Dominik Scherrer Gives Voice to Sisterly Tension in “Miss Austen”
The works of Jane Austen have been adapted over and over again throughout history. Some has been straight adaptations, like Joe Wright’s lush Pride and Prejudice, others are modern adaptations, Clueless, and even more have been strange takes on those familiar stories like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Despite Austen’s works being the focus of so many series and movies, the story of Jane Austen herself isn’t told nearly as often. Directed by Aisling Walsh, the four-part miniseries Miss Austen turns the spotlight on the Austen family. Miss Austen too is an adaptation of the historical fiction novel of the same name by Gill Hornby and it tells the ficitious-yet-rooted-in-some-truth story of why Jane Austen’s sister Cassandra burned most of Jane’s letters after her death.
To bring this world to sonic life, Walsh tapped composer Dominik Scherrer. The two had previously collaborated on other projects which immediately put them on the same wavelength for Miss Austen. Dominik Scherrer sat down with Beyond the Cinerama Dome to discuss his roundabout road to becoming a composer, the unexpected difficulties of this score, and the rhythm he relies on to balance the differing emotions of the series. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Source: Peter Podworski
Beyond the Cinerama Dome: I'm always curious about composers’ beginnings as a musician. Where did the love of film cross over with the love of music for you?
Dominik Scherrer: I was classically trained playing flute and piano. Then I started to get into synths and this big Moog that I restored. I was always sort of interested in soundtracks mainly, or I was always interested in doing music for the screen.
Even as a teenager, I found it to be exciting. I didn't really see it as such a separate thing. Film and music were almost together. I didn't have anyone's films to score at that time, so I made my own. I’d go film in the woods and make animations.
Mainly, though, they were vehicles for me to create soundtracks. Some of them are initially quite simple. Before I had the Moog, I had some really cheap synths that were both from the flea market. I would record some old sounds and a little percussion that I played myself. Then I just started to build up these soundtracks.
At some point, the films started to get more ambitious. I made adaptations of German romantic literature and they started to be quite big productions, but mainly I was interested in the soundtracks.
This was the ’80s, so I was inspired by Werner Herzog and his movies and that style of the ’70s where he had these big synth soundtracks by these German krautrock groups. That's sort of the inspiring element for me.
Courtesy of Dominik Scherrer
I went on to study film and not film music. I studied directing, but again, I was mainly interested in making these musical films. They got even more ambitious and I made these operatic things. Some of them were quite successful. We premiered at Sundance and won lots of awards, but again, it was really mainly a music-driven thing.
Of course, eventually other people started to ask me to score for them, which, in a way, is really what I wanted. I didn't have to make my own films anymore.
Would you ever consider taking the directing chair now?
Weirdly enough, it's not that different. There are a lot of filmmakers who are ex-musicians. So there's quite a bit of crossover. They're all bass players for some reason. There seems to be a bit of back and forth between the two disciplines, so I could imagine it.
I’m working on some films in the writing development. I'm sure there are people who are a lot more capable in directing than I would be, but at the moment, it's the writing I’m more interested in now.
This is not your first time working with Ashlyn Walsh. What is your relationship like at this point? How early did you get to join Miss Austin?
I joined this one fairly early, luckily. I have worked with Ashlyn on a couple of projects before. The first one was in 2015 called An Inspector Calls, which we were very pleased about and did really well. That was a two-hour adaptation of the famous play. Then in 2019 or 2020, we did a drama called Elizabeth's Missing.
When she started Miss Austen, she said, let's get Dominik to do it again. It’s nice, because I like working with her. She's quite precise and she wants to go straight to the emotional core of the story rather than being concerned with interesting shots or crane shots. It's very much about the characters and their journey. That means it's quite difficult to score as well, in a way, because you have to get to the point.
Courtesy of PBS
When you say that makes it difficult to score, why is that? Can you explain a bit more about why her style is a little more challenging?
Because there’s no time for you to embellish it and then make it sound great. Somebody else may go like, wow, that's cool and she would go, yeah, but what is it for? This is about our characters, not making cool music. It has to have a purpose.
This score wasn't so easy to place at the beginning. I don't know if you've seen it, but it's not a Jane Austen drama. It's a contemporary novel, and you can't just make the same assumption that this should be early-19th-century-style Jane Austen. You have to figure out if we’re focusing on the mystery or focusing on the emotions. We could’ve made a completely modern soundtrack or we could have made it sound a bit like a period piece. Finding the tone for this was sort of a challenge, in a way, for everyone.
That's often part of the fun. To find that and make it work.
Courtesy of PBS
What was it like existing in the world of Jane Austen without wanting to be a Jane Austen adaptation?
In Britain, there’s a sort of style to score these Jane Austen adaptations. This could sort of work because people like it, but in a way, this was already different.
It's all pretty much in the middle of winter. All the interiors were candlelit only. It has an atmosphere, but there’s a sort of grainy side to it, you know? It's moody and it's not a sunny Austen drama that's in Hampshire with girls running across the fields. There is a darker side to it as well.
It's finding the level of moodiness without making it too complicated and too dark. That was the challenge. In the end, I think we solved it by kind of shifting from one to the other. You can't be dark, emotional, and so many things at the same time, but you can do it by doing one after the other. That's how we did it.
I read that the score has a very intense driving triplet rhythm. I was wondering if you could talk about that specific rhythm pattern and what it added to the narrative that you're telling within the score.
I use these kinds of rhythms a lot because you can choose how you want to subdivide it. That means it gives you a bit of freedom when you're scoring a scene, because you can shift from one speed to another quickly. I find those quite handy.
There is something inherently driving with triplets. I think just with the sort of divisions of threes, it just makes it a bit more gentle. If everything is divided in fours, it's more marching, sort of stomping straight ahead, you know?
That division in three, I learned that because there was a time when I produced a load of Indian music for the Indian market. The number four is not popular because it's so even, like a square. Whereas with the three, you've always got a balance and attention at the same time. We have got quite a bit of ¾ and then we have ⅞ as well.
That's another time signature that's used in the middle of the series in Hampshire. I find it kind of naturally quite bouncy. People expect it to be complicated, but it is actually quite natural.
Courtesy of PBS
Is there a historical connection to using those time signatures for that era of music?
The ¾ signature has been around for a long time, before that period even. For ⅞, I would say that started in the 20th century in Western classical music. I think if you go to Eastern Europe or the Balkans, I'm sure they've been using that since at least the 19th century.
You recorded this score at Abbey Road. Was that your first time recording there?
Not the first time. In London, we don't really have that many studios. We've got Abbey Road and then Angel Studios at Abbey Road, where I probably do most of my stuff. And then there's Air. You're basically in one of those three, depending a little bit on what's available.
Abbey Road Studio Two I think is cool because when you’re a Beatles fan…(laughs) like everyone is, then you’re in the place where the Beatles recorded all their big stuff. It basically still looks identical to how they knew it. Not much has changed since the ’60s in the whole complex there, including the reception and the microphones. It's a historical experience for sure as well.
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