Debbie Wiseman - Every Note Paints a Picture

Interview by Jonathan Broxton
Original photography by David Allington

I had the pleasure of interviewing Debbie Wiseman on September 19th 1998, after her concert "Every Note Paints A Picture", which was performed by the Locrian Ensemble at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

First of all, I wanted to ask you about your latest score, Tom's Midnight Garden. How did you get that?

It was quite interesting the way I got the job because the director, Willard Carroll, had temp-tracked the film, and part of the film had been temp-tracked with Wilde. He had used a lot of other composers, Bernard Herrmann and others, but I think I was the only composer on the temp-track that was still alive! (laughs)

So I was in the film before I'd even actually gone after it, or knew about it. Because he temp-tracked it, he contacted me and asked me if I would come and have a meeting with him, and I did, and we got on really well, and so I ended up doing the score. He's a fantastic director, because he's a real film music fan. Willard loves scores. I think he said he's got one of the biggest collections of film scores in America, and that he's missing about four film scores that were ever released, so he's got a huge collection. He loved working on the score, so it was a really terrific film to be involved in.

What kind of score is it? It is similar to the kind of work you've done before?

It's a full orchestral score, but there's a lot of music in it. A lot of the music is Tom exploring in the garden, and so there's a lot of music that isn't with dialogue - him just rushing round the garden, finding out and discovering things, so you're following Tom, and the scoring's a bit like how you would score a ballet, following his movements. It's very full of movement, full of life, because he's this young, enthusiastic kid. The end titles song is derived from Tom's theme. Don Black wrote the lyrics for that and Barbara Dickson is singing it, so that's going to be released as a single to coincide with the album.

I noticed from the concert this evening that it's got lots of different styles - it starts being very child-like and playful, but there's a lot of dark stuff in there as well.

Dark stuff, exactly. Because, at first, when he moves into his aunt and uncle's house to stay, he doesn't know whether something really weird's going on, he doesn't know if he should be scared or not, so there's this whole front section of the film which is quite scary and quite moody, but when he gets in the garden everything's fine. It's full of life and fun, so it's a mixture of the two. It also sort of hints at a kind of love theme as well. There's tons going on. It's the most music I've ever written for a film. I think there's about 85 minutes of music in it, which is a lot.

It's another period piece. Wilde was a turn of the century score, Haunted was a turn of the century score. Do you enjoy composing that kind of music?

Yes, I love writing period pieces, but also what happens in those types of films is that you have a great opportunity for a score, in the full sense of the word, rather than using lots of contemporary songs. It would have been completely inappropriate to have had contemporary songs in Wilde, or Tom & Viv, so you get a chance to write a real score, and that's really appealing. I can write themes for characters, and develop themes and all that sort of thing, and that's wonderful. I mean, you don't always get the chance to do that in contemporary stuff, so for me it's great. I think it's just coincidence that I've done a lot of those sorts of things.

You don't feel you're getting typecast as simply a composer of period scores?

Well, I hope not, because I try to keep surprising directors, where possible, with what you produce, but you are very much dependent on the films you are offered. Because I've done a couple of period pieces, I suppose if I'm going to get offered those sorts of things it becomes easier than if it was a rock and roll type film. I may not get offered those sorts of scores.

Would you like to branch out into other genres? Can you see yourself doing an action film in the future, or something?

Yes, absolutely. I was trained classically, but I've always played keyboard, so I've had a lot of interest in writing pop and jazz, and I've written that kind of music for television. I think it's just harder to get those gigs when you've done a lot of orchestral work. I think it will take time for people to say "OK, maybe we'll give her a chance of doing something a bit more action-packed".

I wanted to talk about Wilde. Personally, that is my favourite score of yours, I think it's wonderful. How did you approach that score? I know there have been films based on Oscar Wilde's life before. Was that something you ever looked at, or did you just start from scratch?

Well, I started from scratch. The director temp-tracked the film, again, with all of his favourite music. There was some Strauss on there, and some Bruckner, and all kinds of things. Big orchestral music. We went definitely for theme, and we came up with what we called our "temptation music for Oscar", which is the music that you hear when he's first being seduced by Robbie Ross. It's that oboe theme which is quite chromatic, and moves around. That theme came first. Then we knew we needed a theme for Constance that had to be quite dignified, lyrical and noble, because, you know, she stood by him through everything, so I wrote the music for her. Then there was what we called the "Love Goes Round" theme, which was the solo piano music, and it's sort of loosely based on the Oscar theme, but it's slightly more lyrical. So I developed all these different themes, and then I tried to work them into the movie, in a kind of seamless way. They developed as the film developed. The only music that was in it first that I used was the Gilbert and Sullivan song.

