The Power Of The Dog (Soundtrack From The Netflix Film)

In his score for Jane Campion’s 2021 Western film, Jonny Greenwood gives the ghosts of Copland and Morricone modernist treatment; their craggy slopes become taut landscapes of the mind. The opening track, “25 Years,” is an example: a cello mimicking a banjo supports tense, overlapping coils of dissonance in the strings. The closing elegy, “Psalm 22,” is a gorgeous pivot: its solo string line hovering over a gently-shifting orchestral aurora is as lush and strange as the best Messiaen.