Valkyrie

Valkyrie (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the score album to the 2008 film of the same name directed by Bryan Singer and stars Tom Cruise. John Ottman composed the film's musical score in his fifth collaboration with Singer after Lion's Den (1988), Public Access (1993), The Usual Suspects, (1995) Apt Pupil (1998), X2 (2003) and Superman Returns (2006). Ottman initially edited the film without a temp score, and while composing, he decided to keep the score as minimal, but decided against it as the film needed music for a thriller atmosphere. He composed slow-paced themes, to accommodate the film's dialogues and had minimalised percussion instruments without using trumpets and drums. He wrote an original song "They'll Remember You", the opening track for the film's score album and featured in the end credits, that is based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's poem "Wanderer's Nightsong". The album concludes with Adagio for Strings inspired theme "Long Live Sacred Germany". Varèse Sarabande released the film's soundtrack in the United States on December 23, 2008 and in Germany on January 22, 2009, coinciding with the theatrical release in the country. Rambling Records released the soundtrack in Japan on March 4. The opening track of the score album was positively received, but the rest of the score received mixed response, with criticism on the writing and undistinguished themes. Development As with his previous collaborations with Bryan Singer on The Usual Suspects, Superman Returns and X2, editor and composer John Ottman edited the film without a temp track, noting if the film was working well without music, it was becoming a strong product. He initially planned to compose a minimal score to Valkyrie, but found that despite the film's dialogue-heavy nature, the film needed music to create a thriller atmosphere. Ottman described the new approach, "It's very much like Usual Suspects—in order to keep the tension going in a scene where there's really a lot of dialogue, we had to rely on a lot of score. But the score is done in a very sort of pulsating, subliminal way. It's not an expository score, it's more like a running pulse going through the movie."