TRACKLISTING
1 Waltz Of My Heart (Novello)
2 Mr Parks
3 Gosford Park
4 Bored To Sobs
5 The Shirt
6 And Her Mother Came Too (Novello)
7 Walking To Shoot
8 No Smoke Without Fire
9 Scherzo In G
10 I Can Give You The Starlight (Novello)
11 What A Duke Should Be (Novello)
12 Inspector Thompson
13 Pull Yourself Together
14 Life Goes On
15 Secrets To Hide
16 Only For A While
17 Rather A Pasting
18 Love Jam
19 Why Isn’t It You? (Novello)
20 The Way It’s Meant To Be
21 Carpe Diem
22 Good Luck
23 Your Boy’s Alive
24 The Land Of Might Have Been (Novello)

Jeremy Northam, vocals (tracks 6, 10, 11, 19 & 24)
Abigail Doyle, vocals (tracks 16 & 20)

When Jeremy Northam’s Ivor Novello sings after dinner at Gosford Park, the staff are transfixed by his voice and melodies. The soundtrack features five Novello songs sung by Northam which invoke the atmosphere of the film and its age beautifully.

DIRECTOR'S NOTES
Sitting down with Patrick Doyle to discuss almost anything is an absolute pleasure, so sitting down to discuss the score of Gosford Park was nothing short of thrilling.

The thoughts I handed to Patrick were just a few. I suggested that the music for Gosford, instead of pointing the audience too hard in a given direction, should support the film as if it were a kind of cocoon. Patrick’s score does this beautifully: allowing the audience to feel secure as they navigate the world of the film without ever telling them too much. The music actually opens the film up for the audience. It allows them in.

The other obvious challenge that Patrick had to solve was to write a score that would be able to sit comfortably around the music that was already integral to Gosford Park: the songs of Ivor Novello. Jeremy Northam plays the real-life composer beautifully (and incredibly, he played and sang Novello’s songs live for the camera). Novello’s music is central to the movie, and Patrick’s score works superbly with it: the score doesn’t echo or imitate Novello, but is entirely at home with those songs of the period.

Finally, I asked Patrick, after we had talked, to listen to his own instincts and be as bold as he liked. His response was to create a score that’s everything I could have wanted.

Robert Altman, director

ABOUT THE FILM

Robert Altman, one of America’s most distinctive film-makers, journeys to England for the first time to create a unique film mosaic with an outstanding ensemble cast.

It is November, 1932. Gosford Park is the magnificent country estate to which Sir William McCordle and his wife, Lady Sylvia, gather relations and friends for a shooting party. They have invited an eclectic group including a countess, a World War I hero, the British matinee idol Ivor Novello and an American film producer who makes Charlie Chan movies. As the guests assemble in the gilded drawing rooms above, their personal maids and valets swell the ranks of the house servants in the teeming kitchens and corridors below-stairs.

But all is not as it seems: neither amongst the bejewelled guests lunching and dining at their considerable leisure, nor in the attic bedrooms and stark work stations where the servants labor for the comfort of their employers. Part comedy of manners and part mystery, the film is finally a moving portrait of events that bridge generations, class, sex, tragic personal history — and culminate in a murder. (Or is it two murders…?)

Ultimately revealing the intricate relations of the above and below-stairs worlds with great clarity, Gosford Park illuminates a society and way of life quickly coming to an end.

CAST
Eileen Atkins, Bob Balaban, Alan Bates, Charles Dance, Stephen Fry, Michael Gambon, Richard E. Grant, Tom Hollander, Derek Jacobi, Kelly Macdonald, Helen Mirren, Jeremy Northam, Clive Owen, Ryan Phillippe, Maggie Smith, Geraldine Somerville, Kristin Scott Thomas, Sophie Thompson, Emily Watson, James Wilby

FILM-MAKERS
Casting: Mary Selway
Costumes: Jenny Beavan
Music: Patrick Doyle
Editor: Tim Squyres, A.C.E.
Production Design: Stephen Altman
Director of Photography: Andrew Dunn, B.S.C.
Co-Producers: Jane Frazer, Joshua Astrachan
Executive Producers: Jane Barclay, Sharon Harel, Robert Jones, Hannah Leader
Producers: Robert Altman, Bob Balaban, David Levy
Written by Julian Fellowes
Based upon an idea by Robert Altman and Bob Balaban
Directed by Robert Altman

COMPOSER'S NOTES
Robert encouraged me from the outset to be as bold as possible, which is exactly what a composer loves to hear. One of the first relationships that caught my attention, as a potential musical launching pad, was that between Henry (played by Ryan Phillippe), Sylvia (played by Kristin Scott Thomas) and Morris Weissman (played by Bob Balaban), whose decadent behaviour triggered my imagination. I was particularly struck by the pantomimic image of Sylvia covered in facial cream answering the bedroom door to Henry.

I thought that the most crucial character to address was Mary (played by Kelly Macdonald). As Robert pointed out, she is the person who guides the audience through the narrative. I tried to capture through her the tacit, unquestioning servility which was required of all household servants during this period. I also subconsciously picked up on her Scottishness as the score has a Celtic flavour in places. The music as much as possible tends to delineate, through the employment of particular instruments, the characters that reside up and downstairs. I chose the clarinet for the upstairs characters wherever possible and the accordion, for example, for those working downstairs.

I had the pleasure of writing two songs which are included here (both of which are performed by Abigail Doyle). The Way It’s Meant To Be is heard in the film gently wafting out of the radio in the Servants' Hall, and was an ideal opportunity to emulate the great melodic writing of the period. The melody for Only For A While was originally interwoven throughout the cue Secrets To Hide. For atmosphere, however, Robert and I decided to pare the cue down to just the accompaniment. The melody subsequently inspired this second song, with Robert crafting the beautiful lyrics.

I have been in awe of Robert Altman for as long as I can remember and to have been asked to provide the music for such a glorious picture was a great honour. I found Robert to be one of the most courteous and classy people I have ever met. This was one of the happiest collaborations of my career. Thank you, Robert.

This album is dedicated to the memory of my dear friend Edward Jewesbury.

Patrick Doyle