Anthony Willis On Composing the Romantic, Throbbing Intensity of Your Stay at ‘Saltburn’

There is a lustful, dangerous quality to Anthony Willis’ original score of Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn. The composer has nailed down that youthful, elusive concept of want–especially when your hormones trap you into discovering what you are really into. Willis’ music is cheeky and sneaky but carries a grand, almost operatic scope that perfectly personifies the realization that our ultimate dream can be within our fingertips.

Does anyone ever move out of a place like Saltburn? There is an unspoken theme of ownership throughout Fennell’s film, and Willis and I joked about longevity and how an affluent family just lives on and on in the same spaces forever. He explains that some of instruments used repeatedly throughout the film have a versatility that we may not expect. Willis wanted us to want to visit Saltburn too.

“The first objective was to create the aspirational world of Saltburn–the world that makes you want it,” Willis says. “The opulence, the grandeur, and seduction of it all. Musically, we wanted it to remind people that this house has been part of this family for quite a long time. Longevity is a trick that people in society use to enforce power. It’s something that people have always used, especially in England. If you’ve ever seen The Crown, Queen Elizabeth will want to do something, and someone will just say, ‘Ma’am, we can’t do this because of tradition.’ If you think about it, the family changed their name only twenty years before the Queen became the Queen. We wanted to establish that tradition along with the Gothicism.

Emerald loved the authority of the organ, and its mysterious but foreboding and also majestic. She also loved the idea of using classical and Baroque. We deviate through Oliver’s loneliness and we take the romance of a guy who is an aristocrat but make it a little bit cool. Emerald was interested in using some electric guitar for Felix which is kind of his “organ.” An organ has such permanence.”

When Fennell takes us to Saltburn, two pieces of music play that illustrate that excitement. “Journey to Saltburn” felt almost like traveling to Narnia, and features this layered romantic propulsion–as if Willis’ score is gently guiding us and encouraging us to go. When Felix shows Oliver around, “Felix’s Tour” has an unexpected, door opening quality. The outside of the estate is intimidating, of course, but being shown around is just as daunting. The music topples over itself over and over. There is an unshakable brightness that lends itself to the viewers’ optimism of what this summer could hold.

“Emerald wanted “Journey to Saltburn” to feel slightly romantic–Oliver takes it as as romantic opportunity for him,” he says. “That invitation means a lot to him. I wrote a riff for that journey itself that has this traveling feeling and transition, and you want to tell the audience that we are on our way. Emerald chose, quite interestingly, not to show the house, so we see it in Oliver’s eyes before we see it. The score is showing you the house, basically. I wanted it to build, so I start with the violas and then the first violins, so it begins weaving like a tapestry. A big thing is that the property has a maze, and we liked leaning into that as a character. The movie is a maze too. What we know about Oliver’s intentions is rather shrouded in mystery, but you don’t want it to appear that way. What’s going on behind the scenes is this massive plan, so the maze was a very important symbol for Saltburn. That’s where the idea of the interlocking musical language comes from for the film. There are violins playing a higher part and the violas are intertwining on them with the organ is playing a rhythm that echoes of the word Saltburn.

Emerald wanted Jurassic Park or even Batman, so she wanted something really gothic when we see the house. To juxtapose that grandeur and size with then something very small was a really cool idea. That’s risky to do that after you have a huge piece of music. Emerald wanted to show the pathetic-ness of Oliver with his little suitcase trying to get through the gate. Having peaked, it drops down fast, and he’s intimidated. When it came to the tour, Emerald loved the idea of making Felix a little bit cooler, so we started off with some electric guitar and low harp. Harp is a very important color in the score, because you expect that instrument to be higher and prettier. Taking it into that metallic register is like using it as a bass instrument. You heard that in “Shared Bathroom” and “Venetia’s See-Through Night Dress.” I wanted to take the motif or theme that you near in “NFI’D” on the organ and then it’s used a Coldplay/Radiohead riff in “Felix Amica” and in “Throwing Pebbles.” That’s taken as a riff in “Felix’s Tour” to have that classic harmony, but Emerald wanted to make sure that Felix was connected to the house–Felix is the house.”

