British composer Clint Mansell has created a fitting score for Darren Aronofsky’s gothic fairy tale ‘Black Swan’. The story of a prima ballerina, Nina, played by Natalie Portman, features her selection, rehearsal and performance of both the white and black swan roles in Tchaikovsky’s ballet ‘Swan Lake’. Mansell uses the Tchaikovsky ballet music frequently in the film, which is the reason the score has not been acknowledged by the Academy this year. However, what Mansell does with the score is at times quite clever, deconstructing themes, chord sequences and adapting them into his own style. At times at its simplest, he adds synthesised sounds, extra percussion and high strings to the Tchaikovsky score to create a darker and sinister mood (Nina’s dream). Then in the next cue on the soundtrack (mother me) he uses Tchaikovsky’s orchestration ideas, in particular using the oboe to play the main melody over the top of a string accompaniment, this track also dissects some harmonic sequences and patterns and reconstructs them to really display the ghost of the Russian composer.
The more original material that doesn’t use Tchaikovsky’s themes is also very strong and some of the minimalistic touches resemble his work in ‘Moon’. For example in the cue ‘The double, Mansell’ plays on the paranoia of the character by maintaining a tonic Pedal ‘D’ note that shifts up a semitone and returns, creating an uneasy and unsettled feeling, added to this there is a four note motif that appears in bar 20-24 (see transcription) that resembles the shape of the medieval plainchant ‘Dies Irae’ (Mass for the dead).
Piano transcription of ‘The Double’ from ‘The Black Swan’:
Here’s what it sounds like:
Get the full soundtrack for ‘Black Swan’ here
