Cyrano soundtrack<\/strong><\/h2>\nWhen The National were first approached by Erica Schmidt to write the music for Cyrano, Bryce Dessner wasn\u2019t entirely convinced, and even told her: \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a good idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Schmidt wasn\u2019t about to give up, and after staging a reading of the script \u2013 with Dinklage playing Cyrano and Amanda Seyfried as Roxanne \u2013 he was eventually won over.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe underscored instrumentals that we had given her of our music\u2026. and something about the music, the sort of heartbeat, emotional kind of sound of our music with Peter playing that part really clicked,\u201d he explains. \u201cSo we started working on some songs, and it was really a kind of a close collaboration with her in figuring out how the songs could suit the narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n
So what was the starting point in terms of composing these songs? \u201cWell, at the time, we had just made Sleep Well Beast, which was this sort of very elaborate, electronic record with more ambitious orchestration and I think that with Cyrano we decided to pull it back and write simpler, almost folk songs.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll those songs work with one instrument, or maybe two, with very little production, and a good National song always works like that \u2013 no matter how much you dress up a song, if the song itself isn\u2019t really compelling, the lyrics and the melody, it doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t write Broadway-style songs, so it was kind of a stretch, to begin with,\u201d Dessner continues. \u201cAnd in a way the version in the theatre was different \u2013 I think it works better on-screen, to be honest, because the intimacy of the songs is easier to translate.\u201d<\/p>\n