Twilight (The Score)

Carter Burwell is well known for his work with the Coen Brothers — his debut effort was the score for 1984’s Blood Simple — but he has written music for dozens of other films as well. He often incorporates rock elements into his work, and that influence is on display in his score for Catherine Hardwicke’s adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s popular vampire novel, Twilight. Much of the music is striking for its tasteful restraint, considering the movie’s charged material. Two of the key tracks, “Bella’s Lullaby” and the closer, “Edward at Her Bed,” possess a strong romantic quality — the former, with its lush orchestration and striking piano melody, bristles with mystery, while the latter cut possesses a sense of melancholy tranquility. Some of the score is big and loud; a number of pieces feature tribal, almost ritualistic, percussion and piercing electric guitar tones. (The guitar parts, played by David Torn, Kaki King, and Mitch Dalton, bring to mind art-metal.) Burwell not only composed this effective score, he conducted, orchestrated, and produced it as well.