Composer
Dario Marianelli (Atonement, V for Vendetta, Pride & Prejudice) was given no small task in scoring director Joe Wright's the Soloist, as its central figure is a homeless, mentally ill cellist obsessed with
Beethoven. Utilizing the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and its assistant principal cellist, Ben Hong,
Marianelli has crafted both an homage to
Beethoven and a crash course in the composer's late romantic period by infusing his own work with excerpts from famous pieces like symphonies "No. 3" and "No. 9." The resulting music is both familiar and otherworldly, with motifs from long-loved sonatas and concertos rising up and out of street noise and dissonance like spirits in the material world. ~ James Christopher Monger