Jonny Greenwood

There Will Be Blood [Soundtrack]

About this Album

Buy There Will Be Blood at the new Nonesuch Store and get three exclusive bonus MP3s.

“Jonny Greenwood’s musical compositions almost become another character in the film. Think Bernard Herrmann and Taxi Driver, another portrait of a twisted soul, with sound effects and music to match.” —Variety

Nonesuch released guitarist/composer Jonny Greenwood’s instrumental score to Oscar-nominated writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film There Will Be Blood on December 18, 2007. An adaptation of the Upton Sinclair novel Oil!, the movie, which will be released by Paramount Vantage on December 26, stars Daniel Day-Lewis in what The Hollywood Reporter has called a “powerhouse performance.” The publication went on to say that Greenwood’s score is “captivating … greatly contributing to the sense that tectonic forces lie beneath the drama.” The music is performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra led by Robert Ziegler, the Emperor Quartet, Caroline Dale (cello), and Michael Dussek (piano).

Greenwood’s score is indicative of his current collaborations with the BBC Concert Orchestra as composer-in-residence, rather than his rock compositions. The score incorporates material from an earlier orchestral piece he created in that position, Popcorn Superhet Receiver, which will have its U.S. concert premiere in January when Greenwood appears as part of the Wordless Music Series in New York City.

“I saw some fairly long sections of the film, read the script, and just wrote loads of music. I tried to write to the scenery, and the story rather than specific ‘themes’ for characters. It’s not really the kind of narrative that would suit that. It was all about the underlying menace in the film, the greed, and that against the fucked-up, oppressive religious mood—and this kid in the middle of it all,” says Greenwood. “Only a couple of the parts were written for specific scenes—I was happier writing lots of music for the film/story, and having PTA [the film’s director, Paul Thomas Anderson] fit some of it to the film.” Nonesuch released the soundtrack for Anderson’s last film, 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). There Will Be Blood is a stark period piece filmed on arid Texas plains.