Jonny Greenwood's Academy Award–nominated score to Paul Thomas Anderson's film Phantom Thread is their fourth collaboration together. The film, set in the glamour of 1950s post-war London, stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville, and Vicky Krieps. The soundtrack includes eighteen compositions by Greenwood and was recorded in London with a sixty-piece string orchestra led by Robert Ziegler. IndieWire calls it "a masterpiece," naming it the year's best, and one of the century's best as well. The vinyl edition contains two 140-gram LPs and a 24-page special booklet with Greenwood's score.
Nonesuch released Jonny Greenwood's Academy Award–nominated score to Paul Thomas Anderson's new feature film, Phantom Thread, digitally on January 12, 2018, on CD on February 9, and vinyl on April 20. The vinyl album contains two 140-gram LPs and a 24-page special booklet with Greenwood's score.
Phantom Thread is set in the glamour of 1950s post-war London, where renowned dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his sister Cyril (Lesley Manville) are at the center of British fashion, dressing royalty, movie stars, heiresses, socialites, debutants, and dames with the distinct style of The House of Woodcock. Women come and go through Woodcock's life, providing the confirmed bachelor with inspiration and companionship, until he comes across a young, strong-willed woman, Alma (Vicky Krieps), who soon becomes a fixture in his life as his muse and lover. Once controlled and planned, he finds his carefully tailored life disrupted by love.
With Phantom Thread, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson paints an illuminating portrait both of an artist on a creative journey and the women who keep his world running. Phantom Thread is Anderson's eighth movie, and his second collaboration with Daniel Day-Lewis. The film's soundtrack includes eighteen compositions by Greenwood. It was recorded in London with a sixty-member string orchestra conducted by Robert Ziegler and is featured more prominently in the film than any of Greenwood's scores have been before. In addition to the Academy Award nomination, the Phantom Thread soundtrack is up for a BAFTA and was nominated for a Golden Globe. Its many other accolades to date include Best Score prizes from film critics' associations in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, and St. Louis.;
The composer spoke to Variety about the process of creating a score that reflected the film's romance and glamour: "We talked a lot about '50s music, what was popularly heard then as well as what was being written and recorded. Nelson Riddle and Glenn Gould's Bach recordings were the main references. I was interested in the kind of jazz records that toyed with incorporating big string sections; Ben Webster made some good ones." Greenwood continues, "The smaller groups, and solo players, work like close-ups [and] not necessarily to accompany [a] visual, but rather, to focus your attention on and make you feel directly engaged with the characters. The bigger orchestral things often worked best for drawing you back to see the bigger situation."
Anderson and Greenwood's previous collaborations include the soundtrack for Academy Award–winning There Will Be Blood (2007), The Master (2012), and Inherent Vice (2014), all released by Nonesuch. Indiewire says of their collaboration: "Paul Thomas Anderson fans are well accustomed to how instrumental Jonny Greenwood's music is to the auteur's body of work. Whether it's the foreboding strings in There Will Be Blood or the discordant percussion in The Master, Greenwood's original scores expertly capture Anderson's tones. This fact is especially true in Phantom Thread, which marks the fourth collaboration between Anderson and Greenwood."
Widely known as the guitarist for Radiohead, Jonny Greenwood is also a highly respected composer. In addition to the Anderson film soundtracks, Nonesuch also released his score for Norwegian Wood, his collaboration with Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, and his performance of Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint. Most recently, the label released Junun—a collaboration between Greenwood, composer/musician Shye Ben Tzur, and a group of Indian musicians called the Rajasthan Express that was recorded in the fifteenth-century Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, India. Paul Thomas Anderson came along to document the sessions. The resulting impressionistic film, also entitled Junun, debuted at the New York Film Festival, before screening at several other international festivals.
Nonesuch also released the soundtrack for Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love—a smart pop score by composer/producer Jon Brion—in 2002. Anderson's other previous films—all of which have been highly praised—include Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999).
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Written by Jonny Greenwood
Produced by Graeme Stewart
Mixed by Graeme Stewart and John Barrett at Abbey Road
Recorded by Graeme Stewart
except tracks 1, 8, 11, 14, 16, 18 recorded by Nick Wollage and Fiona Cruikshank
Assisted by Rob Brinkmann at RAK and Ashley Andrew-Jones at AIR
Mastered by Christian Wright at Abbey Road
Orchestrations by Jonny Greenwood
Additional Orchestration with Hugh Brunt (Track 6), and Robert Ziegler (Track 14)
Photography by Laura Hynd
Soundtrack Album Artwork by Shin Katan
Design by Dustin Stanton
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MUSICIANS
Tracks 1, 8, 11, 14, 16, 18: The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Robert Ziegler; Katherine Tinker, piano
Tracks 4, 6, 9, 10, 13: The London Contemporary Orchestra, conducted by Robert Ames; Katherine Tinker, piano
Tracks 2, 3, 5, 15 performed by Daniel Pioro, violin; Jonathan Morton, violin; Charlotte Bonneton, viola; Oliver Coates, cello; Katherine Tinker, piano and celeste; Eleanor Turner, harp
Track 7 performed by Jonny Greenwood, piano; Daniel Pioro, violin
Track 12 performed by Jonny Greenwood, piano
Track 17 arranged for solo violin and performed by Daniel Pioro