SILVA SCREEN RECORDS releases the soundtrack album from FOUR LETTERS OF LOVE with music by ANNE NIKITIN and performances from JOHNNY FLYNN, KATHERINE PRIDDY and GRACE DAVIDSON.
FOUR LETTERS OF LOVE, the debut novel from NIALL WILLIAMS, became an international bestseller when published in 1997. Now WILLIAMS has written the screenplay for the film adaptation directed by POLLY STEELE which stars PIERCE BROSNAN, HELENA BONHAM CARTER and GABRIEL BYRNE and released through Vertigo Releasing on July 18.
Author Niall Williams has described the score as “such stunningly beautiful music“
The film tells the story of Nicholas (Fionn O’Shea) and Isabel (Ann Skelly). They are made for each other, but as destiny pulls them together, so do family, passion, and faith drive them apart.
Nicholas’ father, William (Pierce Brosnan), comes home one day to shatter his family’s quiet, modest life. He tells them that after a moment of divine revelation, he has decided to dedicate his life to painting. He quits his job and sets off for the Western coast, leaving his shell-shocked wife and son to fend for themselves.
Meanwhile, Isabel and her family live a charmed existence on a remote Western Island, their house full of music and poetry. When tragedy strikes and her brother suffers a terrible accident, the music stops, and Isabel’s mother (Helena Bonham Carter) and father (Gabriel Byrne) decide in their grief to send Isabel to a convent school on the mainland.
Screen Daily comments on the film –
Four Letters is a tale of signs and omens, destiny and divine intervention, cosmic connections and miracle cures in which love conquers every obstacle placed in its path. It has elements of Edna O’Brien’s early writing, and these star-crossed lovers might have appealed to Powell and Pressburger back in the day.
Four Letters was filmed in Donegal and Antrim, and cinematographer Damien Elliott certainly makes the locations pop. The skies and seas are as blue as blue can be, the beaches are golden, and the sun never seems to dim, lending the film a slight fairytale quality.
Author Niall Williams describes the writing of the book –
I wrote the novel ‘Four Letters of Love’ in a fever of high intensity, following the first sentence into the labyrinth of the story and putting into it everything I thought I knew about the mystery of love. Here is the love between a son and a father, a mother and daughter, a sister and brother, physical love and spiritual love, love of place and poetry and God. So, I was always aware of the challenges of bringing such a sweeping story to the screen. That Polly Steele and her extraordinary cast have accomplished this is its own mystery, and one I will always be deeply grateful for.
Composer Anne Nikitin has created a beautiful and arresting score which, utilizing the soaring voice of soprano Grace Davidson, unifies the different strands of the drama and the arresting Irish scenery.
On listening to the finished album, author Williams was moved to comment –
That Anne Nikitin has managed to capture the very essence of the story in such stunningly beautiful music is its own miracle. When you listen to these compositions you are taken out of ordinary time, you are brought inside a place that is at once mystical and numinous. The music is both evocative of the magnificent land- and seascapes of the west of Ireland as well as summoning another dimension that seems to hover above and float through them. I close my eyes and listen, and Anne’s music tells a story timeless and beyond words. The story of every kind of love.
The film and album end with the song ‘Four Letters of Love’ performed by Johnny Flynn, Katherine Priddy and Anne Nikitin
TRACKLIST
1 At Last You See 2.46
2 From Dublin to The West 1.29
3 Island Girl 1.58
4 William Comes Home 1.55
5 It’s About Beauty 1.45
6 I Saw You 2.07
7 The Waves 2.14
8 She’s Back 1.03
9 God’s Country 1.54
10 He Spoke with Fire 1.43
11 An Immense Sky 2.16
12 Send Me a Sign 1.38
13 Miracle 3.02
14 They Dance 0.56
15 Dear Isabel 1.31
16 Fire, Water, Earth and Air 2.03
17 My Fourth Letter 3.02
18 And You Will Come 2.54
19 Four Letters of Love 5.27
