The Draughtsman's Contract

One of the several mind-blowing Peter Greenaway-Michael Nyman films, this sophisticated soundtrack is the perfect complement to an equally mind-boggling and cultivated mystery film. As the film is inspired by Queen of Crime Agatha Christie, the music is inspired by Henry Purcell, one of the few English composers to have excelled in the music scene.

One of the main feature tunes is listed in the official soundtrack as ‘The Disposition of the Linen’. This composition has its roots in Purcell’s song ‘She loves and she confesses too’, an enchanting love song built above a hypnotically repeating ground bass. Far from “indulging in the pointless activity of musical pastiche” [Michael Nyman], the composer, in transcribing the song, took a radical turn and brought the 17th century into the 20th, thereby achieving both compositional and musicological success. Most prominent is the difference in instrumentation. Whereas the original features the soft lulling of the harpsichord, bass viol and theorbo, Nyman’s version relishes a consort of saxophones and bass guitar among other instruments; indeed, saxophones being Nyman’s constant favoured instrument aside, no instruments can better ‘modernise’ the long buried Baroque ditty.

The main musical transformation is seen in the transmutation of a through-composed song into a fervently and obsessively repetitive composition. Certainly the original repeating ground bass suits Nyman’s minimalist methods, but his idea of breaking up the original phrases and layering them proves impressive. Symbolically the convergence of both space and epoch, the slow emergence of countermelodies alludes to the insidious concerns of the film, and the piling up of musical threads reflects the irrevocable thickening of conceit in the film itself. In addition, the music also achieves a harmonic stasis that suits the fixed ‘framing’ imagery running through the film. Despite the elements of immobility, the music, through its interweaving rhythms perpetuates a sense of unstoppable motion, not unlike the fugue, the paradigm of the high Baroque style. Hence just as the attempt at fusing two styles separated four hundred years is paradoxical, the result is also one wrought with interesting contradictions.

Where extra-musical implications are concerned, Nyman’s choice of quotation is exceedingly appropriate. The poem by Abraham Cowley which Purcell’s song is set to depicts the narrator’s attempt to defeat the “noisy nothing, stalking shade” – which is “bold Honour” – in his attempt to attain his true love. In the film, the draughtsman, Mr. Neville, is portrayed as a man without honour and with more conceit than true wisdom and intelligence to save his life. Ironically, the “empty cause of solid harms” that is mentioned in the song, turns out to be the merciless plotting of the two ladies with whom the draughtsman had his pleasurable rendezvous.

This is but one example of the most impressive collection in the official soundtrack; similar concepts can be seen in the enticing ‘Queen of The Night’. One has to listen to the music in relation to the film in order to fully digest the symbolism involved. Unfortunately, both music and film are currently unavailable in Singaporean stores.

Listen to snippets of 'The Disposition of the Linen' and 'She loves and she confesses too'.

Anon.