“He doesn’t want the same sauce over and over”: German composer Volker Bertelmann on his long-running collaboration with Edward Berger

German composer, pianist and former rapper Volker Bertelmann won the Oscar for his powerful score for Edward Berger’s All Quiet On The Western Front. The pair previously collaborated on the TV series Patrick Melrose and Your Honour. Their fourth collaboration was papal thriller Conclave.

Winner of film composer of the year at the 2023 World Soundtrack Awards for All Quiet…, Bertelmann (who also performs and records under the name Hauschka) is this year nominated in the same category for Conclave and The Amateur and for television composer of the year for The Day Of The Jackal, Dune: Prophecy and The Count Of Monte Cristo.

With Conclave, you were working again with Edward Berger. When Screen interviewed him last year, Berger said he likes music that’s not obvious, that stings you a bit and shakes you awake. Your score for Conclave certainly does that.

Edward always wants to have something new. He doesn’t want the same sauce over and over. That’s a challenge, but at the same time, it’s wonderful because I’m encouraged to search. And so, every project starts with finding instruments and looking for an idealistic idea that could match the film. Conclave plays mainly in the Vatican so we needed music to fill a religious, idealistic space, which could be a choir, which could be an organ. Neither I wanted to use because they were so cliché, even though I like both. I was thinking about synthesizers, but synthesizers were too modern in the sense that they are too direct. I needed something different. I looked into glass instruments, and at the glass harp, which I really love. I looked at the cristal baschet, which is played with glass rods. I sent that to Edward as an idea, and his first reaction was, “This is something I love. I don’t know where it will end, but I love it.”

In both Conclave and All Quiet On The Western Front, the music is a presence. Is that something you enjoy, having your music be so dominant?

I love it. I love thrillers in general. I love tension and suspense. I love the explosion when, say, the truth comes to the foreground, and the music can catch you by being bold and clear. At the same time, it’s not about the level of boldness, it’s much more about when you can be bold and when you are silent. So, the combination of silence and bold music, I prefer above anything else.

Given your longstanding creative partnership with Berger, when does he bring you on board a project?

Since All Quiet, he tries to bring me on board as soon as he knows he’s doing another movie, which helps with my time planning, because my situation has changed since that film. It took a little time after the Oscars, but after a year things started picking up and I had to say no to a lot of things, which I was not used to. But knowing doesn’t mean I know what it is, or I have a script, although with [our next collaboration Ballad Of A Small Player], he informed me early because he needed music for the shoot. A lot of times he comes to me when the editing is coming closer. Then we have a longer chat about what he thinks is needed. I always love to surf in front of the wave, so when I feel that there’s something coming, I try to make myself a kind of palette and a brainstorm folder where I drop things in.

You mentioned you like thrillers. Conclave, The Amateur, The Day Of The Jackal, even The Count Of Monte Cristo all fit into that category. What is their appeal for you as a composer?

Those are all thrillers, but they are so different in their approach, musically, because Conclave is very delicate, dialogue-driven, no violence, lots of suspense. I was thinking about JFK in the beginning, a White House conspiracy thriller, where there are no guns but you have journalists searching for the truth. The Amateur is a spy thriller but much more action driven so you have to find elements that are very tense but start very subtly. With Conclave and The Day Of The Jackal, I looked a lot at thrillers from the ’70s, like Alan Pakula movies, where they have so much suspense, but the music is so minimal in a way. 

What are the differences in approach between writing for film compared to TV, beyond the sheer amount of music required?

The Day Of The Jackal has six and a half hours of music, which is three films, at least, maybe four. So, you must produce a lot in a very short amount of time, because it’s not like they shoot 10 episodes and cut 10 episodes, then I come on and work. What they do is they shoot the first three, they are edited, then they shoot the next three, so I’m working on one to three, while episodes four and five and six are being shot. The timing in that process is extremely important. With a film, if you have a luxury timeframe, it doesn’t feel stressed. It only feels stressed when you can’t find the music. The second thing with TV is you use themes multiple times. You must find the identity of shows that are running weekly, which is mostly the main title. For Dune: Prophecy, I was able to write that. For The Day Of The Jackal, they decided to use a song. In a way, for the first three episodes you create as much music as possible. Then from episode four, it’s mostly dropping the themes into certain scenes because they are somehow telling the story onwards.

You mentioned Berger’s latest Ballad Of A Small Player. What else are you working on?

I worked on Kathryn Bigelow’s The House Of Dynamite. I’m working right now on a big Warner Bros movie, Panic Carefully, for Sam Esmail. It is a futuristic thriller and has a completely different aesthetic to everything I’ve done. I’m also trying to work on things that are much more delicate or small. I did Grand Prix Of Europe because I wanted to do an animated movie to see how it works, to write a lot of melodies and themes. I’m open to all sorts of challenges. I don’t always want to stay in the thriller corner, but every now and then I look for good action. Writing is something that makes me happy. It’s not a struggle. And until I feel the struggle, I will take it as a part of my life, like cleaning my teeth.