I was going to ask you about that. How did that come about? Was that something that was already there? I can't remember whether it was actually part of the movie...

Yes, what happens is you see Bosie sing it, and he sings it to Oscar, and it's at that point that Oscar just falls head over heels in love with him. So it was a sort of turning point in the film, and straight after he sings it there's this passionate love scene between Oscar and Bosie, I did a kind of lush string arrangement of that music and so, because of that, it was in the film and it had to be woven into the other elements of the score. Sometimes it comes out under Constance's theme and, at the end of the movie when Oscar and Bosie are re-united again, that theme is heard, but in a much brighter, broader way. Much more full orchestral.

One thing which I noticed about Wilde is that a lot of it is based around these themes, as you've said, but it never gets repetitive. You change it's tone and style depending on what the movie needs.

That's right. It's important never just to repeat yourself. It's quite easy in a film score because you come back to a theme, and you know that that theme is right for that character, and that is does something which is relevant in the film, and it's quite easy to find yourself just wanting to repeat it. I suppose we all suffer slightly from that. We can all fall into that trap, so it's important. The director, Brian Gilbert, was very keen that every time the theme recurs in some way there should be a development of what's gone before. I mean, you would never show the same scene in a film again. Music has to change in the same way.

Wilde has been a real success for you. Is that important to you, the fact that it's been so well received by people?

Yes. It's been great, because it has been well received and it was done in a very short period of time, which makes it even more special. It is important and, actually, that film has opened a lot of doors for other things. The fact that it was temped on Tom's Midnight Garden was great, because it helped me get that job. It's nice that people enjoy it because it was done in such a short amount of time. It was a film that I really wanted to do. I really wanted to write the score, so I was pleased that it came out well.

There's been quite a bit of talk that you might be Oscar nominated next year for that.

(laughs) Thank you, Jonathan! Are you going to vote for me?

I would vote for you if I was on the panel! But, seriously, there has been quite a lot of talk because it didn't open in the States until this year.

No, it's eligible this year. But there's a lot of competition. Saving Private Ryan for one. Have you seen that?

Yes, I have.

I haven't seen it yet. What's the score like?

It works great in the movie, but standalone it's so-so. Not marvellous.

It is quite military? Trumpets and so on...

No, it's sort of got more of a tone of remembrance about it. Because, in the movie itself, all the action scenes are completely unscored, so all that was left for Williams to score were the scenes of talking in between, about the soldier's lives and how war affects people, and so on. Its very sombre, lots of horn solos, lots of trumpet solos. It's quite downbeat.

I think it's... Sorry, we're off the subject here. I'm interviewing you! (laughs)

I think it will probably walk away with quite a lot of the Oscars. But, the thing is, Tom's Midnight Garden was supposed to be released at Thanksgiving, I'm not sure if that's happening, but that would make it eligible for this year.

If you were nominated, of course, you'd be the third British woman in three years.

Absolutely! I know, it would be amazing, wouldn't it?

It would be wonderful. I mean, that's a real breakthrough.

It is. A breakthrough for British composing, and it's fantastic really.

You were mentioning Brian Gilbert. You've worked with him before on Tom & Viv.

Yes, I worked with Brian on Tom & Viv, and we got on very well. That was a much smaller score. We only had something like 35 musicians on that, so it was a much more intimate sound. I suppose, in a way, it was a more intimate story, but it was the first film I'd ever done with Brian.

Wasn't it your first feature?

My first feature, yes. So it was a great opportunity, a good film, and Miranda Richardson got an Oscar nomination for her role as Viv, which helped the profile of the film, and Rosemary Harris too got a nomination for Best Supporting Actress, so it was very well received in America. And they like the film. Some of them found it quite hard to take because it's quite tragic, and a lot of this whole thing about the hormonal imbalance of Viv is a bit difficult to take, and the subject matter was tricky to sell. But they liked it, and it was very well received. The Oscar nominations were terrific for them and it meant that Brian, when he was doing Wilde, managed to get a bigger score, a bigger budget, and it was really nice. We'd had the experience of working together, so we knew how the other worked. Brian likes me to play everything through, which is quite rare, just on piano, and he doesn't like anything else. It's quite usual now to mock up scores for the director. You probably know all about this, where you play your synthesiser parts and mock it up, but he likes to hear it just pure piano, and it's interesting for me working like that.

You play a lot of piano solos yourself on your scores, so I assume that would give you more of a feeling of how the score is going to evolve.

