Spencer (soundtrack)

Spencer (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack to the 2021 film Spencer directed by Pablo Larraín. It was composed by Jonny Greenwood, and combines free jazz and classical baroque music highlighting the tragedy and emotions of Diana, Princess of Wales. The album was released on November 12, 2021, by Mercury KX label.

Background
Greenwood received an e-mail from Larrain insisting him to score the film, but as he was not familiar with his work, Larrain sent one of his filmographies, the Chilean film The Club (2015) which he liked and agreed to be on board. Instead of deriving George Frideric Handel or other pastiche works in royal biopics, Greenwood wanted to underline the empathy of how chaotic and colourful Diana was, in amongst that baroque tradition. He wrote music in regular royal style with kettle drums, trumpets, harpsichords and pipe organs, and while playing, he substituted the baroque orchestra with free jazz players. He did not want the music to sound like the theme from Antiques Roadshow, but improvise them and let it sound vaguely baroque while leaving enough space for true anarchy and chaos.

There are sequences of music that had to be already in place, such as the Christmas Eve dinner where Diana has a breakdown. Larrain wanted the music to be a few minutes long, which Greenwood had written for it and Larrain edited the scenes, which he described as "lovely" as it meant that "all I had to do was write this piece of music and have players play it in a room without thinking about a time code and all of that stuff. It breathes. They are playing to each other rather than playing to a film."

Reception
Matthew Strauss, in his review for Pitchfork assigned a score of 7.3 out of 10, and wrote "There is beauty throughout Greenwood’s Spencer, and it always sounds as if it’s about to collapse." Brian Kiwanuka of Post Genre magazine wrote "The bar was set extremely high after the remarkable Phantom Thread, but the excellence of Spencer shows that Greenwood was more than up to the task." Music critic Jonathan Broxton wrote "In the end, as is the case with most Greenwood scores, your tolerance for extended periods of dissonance, weirdness, and surprising unconventionality will determine whether or not you can settle in for the long haul and listen." Nick Levine of NME wrote "All scenes, whether soft-hearted or stress-inducing, benefit from a magnificent score by Radiohead‘s Jonny Greenwood." Mark Kermode of The Guardian called it as "a magnificent score that brilliantly accompanies and amplifies the drama". Vanessa Ague of The Road to Sound wrote "Spencer’s soundtrack ultimately finds its footing in subtlety, in the moments where a tiny shift in rhythm, or bow stroke, or dynamic that signifies the rot inside of all the beauty." A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote "Jonny Greenwood’s lacerating score like a stiletto, leaves in tatters."

Sumitra Nair of The Week wrote "The background score by Jonny Greenwood is startling and captivating. Greenwood has made use of classical violins and a spattering of jazz to capture the mood of the story, which has been done brilliantly, for right from the beginning one is acquainted with the princess' agony." Justin Chang of Los Angeles Times wrote "The music shudders with all the raw-nerves lyricism you’d expect from Jonny Greenwood (adding another remarkable score to an oeuvre that includes There Will Be Blood and You Were Never Really Here)." Ian Freer of Empire commented that Greenwood's score is "flitting between orchestral tumult and skittish free-flowing jazz".