With a nod to the music of 1960s French new wave film, the score to the Polish Brothers' visually opulent love story (starring Stana Katic and Mark Polish) blends romantic nostalgia with cutting edge sound design.

11 MP3 Songs in this album (28:41) !
Related styles: Classical: Film Music, Easy Listening: Instrumental Pop, Instrumental

People who are interested in Francis Lai Sigur Ros Yann Tiersen should consider this download.


Details:
A stylish romantic drama starring Stana Katic and Mark Polish, "For Lovers Only" is the Polish Brothers' homage to the films of the 1960s French new wave. A fiercely original and visually opulent road movie set in contemporary France, its original score is a blend of romantic nostalgia with cutting edge sound design.

From an interview with composer Kubilay Uner:

"For Lovers Only" is an intimate, very romantic road movie, incredibly focused on two characters who are pretty much in every frame of the film. And the style of the film is very "new wave", it's close, personal, raw, "improvisatory". So the ensemble used for the score had to fit this feeling.

The trumpet, played by an extremely talented young player, Daniel Rosenboom, is really the main voice of this score. The trumpet is great for this film because it works both as an homage to the 1960s, when there were more solo trumpets in film scores than there are today, and because the trumpet is incredibly raw and emotional when you record it close.

The cello and the violin are only featured in the end title, but they have a big impact there, because the feel of the score changes very much, almost to a 'silent film' approach. It still uses the main theme, though. The violin was played by Lili Haydn, and the cello by Derek Joseph Stein, both very wonderful artists with unique voices. I played the other instruments - piano, bass, guitar, melodica, keyboards and drums.

Q: The film is an homage to the French new wave. Did you try to replicate that in the score or not?

Not so much replicate, but pay homage. Of course, with all the strong stylistic references in the film to the French new wave, it was clear there had to be a strong connection to that era in the music as well, so that kind of music became the main source of inspiration for all my drafts. The film uses elements of the French new wave, but in the context of a new and contemporary story. I tried to do the same in the music.

So, many of the sounds and instruments I used, as well as the general musical 'attitude', are inspired by the scores of the French films of that era. But I then definitely wanted to make this musical approach its own, new thing, and I wanted to be sure that the score still sounds 'of today', like the story.

Q: The Polish brothers told us that you based a theme from the film on a piece of music you composed when you proposed to your wife. Is that true ?

Yes! In fact it is the main and only theme, and it is in almost every cue. After my third draft for the 'blueprint', the brothers still weren't quite happy. They said something like "we're still not feeling the depth of their love". So I decided I had to change my approach. Instead of writing yet another piece from scratch, I went through my old sketches. I have sketchbooks and binders with hundreds of musical ideas that I write down as they come to me, precisely for such occasions.

And I found this melody for a song that I wrote for my wife Jen, one week or so before I proposed to her - at that time I of course already knew I was going to ask her. I thought, well, this melody should work, love doesn't get any deeper. Jen and I have been married for over fifteen years now, and are as much in love now as we were when we got married. So I wrote a sketch based on that melody and sent it to the brothers without telling them anything about its history. They immediately replied that they loved, loved, loved it! So there's obviously some extra magic in those notes.

Credits:
Daniel Rosenboom - trumpet
Lili Haydn - violin
Derek Joseph Stein - violoncello
Kubilay Uner - piano, keyboards, bass, guitar, melodica, percussion
Written, produced and mixed by Kubilay Uner
Mastered by Stephen at Marsh Mastering, Hollywood, California