Pan's Labyrinth

Sound DNA

• Soundtrack & Scores
• Compiled Soundtrack

• lush
• foreboding
• cinematic

About

The 2007 Academy Award nominations argued that film scoring is not only popular music's most eclectic genre, but its most internationally diverse as well. Joining Americans Philip Glass (<i>Notes On a Scandal</i>) and Thomas Newman (<i>The Good German</i>) in the honors were Frenchman Alexandre Desplat (<i>The Queen</i>), Argentine Gustavo Santaolalla (<i>Babel</i>) and Spaniard Javier Navarette for this music to Guillermo Del Toro's masterful parallel-world fantasy. The composer contrasts the film's unsettling aura with spare orchestral music that more often than not evokes a sort of wondrous, weary melancholy. Using a breathy, wordless lullaby to introduce a theme whose permutations become the score's musical axis, it initially recalls Morricone's early '70s dabblings in the horror genre, but quickly develops a distinct character and delicate touch all its own, especially in its darkest — and most glorious — corners. Director Del Toro may have ultimately omitted swaths of Navarette's score from the film's final cut, but he's wisely insured its full release here, a fitting honor for the composer's first Oscar nod.

via Apple Music

Tracklist

Credits