Rachel Portman has made her mark in the world of film composition with soundtracks for films such as Never Let Me Go (2010), Chocolat (2000), One Day (2011), and The Duchess (2008). Her score for the 1996 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma made history as she became the first female composer to win an Academy Award for an original score. Portman debuted as a film composer in Privileged, released in 1982 by the Oxford Film Foundation. The film’s cast and crew consisted entirely of Oxford students (including a young Hugh Grant) and opened the door for Portman to an exciting new field of creativity. Since then, she has composed a varied array of works for musical theatre and the concert stage as well as film, including a 2003 opera based on The Little Prince, a choral symphony called The Water Diviner’s Tale. She is currently working on a piece called ‘The Gathering Tree’, which will be premiered this year at the Last Night of the BBC Proms. In what seems like a natural progression from the pastoral nature of some of her most celebrated works for film, Portman is interested in writing music with environmental themes about humans’ relationship to nature. Fittingly, I met her on a gloriously sunny day in the St John’s College gardens to discuss the important things: her creative process, overcoming composer’s block, student theatre, and her favourite pub in Oxford.
Your filmography is both extensive and varied. What draws you to a project?
If we’re talking about a film, it’ll be the director: what they’ve done before, and the cast. Then the script itself, seeing whether it’s something that interests me, whether I feel a connection to the characters. Whether it’s emotional, or funny, or very original. Funnily enough, I find it quite hard to tell from film scripts whether a film’s going to be good or not. Film scripts by their nature need to be really pared down, so you just have a dialogue, and it’s often really difficult to picture what it’s going to be like in your head. Sometimes I’m offered films and they can already show me a part of the film that they’ve already shot – this makes it a lot easier.
Which film score did you find the most enjoyable to compose?
Chocolat. Mainly because I did it in three and a half weeks, very little time. It was up for Best Picture in the days where there were only 5 nominees. No one was sure how well it was going to do, and generally comedies or light-hearted films don’t win. The director said to me: if this film works, it’s like a soufflé; all it is is a soufflé, but it’s a great soufflé. It has sort of stood the test of time, Chocolat, and I had the feeling writing the music that there was something delightful about it. It was so easy because the whole thing flowed, and I was completely in sync with it.
Would you say that’s the score you’re most proud of?
Well, it’s one of them. They’re all so different. I’m proud of that, I’m proud of The Cider House Rules, Emma, Never Let Me Go. Lots of others, even One Day, even The Duchess. There are lots that I’m happy with.
How do you feel your compositional process has changed and evolved?
It’s terribly hard to know within yourself how things have changed. I’m less anxious now than I used to be. I’ve got so much more experience now, so I can trust that I will come up with a solution when things get difficult. But when I was first starting out and searching for the main theme for a film or something, it just used to be so hard. What I always do that’s really important when I’m writing is I put the hours in. I get up early in the morning and sit there. Even if I have a horrible day with nothing decent coming to mind, I make sure I sit there and keep trying because I know that’s the way I’m going to get through. And I’ve always done that since I started. So, not giving up if I’m having a bad day, continuing to try. And I realise now, it’s all the bad times, it’s all the difficulties, and it’s all the time you put in when it wasn’t working that leads to things working out.
In the 2000s, you wrote an opera based on The Little Prince, and since then you’ve done various other classical works. Do you prefer having more creative freedom?
I did – creative freedom is fantastic. And I also wanted to write for the voice. I wanted to set words – and you can’t really do that in film because words mean something if they’re in a film, and they’re distracting. Also, I had kids, and I wanted to write an opera that you could take children to that they’d like and that would draw them in. By doing films in a way I’m at the mercy of the projects I’m offered. Whereas if I’m doing my own projects, I can decide to write a violin concerto about the environment. I’m loving doing more of that now.
Did you find there were any new challenges in comparison to film composition?
Yes, it’s very different. In some ways it’s harder, especially if I don’t have a text. It’s harder because you don’t have anything to bounce ideas off, it’s all got to come from within you. But even with my concert works, they all have a theme, so I’m always writing about something, and that’s what I like doing. I like music that tells stories, that evokes something dramatic. I’ve just been doing this commission based on the Dolomites. All the mountains have completely different characters and I wanted to evoke what it’s like to be climbing one of them, and for another one, how the rocks glow pink at twilight. So I’m always looking for something to evoke. Music, to me, is always suggesting images or stories or emotions.
What themes do you like writing about, and what themes do you see yourself writing about in the future?
I really like writing about the earth and the elements and nature. I’m doing a second album at the moment, mostly for the piano, that’s also based on nature. It’s one of the ways that I can write about human beings’ connection to the world around us and looking after it, which is what is really important to me. I think the loss of so many people’s connection to the earth and what it provides for us is worrying.
You did your BA at Worcester College, Oxford. In what ways do you feel your time at Oxford prepared you for your career?
More than anything it really opened doors for me to be able to meet and work with this incredible array of really interesting people. We were all at the same age and stage, hungry to create and make things, to put our ideas together. It was a melting pot, so for me it was an incredible opportunity. I wrote so much music outside of my degree course. I had no idea I was going to do that before I came here. I knew I wanted to be a composer, but I didn’t know that I was suddenly going to find this exciting world of writing dramatic music.
What composers do you feel you’ve been inspired by throughout your life?
Well, I’m very inspired by Ravel. I discovered Ravel when I was about fifteen or sixteen. I was also inspired by Erik Satie, I thought he was very cool. I like 20th century music and the perennial Bach, who I just think is sublime.
Do you have any particularly memorable moments from your years of being an undergraduate?
Doing the music for the Worcester College Buskins production of The Frogs and having the frogs on lily pads was one that was very cool. And then I remember a production of Lark Rise to Candleford that was really fun too. I had enormous fun here too; I really loved it.
What was your favourite pub in Oxford while you were here?
I think it was The Bear, the one with all the ties. I’m glad you asked me that question; it’s the most important question.
I just thought the people would want to know. And finally, if you could live in the world of one of the films you’ve scored, which one would it be?
Well, it wouldn’t be Never Let Me Go. No, no, no. I’ve got to think really hard about this. Oh god, what would it be? Oh well, I think I’ll just say Chocolat, because of the chocolate.