When the sun goes down at Saltburn, debauchery almost always transpires. Willis’ score throbs all throughout the film, but what separates his music is how it evolves throughout. Barry Keoghan’s Oliver Quick seduces and hypnotizes almost everyone in that house. In “Venetia’s See-Through Night Dress,” the score climbs almost like an unexpected orgasm. In “Shared Bathroom,” we feel like we should tear our eyes away, but we realize we are watching something we’ve always wanted. Some composers would let the music boil over any chance they could, but Willis understood that it needed to be controlled.

“What I love about Emerald as a filmmaker is that she shows you a world that you know but she does something that you don’t expect,” Willis says. “People have compared the film to Brideshead Revisited or The Talented Mr. Ripley, but Emerald wants to show you something about yourself. In the case of the sexual scenes, it’s about complete honesty. People are into weird things. So much of fitting in at Saltburn, and the score too, is saying, ‘This is how things have always been done, and this is how you’ll do them.’ When it comes to the things behind the scenes, it’s the stuff you don’t see in people’s behavior. People spying on each other or sneaking around at night. That’s where the idea of taking instruments out of their normal register like the low harp or that hardness of the cello and putting them in a rhythm that is a bit angular and primal. In “Venetia’s See-Through Night Dress” there are these romantic chords that has a femme fatale feeling with a raw playing style where it’s kind of gritty. It’s near the bridge of the strings so you get that scratchy untamed feeling. The chords then move and evolve as the scene progresses. What’s so important of the arc of that scene is that Oliver is starting to take control, and we first hear it in “NIF’D” when Felix is with Annabel at Oxford and Oliver overhears that he’s not invited to things. At that moment, he’s out of control, but he begins to possess that piece of music as the score continues. You get a similar version of it when he’s watching Felix in the bathtub, and the third time is when he is hooking up with Felix’s sister. Every time that cue happens, it’s lower and deeper.

All of those moments are pinned down by this pulsing throb, and Emerald liked that it was a symbol of want and desire–like an anxious twitch. Also, all of the really great songs that Emerald picked for the film were rich and warm but had an aggressive sense in there. She wanted to find to characterize that aftermath, as if you follow the person you want to make moves with at a party but you can still hear the party going on downstairs. You can hear it through the floorboards. That throb is like that. I rolled up my sleeves to figure out how to make it fit into Saltburn, and I realized I could achieve that by subverting the organ. What I liked about that is when the filter opens on the pulse, you can hear the higher frequencies coming though almost like a soulful, lustful breath.”

“Spit Roast” comes at an awkward moment for Oliver and Felix’s friendship. As the party rages, Willis employs an itchy, scratchy sound at the top of the track that, I can confirm, would make any young adult in the early 2000s want to jump around.

“Emerald wanted something quick and simple to be in the background, and I thought it would be a nice place for that throb to really flourish” he says. “Emerald went to Oxford, and most of these students would be people that they knew from school. I went to Bristol and my school was the school that Oxford students came to to let loose even more. Bristol is a home to really cool dance music, so I had this fantasy that someone’s cousin came from there and, while the DJ was having a break, they sneaked their EP in the middle of the party.”

There is one stroke of music that will stick in your head: the swoosh. If you have seen Fennell’s film, you will know exactly what it is. It is so indicative of how Fennell wants to stir your feelings as you wade through all these naughty and dangerous bits of story.

“That swoosh in the maze track was really fun,” Willis says with a grin. “We did another one that was much lower in the track “Almost None” when Oliver says, “I hated him.” In a way, I regret to this day that we didn’t do a full one. You get it in the end credits again, and it’s nice and loud. I wish we did one that was very obvious. It’s fun to do something like that in a score and bring it back. At Savannah, the audience clapped the swoosh in the end credits. They were chatting, and it broke their chatter. In the film, we needed a big fracture, and it’s almost a funeral hymn leading up to something you kind of already know.”

Saltburn is in theaters now and will become available to stream on Prime Video on December 22. You can listen to Willis’ score on Spotify.