O - “Ophelia’s Song”
It always remains to the artists putting on Hamlet to set songs to a tune, whose original is long lost. Patrick Doyle, Branagh’s long-time collaborator and film score composer extraordinaire, offers Ophelia a starkly beautiful and haunting melody to give voice to her treble woe:
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead:
Go to thy death-bed:
He never will come again.
His beard was as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll:
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan:
God ha' mercy on his soul! (Hamlet, 4.5.175-184)
Doyle uses the melody as Ophelia’s leitmotif, which is then brilliantly mingled with that of Hamlet’s at the graveside scene, emphasizing their true connection and tragic love. Branagh attributes Doyle’s sensitivity and intuition for emotional resonance in his music to his Celtic background; born in Scotland, Doyle is a graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, and has been composing (and acting!) since the 1970s.
Henry V (1989) was their first collaboration, and considering that both were green at filmmaking, it’s a testament to their pure chutzpah that they managed to announce their undeniable talents to the world right out of the gate. As “Pat Doyle,” he appeared in a bit part onscreen, as the first soldier to begin singing his own interpretation of the Christian hymn “Non Nobis, Domine,” which has become a performance piece for orchestras and chorus groups around the world. In Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Doyle once again appeared in the cast as Balthazar, and in an idyllic scene, beautifully sings his rendition of “Sigh No More.”
Doyle has since scored a total of 16 Branagh-directed films, including Dead Again (1991), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994), As You Like It (2006), Thor (2011), Cinderella (2015), Murder on the Orient Express (2017), and most recently Death on the Nile (2022). He’s also written music for a handful of Branagh Theatre Company productions, such as Macbeth (2013), The Winter’s Tale (2015), and Romeo and Juliet (2016). Doyle has in all, composed for over 60 films in his career, with titles as diverse as Carlito’s Way (1993), A Little Princess (1995), Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), Gosford Park (2001), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), and most fittingly, Disney’s Scottish fairy tale, Brave (2012). For “Song of Mor’du,” Doyle himself sings alongside Billy Connolly, cleverly bringing words from the Scots language into the mix.
Doyle’s unimpeachable talents were most recently displayed on the world’s stage when he was asked to compose the Coronation March for King Charles III during the Commonwealth Processions.
In a behind the scenes feature for Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)—which has its own Shakespearean ties (see my entry for G - “Ghost”)—Patrick is shown conducting his score in the recording studio, and he enthusiastically sings opera for a few beats, once again showcasing his gleeful and irrepressible aptitude for music.
Sources:
“Composing the score of Rise of the Planet of the Apes” (2011) YouTube
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