Original score Composed by: Johan Söderqvist
Score CD released by: MovieScore Media MMS08022 November 11/18, 2008.
When you make music into a profession, as it’s the case with many of my esteem colleagues – or when you’re an experienced listener, rarely does a new work evoke feelings seldom experienced, or even sentiments previously unfelt. Thankfully, such professionals do exist behind companies like MovieScore Media, forming an institution largely responsible for these very sparkling musical exceptions. Such is the case with the unearthly gift of composer Johan Söderqvist, one rare artist who gushes out pure emotion with every note he writes and performs.
Let the Right one in took worldwide audiences by storm with the ingenious portrayal of an otherwise dreadfully clichéd and tired cinematic subject: vampires. Essentially, it’s a brilliantly nostalgic and effective story of primordial passion between two kids, a bullied innocent 12-year-old boy who develops a special friendship with a vampire child in Blackeberg, a suburb of Stockholm, in the early 1980s. The brilliant modern horror movie is directed by Tomas Alfredson and came along as a striking exception of utmost quality and commitment in a genre that’s otherwise dying in the butcheries of Hollywood, each and every passing day. Aiding it largely is the overwhelmingly emotional and engaging musical score by Johan. Half of the whole work is made up of exceptionally inventive as well as genuinely dark horror passages that engage the viewer / listener in very unsettling but at the same time irresistible ways. The clever writing for orchestra with its correctly balanced musical analogies hits all the right buttons. What’s really admirable in this musical work though, is its other half: a largely fragile piano motif escorted by such a dark and at the same time truly beautiful string veil, that manages to creep under your skin in nanoseconds. Together with an acoustic guitar-led waltz theme and its wonderful string orchestra rendition that’s out of this world, they form such an emotional energy and unrestrained passion that can only be described via words as a the outmost musical interpretation of Love, if such a thing ever exists. Personally, I am once again grateful that I’ve came to know and bond with such a musical work – the rare kind of which I can honestly say that had an impact on my life as a whole.
