Peter Webber - My liner notes for the Soundtrack album of Emperor

Peter Webber - My liner notes for the Soundtrack album of Emperor - Music composed and conducted by Alex Heffes


"A rubble strewn landscape of defeated Imperial ambitions. A people brought to their knees by years of punishing war, starvation and nuclear destruction. Plunging into the apocalyptic world of bombed out Tokyo in 1945 - when the Americans finally occupied the homeland of their defeated enemy - was a fascinating experience. As recent history attests, winning the peace can be a far more tricky experience than winning the war, and the contemporary parallels of war, peace and regime change were always at the forefront of my mind whilst making this movie.

The journey taken by our central character, Bonner Fellers, charts the path from the opening mood - the relatively simple triumphalism of victory - to the far more complex task of unravelling the tangled web of Japanese culture and politics. Alex Heffes marvellous score takes us into this mysterious, ravaged, yet strangely beautiful world and helps bring it to life. Brilliantly played by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alex himself, attending the recording of this music was one of the highlights of making this film. I hope you enjoy listening to Alex's score as much as we enjoyed putting it together."

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