Yes, it does. I played piano, because piano was my joint first study at college, as well as composition, so my piano skills are quite good and I often play piano on sessions. But it's just nice, like tonight, just to give it to somebody like John (Alley), who's just brilliant.

Which do you prefer - conducting or playing?

I prefer conducting. I like being part of it. I would never give another conductor the job on a session. I like conducting sessions, because I know the music very well by then, I know what the director wants and I've got no middle man between me and the orchestra. And I love musicians, I love working with musicians, and I like being part of that. But performing is a whole different thing, and I do quite like giving that away.

You seem to have a very good relationship with the orchestra you have, and with people like Perry Montague-Mason, who collaborate on quite a few of your scores. They'll know what you want out of a score.

Definitely. And you get to know their sound, funnily enough, and you write for them. I like Justin (Pearson)'s sound very much, on cello, and I find myself writing cello solos because I know he'll really make them sing. And the oboist (Mike Winfield) as well, and the flautist I like, Helen Keen. She's got a lovely, pure sound. A fantastic musician. I'm very lucky working in London, because we've got some wonderful musicians. I'm always banging on about how brilliant musicians are in London, but they really are, they're fantastic. They never see the score before you get in the studio, and it's just wonderful to see. They've never seen the score before, and they just play it first time, and you can usually get a take within the second or third take, even with quite complex material.

Are they all session musicians, or are they, presumably, actually a band of some kind?

Well, the Locrian Ensemble is an ensemble that plays together regularly, so you get the added benefit that they know each other and they play with each other, but they all do sessions and they all work together, and they work in different ensembles, and they play for the orchestras. For example, John Alley is the pianist for the London Symphony Orchestra, so he does a lot of orchestral playing, but he's also part of the ensemble. It's nice, it's like they're one of the gang. It's good for team spirit.

I'd like to ask you about Haunted. That's another great score, but one thing I noticed very much about that score is that you were experimenting with a lot of dissonance in that, especially at the start, with the synthesisers. That's something quite new for you, isn't it, that you haven't done very much of?

No. It's interesting, because you can get away with that sort of writing in horror movies because it is quite dissonant, it's quite hard to listen to. You only heard a tiny little bit of it tonight, right at the start, but if I'd done a whole concert like that it probably would have emptied the whole hall! (laughs)

People can only take so much of it in a concert setting but, in a film, you can get away with a lot more dissonant music, and because you've got the visual images it's easier on the ear somehow.

It accentuates what you're watching.

Exactly. But, then again, Haunted wasn't really an all-out horror film. It would have been wrong to done that throughout. It was really a love story, and you didn't find out that they were ghosts until right at the very end of the film. It would have been wrong to have gone completely Hammer horror on it, and scare everyone, so I had to mix the two, really. Mix the horror score and the love score.

Synthesisers, again, are instruments that you don't use very often. You used those to create all the water effects.

That's right, they were used to create the slightly atmospheric effects, and all those weird sounds. I think that's where synthesisers come into their own, really. I don't like them to pretend to be orchestras. If I can't get an orchestra, then I'll use them to back up a small ensemble, but I don't like them to pretend to be flutes, or to pretend to be horns, or whatever. I like to use the real thing. When I get the opportunity in a film like that to use something slightly atmospheric, or slightly dark or spooky, then that's perfect. And if I was doing an action score, or something more rock-based, then I'd use them a lot more. But, again, it's the film that dictates what you do.

Do you play all the synths yourself?

Yes. I've got lots of samples and keyboards at home, so I usually program it all myself and get it all prepared before the session, and then just take it in.

You have done some other scores as well. Female Perversions was one, which I don't think anybody ever saw...

(laughs) No! Have you seen it?

No, I haven't actually, I must admit. And that didn't get a soundtrack release either. What kind of score was that?

That had lots of voices, and a small band; piano, some strings, a little bit of brass, but a lot of voices, female voices. And the director really wanted to use female voices throughout, not singing words, just singing "Ah". It was a quite individual film, and didn't get a huge release here, although it did quite well in America, and in fact was number one in Italy for about two weeks.

Probably something to do with the title!

Yes, exactly, I think the title got a lot of people in to the film, thinking they were going to see something really racy, and actually it was quite...

It was all about office politics, or something, wasn't it?

Well, a little bit about office politics. It was a very convoluted story about a lawyer who tried to find out about her own sexuality, and where she's going. It's a mixture of stuff. Very, very, complex. I don't know how you'd describe it, really. Sort of a psychological drama. Lots of layers. Lots of inner meanings and things like that. But it was an American director, and I went over to America to do the spotting, and spent some time out there when they were editing, and then I came over here to record because they really wanted to record in England. It was an interesting film, but it just didn't get a great release because the subject matter was so difficult.

