LISTEN: Apple Shares THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH Soundtrack By Carter Burwell
The Tragedy of Macbeth is available now in select theaters from A24 and globally on Apple TV+.
Get a first list at The Tragedy of Macbeth (Soundtrack From the Apple Original Film) by award-winning composer Carter Burwell. Available everywhere now, the album features music written by Burwell for the Apple Original Film based on the play by William Shakespeare, written for the screen and directed by Joel Coen.
The album features the voices of Denzel Washington, Frances McDorman, Kathryn Hunter, Jefferson Mays, Nancy Daly, and more.
The film is the latest in a career-spanning partnership between Burwell and Coen, whose prolific partnership dates back to 1984 and has gone on to include almost every film from the four-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker including Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men, True Grit and more.
The score’s ominous tone is punctuated by moments of solo violin Burwell describes as “taking flight out of the darkness.” Eerily alien and slightly off-kilter, these portions reflect a conscious decision by Burwell to find something “rough-hewn like a fiddle, but not a fiddle from any place we know.” Burwell enlisted award-winning violinist Tim Fain to help create a folk-style sound from unknown lands, crediting the musician for his ability to go “off the page” enough to give the compositions character and life. From Shakespearean speeches to simmering, otherworldly textures, Burwell’s score coalesces into a darkly foreboding and propulsive soundscape that ultimately captures the essence of the story as well as its nuances.