley Heyn. While the true-life historical events of The Professor and the Madman were taking place, another British academic, Christina Rossetti, wrote her influential poetry, including my personal favorite poem of hers, “When I am dead, my dearest.” In 2015, I composed a setting of this poem for piano, string ensemble and mezzo-soprano. The film is dramatic, shocking, moving, and based on a true story! I felt strongly that their passion for words could be made narratively clear to the audience, in part, through emotional support from a lyrical, orchestral score.
Together, the two form a unique bond as they craft the foundation of the work that still lives on to this day. He is aided by William Chester Minor (Sean Penn), an inmate and convicted murderer at Broadmoor Asylum, a man whose personal demons and mental illness seem to be kept at bay as he works. In the film, Professor James Murray (Mel Gibson) is tasked with creating the Oxford English Dictionary, a Herculean task that involves tracking and cataloging the evolution of every word in the language manually, in essence, reading every book ever written. The film’s story is an exploration of the inherent beauty of language, centering on two men who appreciate their language to such a degree that they dedicate their lives to cataloging and organizing its beautiful fluidity.
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