Ariel Marx On The Modern Influences for the Pulse-Pounding and Romantic Score for ‘A Small Light’

We think we know the story of how Anne Frank’s family was captured, and we think we know the music of the time period. Nat Geo’s beautifully crafted limited series, A Small Light, actually makes us believe that history will be rewritten in front of our eyes before yanking us back into reality. Composer Ariel Marx does not rely on scoring sorrow or tragedy but rather inspires us with vibrant music that reminds us that we are capable of living.

Everyone wanted to tell the story of the Frank family from a different perspective. Anne Frank’s diary is taught in schools across the country and there have been innumerable films and televisions series that have recounted the events of the Frank and van Pels families being taken by the Nazis. By shifting the focus slightly to Miep and Jan Gies, this series gives the story a fresh angle, and Marx details some of her modern influences for the score.

“The brief that everyone was given was that we wanted to blow the dust off this story and make it relatable and as accessible as possible,” Marx says. “In that sense, I didn’t draw on any previous depictions of this story. It’s not just a Jewish story and Miep wasn’t Jewish, so it is ultimately a story of ally ship. Otto Frank was a classical music fan, and they went to Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. The score is very much based in swing jazz of the time–Benny Goodman is an incredible clarinetist and the King of Swing. Western and central European folk music and klezmer music have a lot of crossover in a Venn diagram. That was to make it feel relatable and ordinary, because this story is about Miep being asked to do the right thing, and she did. The band that I used was me on violin, cello, percussion, guitars and synths, and I had an amazing cellist, violist, trumpet player, and clarinetist–and that’s it. As the music progresses, it gets more majestic and heroic, but it’s always on Miep’s terms. It doesn’t feel like a period piece but it feels bolder. The modern influences were neoclassical music and minimalism, and people like Tom Waits, Andrew Bird, and Squirrel Nut Zippers. Contemporary musicians with a rough around the edges quality in terms of improvisation.”

Before Miep, incredibly portrayed by Bel Powley, agrees to hide Otto and his family, A Small Light unexpectedly grounds us in the romance between her and Jan Gies (played by Joe Cole). This is a story about loving your fellow man and neighbor and realizing your heart has the capability to help even in the harshest circumstances. For the track, “Miep and Jan,” Marx paints a vivid portrait of love using bright piano notes. I felt as if I was watching Miep and Jan holding hands as they walk down the street. It feels timeless.

“That’s played during a scene when they are first falling in love. All of the way up through episode six, there are flashbacks to what it was like before the war and it shows what it was like to be a man and woman falling in love. This idea of sweeping melody can be felt like period or older aesthetics for Hollywood, but I wanted the ensemble to be small so we could be as emotive as possible without being too big. It’s full of melody. It’s romantic and sweeping, but it’s still reserved. I wanted to make sure that the music never got bigger than they thought the story was. They didn’t know they would be these historical people, so I tried not to be ahead of that. It was more about what they thought of themselves.”

Sometimes we realize that our friends’ viewpoints do not align with our own. It’s a surreal feeling, and Miep experiences that when one of her oldest friends, Tess, vocalizes opinions that Miep cannot believe. Marx scores a piece that shows the divergence of a friendship but acknowledges history in “Miep and Tess.” The descending progression is a nod to unbelievable sadness.

“We all have those friends that we cut out. I wanted tenderness and humility. Keeping it small was key, and I often find that soloists are more emotional than a symphonic orchestra. I find imperfection and vulnerability like in the breath you hear in between the clarinetists notes and the rawness in the strings. I love all that stuff and that makes it all the more accessible. It does take these twists and turns. Their relationship is so complicated.”

“The Raid of Opekta” / constantly moving / violin feels violent / sawing / layers on top of each other / couldn’t get away from the sound / sounds the blades of a helicopter / being watched / propulsive / heightened / piece of music that responding to the emotion / we don’t see what’s happening upstairs

The Annex is discovered in episode seven, but A Small Light never shows us the capture. Miep is commanded to sit at her desk as the invasion occurs, but Marx’s score tells us everything we need to know. In an impressive, propulsive ten-minute stretch, the violin notes sound violent, as if the bow is sawing away at our disbelief. The music constantly tumbles over itself and never stops moving, and, at one point, sounds like the blades of a helicopter slicing through the tension. It’s a heightened piece of music that is responding the sound of the blood pounding in our ears, and this should garner Marx appropriate attention.

“It’s a really hard cue to listen for me to listen to,” Marx admits. “That was one of the most challenging things that I’ve done in my entire life. That episode is basically real time and it’s wall-to-wall score. Miep is a prisoner to her chair, and the brief was how does the music be inside Miep’s head or allude to the violence upstairs but not sensationalize it. We know that they are going to be found, but how do we make every step think that maybe they could get away. It was about keeping that suspense through. It’s constant propulsion, so it was a really big learning lesson in how to maintain ten minutes of pulse-pounding music. I pulled everything out of the box for that in terms of techniques. There’s a lot of extended techniques on the strings–violence and roughness on the strings–that might be more akin to the things I did for Candy or Shiva Baby. There’s tons of percussion and pulses in ways that I was going from quarter notes to triplets or switching tempos or switching from electronics to acoustics. Throw everything but stay cohesive. The tension cues were the most contemporary for palette but then you could throw them in 21st century thriller and most of them would work. We wanted to feel the urgency and the immediacy. We wanted to fool you into thinking the ending. That was the most rewarding thing that I have ever done.”

How did those eight people survive for so long in such a confined space? Marx knew that she had to pay respect to that space, but she couldn’t drown it. Whenever Miep delivers food or news to the residents of the Annex, we go with her, but it still feels private. Thankfully, we never see Nazis or any other officers in that space, so it still belongs to those who lived and inhabited it.

“I have to shout out the production designer, Marc Homes,” she says. “Bel [Powley] has said how easy it was for her to sink into this role for how intensely perfect the set was. It was such a replica, but it was lived-in. The Annex was claustrophobic and small, but it houses eight human beings with a lot of personality, and there were laughs and humor and warmth. Since it was such a small space, I couldn’t overwhelm it. They were so chuffed with themselves when they put a bookcase on the door, and they called it the safest place in Amsterdam. They still celebrated Hanukkah. Honoring the space was about taking the colors of the spirit of that place but using them in a more muted way. I am Jewish myself, and there’s nothing more Jewish than finding laughter in pain.”

A Small Light is streaming now on Disney+.