How was Susan Streitfeld to work with? Did she know what she was wanting from the score, or did she just leave it to you?

Well, it was her first movie. She was absolutely adamant that she wanted voices, so we had to find a way of using them in the film. The thing is, when you're using dialogue and when you're using a lot of other voices in the film, to have them constantly shouting at you in the score is very difficult. Quite off-putting. So we needed to be quite careful how we used them, and we only really used them in the big sequences, and the rest of the time was just general score.

Have you got anything coming up next? Have you got anything lined up?

Yes, I'm doing a TV series called Doomwatch, starring Trevor Eve, and I've also been given a commission from British Telecom. This is my first concert commission, and it's to write a piece for full orchestra for their BT celebration series, which premieres in January at the South Bank, I think at the Festival Hall, with the London Symphony Orchestra. I get a chance to write a ten-minute concert overture, and it gets performed by about 80 orchestras throughout the year, so it's really exciting!

Where do you find your inspiration for something like that?

Well, it's really odd actually not having films, and took me a while getting going because I'm so used to having a film as inspiration, or a script, or a brief from a director, or something. I started this, and the only brief I got from the BT people was "It should be jolly and uplifting" and that's was it! (laughs)

That could be anything, though!

It could be anything, exactly. You know, you were talking earlier about finding do you get typecast, and finding your own voice, as a composer, and so I think it's been a really good experience for me. On this, it's the most like what I really want to write, but haven't always perhaps had the opportunity with the film, which has dictated something different. You know, it's just something that definitely comes from the heart.

It's almost like pure classical music. Because, as you know, with the film, you're very much constrained by what you see on the screen. You've got to hit certain spots, high points and low points, but you can just flow with this.

Absolutely. You can just flow with it, and it really tests your own writing skills, actually, because you can't fall back on the fact that the scene changes so you don't have to develop a theme. With films, you get in your 20 bars of something, and then you can go somewhere else. With this, you really have to get your own voice going, you have to develop it, and it has to work without pictures.

I wanted to talk a little about your background. How did you get started in music and film music? Are you from a musical family?

I'm not from a musical family. I think my great-grandfather was an opera singer, somewhere down the line, but that's it, no music in the family at all. I started playing the piano when I was 8, I loved writing tunes, but I wanted to write accessible music. When I was in college I was encouraged to write avant-garde pieces, but I knew that really wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to write melodic, accessible music that, hopefully, when you take the film away, still stands up as good music. That's always the aim with a score - that it just doesn't sound like background music, that it sounds like dramatic, good music. That is stands alone.

But really my background was studying with Buxton Orr, composition at Guild Hall. He was fantastic, very pedantic and very strict, but he really got my orchestrations skills really honed down very well.

You do all your own orchestrations, don't you?

Yes, I have done so far. It's just time really. Everyone keeps saying to me, "Oh, you're not going to hang on to it", but I have managed to hang on to it because, for me, it's the whole thing. The orchestration is so much part of the score, and like you were mentioning earlier about the little pizzicato things - well, that's the orchestration.

It's things like that, the little details which make the biggest remarks.

Exactly. It makes all the difference. That really is, to me, part of the score and it's part of the whole thing, and also you know the film very well so you know when you've got to highlight something with a particular instrument, whereas an orchestrator never knows that. You find you get a wash of sound which is very effective, usually, but may not be as absolutely right as it could be. So, so far, I've managed to hang on to it, but we'll see. It's just time usually that decides whether you can do it yourself.

Just one final thing I wanted to ask about your TV work. Of course one of your major successes was the sitcom The Upper Hand. Is there a large difference between writing for television and writing for cinema?

When you write for television, everyone thinks it's a greatly different genre, but actually you're just writing for pictures, and music is music and you write for the pictures. For things like The Upper Hand, obviously, you need something that's accessible and inviting and draws the people in, but you've only got 30 seconds to do it, whereas in a film you've got a longer period to do it, and it's a bigger soundscape. You've usually got a larger orchestra, so you've got a bigger spectrum to do it in. But the technique of writing to pictures is exactly the same. It's just writing for pictures, and that's the joy. Making the pictures come to life.

Thank you very much for talking to us.

That's a pleasure.

With thanks to the driver of the London bus who got David and I to the Royal Festival Hall on time, Jan Novitzky, Paul Tonks and the wonderful Debbie Wiseman.