MovieScore Media has released a soundtrack album for the Belgian/Dutch coming-of-age drama Young Hearts. The album features the film’s original music composed by Ruben De Gheselle (A Cops and Robbers Story, Clara Sola). The soundtrack is now available to stream/download on all major digital music services, including Amazon.
Composer Ruben De Gheselle breathes a touch of magic into ‘Young Hearts’,Anthony Schatteman’s feature debut
Ever since its world premiere at the Berlinale FF, ‘Young Hearts’ traveled to over 65 festivals around the globeand is sold to over 70 territories.
Hope sounds sparkling and love feather-light in Ruben De Gheselle’s sweet, gentle score for Anthony Schatteman’s feature debut, which captures both young and old(er) hearts around the world.
Young Hearts‘ tells the story of Elias (14), who attracted to his new neighbour Alexander (14). Soon he realises he is truly in love for the first time. Confrontations with his friends and family bring more questions than answers. Confused by his burgeoning feelings, Elias tries to organise his inner chaos to prove he is worthy of Alexander’s heart.
With Young Hearts, director Anthony Schatteman has made a film that he himself would have liked to have seen when he was young, but did not exist at the time. The film feels personal and the director based many of the characters on his own family. His hometown even became an idyllic film set. But Young Hearts is certainly also a universal story about first love. Schatteman previously explored this theme in his short films, including festival favourite Kiss Me Softly. He also has several TV series to his credit, including the Irish-Belgian co-production Northern Lights, for which De Gheselle composed the score too.
For the score of his feature debut, the director wanted a touch of Hollywood:
grand music for the most intimate feelings.
And composer Ruben De Gheselle completely succeeded:
‘Music has always been a great passion, and now being able to listen to the score
of my first feature filmreally feels like a dream come true.
It’s everything I wanted, and more.’
(director Anthony Schatteman)
Such a Hollywoodian score is a wonderful ambition, but with Belgian budgets you have to be creative: ‘We managed to recreate the feel of a much larger production with a relatively small ensemble and in an intelligent way: the bassoon, Ma’at string quartet and piano evoke the nostalgia Anthony was looking for. Those strings were also recorded in several layers, so you get the effect of a beautiful ‘cloud’ of music,’ De Gheselle explains. The way the score was recorded in ‘layers’, but also other inventive techniques used during the music production process (such as unusual metrics, focusing on colours instead of themes), ensure that you can create a ‘grand’ feeling with a small ensemble, which in turn contributes to the ‘heartwarming’ that the film wants to radiate.
The result makes adults long for endless summers and, for children and young people, feels like a delightfully modern fairy tale that fits the Disney bill. De Gheselle drew inspiration from Ravel and Debussy.
De Gheselle already collaborated with director Anthony Schatteman on the series Northern Lights, and again the collaboration was very spontaneous. The two could even often be found together behind a piano, which made them get used to each other even faster:
‘I immediately understood what Anthony had in mind. For example, together at the piano, we came up with the arpeggios in the first theme,’ says De Gheselle.
When composing the score, the young composer did not rely on overarching themes but chose to express specific sounds. For instance, how do you translate the freedom, speed and rhythm of cycling through fields into music? What does a first kiss sound like?
About Ruben De Gheselle:
Ruben De Gheselle is an award-winning film and TV composer. With a background in contemporary classical music, he knows how to create magic with just a few notes. With his intimate and hypnotic scores, he has contributed to several international productions, such as ‘Clara Sola’, which was selected for Cannes, the DOC NYC-nominated film ‘A Cops and Robbers Story’, the Golden Horses Awards-nominated ‘Tiong Bahru Social Club’ and the Cannes-series-winning ‘Lockdown’. His most recent projects include the Belgian-Irish co-production series ‘Northern Lights’, the documentary ‘A Cautionary Tale’, ‘Ce Qui Nous Lie’ or ‘There Was, There Was Not’ by Armenian-American filmmaker Emily Mkrtichian.
De Gheselle also just finished the music for the brand new British crime series ‘Patience’ (co-composed with Hannes De Maeyer) for Channel 4 and is currently working on the music for the German series ‘Verlangen’ (co-composed with Eloi Ragot) and the Irish children’s series ‘Showkids’ by Hugh O’Conor.
Despite his young age, Ruben’s work has already been awarded several prestigious prizes at international festivals, including the Ensor for Discovery of the Year, the Grand Prix for Best Music at the Music & Cinema Marseille festival and the Georges Delerue Award at Film Fest Gent for the music from ‘Clara Sola’, humbly following in the footsteps of great artists such as Howard Shore, Astor Piazzola and Bruno Coulais.
‘Young Hearts OST’ – music credits
Music Composed and Orchestrated by Ruben De Gheselle
Music Mixed by Mirek Coutigny
Score performed by: Ma’aat
Violin: Griet Wiame, Eva Ackerman
Cello: Jolien Deley
Flute: Tille Van Gaster
Bassoon: Davy Gallens
Piano: Lukas Huisman
Music Recorded at: Blue Keys Studio – Thanks to Jef Neve
Recording Engineer: Mathias Stal
Score Assistant: Gorkëm Agar
Orchestra: Budapest Art Orchestra:
Conductor: Peter Pejtsik
Recorded at: East Connection Music
Orchestra Contractor: Miklos Lukacs
Composer agents: Valerie Dobbelaere & Barbara Persyn (Strike A Score)
Label: MovieScore Media
TRACKLIST
1. Elias (1:14)
2. The Fields (1:04)
3. Grandfather (2:18)
4. The Farmhouse (1:11)
5. The Abandoned Castle (2:37)
6. Elias Plays (1:02)
7. Valerie (2:21)
8. Running Away (2:46)
9. The Train (1:00)
10. The Ardennes (2:06)
11. The Lake (1:36)
12. Finally Together (2:30)
13. Friends (1:12)
14. Goodbye (0:56)
15. Compass – Christian Sewald (1:35)
16. A First Love (1:30)
