Stephen Baysted talks about adapting Debussy for 'The Impressionists' documentary

Combining beautiful imagery with interviews and spoken-word interludes, The Impressionists aims to not only tell the tale of the visual artists behind that movement, but the man at the center of the movement: art collector Paul Durand-Ruel, who's responsible for the success and recognition of many artists we now consider masters.

The film—a companion piece to an art exhibit now on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art—reunites the great composer Stephen Baysted with filmmaker Phil Grabsky. Working from an understanding of the period, Baysted has carefully crafted a score not only in keeping with classical compositions of the time, but often built upon their foundations: taking key parts of pieces and reimagining them for the film.

I asked Baysted about his work on the film, which is being presented tonight at theaters across the country.

For you, what is this film about?

The Impressionists tells the oft-forgotten story of the man—Paul Durand-Ruel—who single-handedly took these artists from poverty, obscurity and ridicule to their position as arguably the most important masters of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. It's a fascinating story of risk, belief, and determination in a surprisingly conservative Paris. Thankfully America recognized the genius of their work and were the first to adopt and champion the Impressionists.

What interested you about working on this film and working again with director Phil Grabsky?

I'd really enjoyed working with Phil on one of his previous projects—Matisse Live from the Tate and MoMA—and I was delighted to have the opportunity to work with him again. To be able to write and arrange music to accompany a fascinating narrative about the history of some of the greatest works of art doesn't arise that often, so it was a real pleasure to be involved in this project.

Did you know much about the Impressionists or Paul Durand-Ruel before this film?

Until I'd done my customary research for the score and watched the early edits of the film, I must confess to knowing very little about Durand-Ruel and his wider role. Like many people I'd bought prints of Monet and Renoir as a student and I adore Impressionist paintings; I was lucky enough to spend three years on and off living in France researching my Ph.D., when I got to see many of the paintings in the flesh.

When Phil and I talked through the music for the film it was clear that he wanted a cinematic and narratively focused score—and one which responded directly to the masterworks being shown on screen. I suggested that we opt for a musical style and vocabulary which was contemporaneous with the art works themselves, so I put together a listening list for him which contained many of the most well-known works from Debussy, Faure, and early Ravel, and one or two lesser known "Impressionist" composers, including the American Charles Griffes.

What is your background as a composer? How did you become interested in music?

There was never a choice for me: music chose me. I know that sounds corny, but for as long as I can remember I've been either performing music or composing music, and I could not imagine doing anything else. I took a very traditional musical pathway: singing in the Wandsworth School Boys Choir and playing clarinet in the London Schools Symphony Orchestra; studying music at Southampton University; and gaining a PhD in Eighteenth-Century French Opera from Darlington College of Arts. I really got into film music in a big way in the late '80s, and especially in the early '90s at university. Scores by John Williams, Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, Patrick Doyle, Alan Silvestri, and Howard Shore amongst many others really made me want to focus on writing to picture.

Did your experience as Head of Opera Studies at Rose Bruford College in Kent inform your decision to incorporate operatic compositions into this film score or did that arise for other reasons?

The songs by Debussy and Faure only appear on the soundtrack album, because we wanted to give the listener an even broader range of music from the period. The soundtrack therefore gives a greater sense of the sound world of the Paris that these artists worked in. Why is the human voice important to this film and to you?

There is something incredibly uplifting and expressive about the human voice and the poetry that normally accompanies it. I have a background in choral music and have always sung in choirs, and so unsurprisingly the voice plays a big part in my compositions. My wife—Susan Legg—is a professional opera and lieder singer, so there's really no getting away from it at home either! You can hear her very fine piano and beautiful vocal performances on the soundtrack.

Rather than just use preexisting tracks as inspiration, you actually reconstructed some Claude Debussy pieces with original composition. Why was that the right process?

The score itself takes several original piano works by Debussy as its starting point; but in order to make them work cinematically, they needed to be either arranged so that they fit into the prevailing context of what was happening on screen or indeed made to fit the timespan required for a particular scene. One has to always remember that in film, the music is there solely to serve what's on screen and the director's vision, and as such it must be fashioned into a shape that will fit.

In some cases a single melodic contrapuntal line was isolated from the original Debussy and then extended, re-harmonised, and expanded into a much larger scale cue for piano. In other cases, entirely original compositions that reflected the musical language and style of the period were composed to take the viewer on a journey through the paintings and the narrative arc of the film's main characters.

Were there any compositions that took a long time to find? Were there many ideas you tried that did not work?

The process of scoring is always one of trial and error. There's always a period of experimentation when you try ideas out and have a dialogue with the director about what they imagined for a particular scene or moment. This dialogue then helps shape the music in terms of how it works and where it is placed in the film. In the documentary genre you've always got to be mindful of the voiceover, which is a crucially important part of the film; music must never fight with it and it must always work alongside it and support it.

Did you find this compositional process difficult?

This project was extremely rewarding creatively and allowed me to immerse myself in the glorious art works of this period and to compose music in the style of so many great composers of that epoch.

Has working in this way changed your compositional style or process at all?

Every project is different, and amongst other commissions I am delighted to be working with Phil Grabsky once again on his next film, which will focus on the paintings of Renoir.

Garrett Tiedemann is a writer, filmmaker and composer who owns the multimedia lab CyNar Pictures and its record label American Residue Records.

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