German composer Volker Bertelmann won the original score Oscar on Sunday night for his music for the World War I epic “All Quiet on the Western Front.”
Bertelman accepted the honor, saying, “Working on a film like this, you’re always impressed.” “Sometimes you have to make the screen very small because there are so many explosions happening.”
This is Bertelmann’s first Academy Award. She was previously nominated under her stage name Hauschka for her music for the 2016 film “Lion” (co-composed with Dustin O’Halloran). He won a BAFTA on 19 February for “All Quiet”.
The German-language remake of the 1930 anti-war classic is the latest in a series of collaborations with director Eduard Berger. His best-known work in the US is the five-part Benedict Cumberbatch series “Patrick Melrose”, which aired on Showtime in 2018.
For this adaptation of the Erich Maria Remarque classic, Bertelmann used his great-grandmother’s turn-of-the-century harmonium, a pump organ whose interior noises (“breathing, wind, wood creaks”) were carefully tuned to him. Like “a war machine”.
Bertelmann’s haunting three-note “destruction” motive—which reminded Led Zeppelin’s Berger—pervades the entire score, and his music for the naïve soldier Paul was filtered to emulate the muffled sound he heard of gunfire and fire. Must have experienced in the trenches surrounded by explosions.
Active in avant-garde music on the European music scene, Bertelmann often used prepared piano and electronics. His other films include “Ammonite” and “The Old Guard”.