Joe Kraemer's latest project is the score to a new audio adaption of John Masefield's The Box of Delights, staring Derek Jacobi. Gramophone asked the composer and conductor about the process behind creating a new musical sound world for the much-loved children's novel. 

How does the process of writing music for an audio adaption differ to that for a film - and what are the similarities?

The biggest difference for me is that audio dramas allow me to compose much more active, and in my opinion, interesting music. The current trend in films favours music that serves as a sort of sonic foundation for a scene, as a drone or texture or rhythmic bed, rather than contribute to the story telling with a melodic approach of themes and leitmotifs.  In fact, my preference for melodic scoring has cost me a film here and there over my career. On a movie, I am very much in tune with the visual component of the job, and my music is very tuned in to what’s happening on screen. I strive to compose a score that works in tandem with the visual. However, many directors prefer the music to kind of ignore the visual and play through the scenes without too much twisting or turning to catch on-screen events.

All of this is completely different in an audio play, where there is no visual component. That gives me the freedom as composer to help paint the picture for the listener with illustrative music, perhaps impressionistic in nature, or programmatic, to contribute to the story-telling rather than just setting a mood. A great example of this is one I did for a spin-off of Doctor Who starring Michelle Gomez as the anti-hero, Missy. There is a sequence where she is on a rooftop in Victorian London, in a face-off with a chimney-sweep who is really a villain in disguise. Since all we have are the dialogue and sound effects, the music is needed to do much of the heavy lifting, with swirling musical lines, dramatic passages of melody and rhythm, and big, bold statements, to place the listener right there in this pseudo-Mary Poppins environment, where Missy floats on the air with her umbrella and dangles the man off the edge of the building.

In The Box of Delights, one scene that comes to mind is when Kay boards the train in Part One and falls asleep. The score is very much moving along like a steam engine, with a sort of 'chugga-chugga-chugga' feel. The brass and winds are playing a chord that is based on the sound of a steam whistle, and at the same time there is a chaotic element that builds as Kay falls into a dream-state before being snapped awake by someone on the train. The music is able to tell this story much more explicitly in this audio drama than I would be allowed to in, say, a Jack Reacher movie, where I was consistently directed to hold back with the music.

I also think I probably am able to have the music play a little louder in the mix of an audio drama than in a movie, where the music is often put farther back in the sound field. But that may also be that in the UK I’ve noticed music is brought more forward in TV, say, than in the US.

What's the starting point for composing an audio adaption: where, as composer, do you get involved in the creative process?

It depends on the project. For The Box of Delights, I was asked even before recording began to come up with a piece of music for a sequence in Part Four that we called The Sea Shanty, where the Rat leads a sing-song. The director, Barnaby Edwards, sent me the script, highlighting the text to be used as a lyric, and conveyed his wishes for the feel of the scene, including the music. He also asked me to become familiar with A Carol Symphony by Victor Hely-Hutchinson [used in the famous 1984 BBC television adaptation], which Big Finish [the production company behind The Box of Delights] had been able to license for the opening and closing theme tune of this adaptation. Listening to that piece, reading through the script, and exchanging emails with Barnaby (he’s in the UK and I’m in Los Angeles), I was able to hone in on the sound I was hoping to use for the score, and also the Shanty song. I took a couple of weeks and wrote the Shanty around December of 2020. I made a demo where I sang all the parts, then sent that off to Barnaby. He approved the song, then I created elements for the actors to sing to when they recorded their parts. All of this was before the start of 2021.

In April or so of 2021, I was told that I would be getting dialogue and sound effects mixes from Steve Foxon, the sound designer, and that the show would be needing its final delivery sometime in June. While I waited for the first episode to turn over, I got the conductor’s score to A Carol Symphony and began making a new recording of the segment used in previous versions of the story for TV and radio, a part which focuses on the classic 'The First Noel'. Once I had a version of this that sounded appropriate to me, I sent it to Barnaby and the producer, Emma Haigh. They came back to me with their responses and, after some editorial shortening since we didn’t have to do a full credit roll either at the beginning or the end of every episode, that was locked into its final configuration.

By this time, the first episode had been delivered to me and I began writing the underscore for the episode in earnest. I had a desire to continue the concept of incorporating traditional Yuletide music, such as 'O Come All Ye Faithful', 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas', 'Deck the Halls', and other such pieces. I always had one of those ready to go when it felt right in the episode. In audio plays, I often need short melodic bits of music to bridge two scenes – we don’t have the visual tools to transition between scenes the way a film or TV show does, so the music serves to convey us from a train car to the platform, say, or from a car-plane to a toy boat on the water.  

I composed a theme for the Box itself, which also served as a musical calling card for Derek Jacobi’s character, Cole Hawlings, and used this whenever I wanted to bring those concepts to the listener’s mind. Many people will likely compare it to the music for Harry Potter, as it uses a celeste, but in truth my inspiration was The Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky, and 'The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy', which has always evoked the Christmas feeling in me. I had some comic music for Foxy Faced Charles and Chubby Joe, a sweeping theme for Kay’s family, and some noble, heroic music for scenes where Kay flies or outwits a baddie, stuff like that. The rest was programmatic music that felt like the right tone, tempo, and feel for any given scene.

And of course, I had to take the vocal elements recorded for The Sea Shanty and incorporate those into the show. The lead singer transposed the piece to a new key that was better suited to his range and so I redid the music track in the new key. I also used some plugins to adjust the timing of the vocals. See, all the dialogue was recorded at home studios during lockdown, including the vocals, and to keep the track clean, the actors would listen to the track and then record the vocal a cappella. This meant they didn’t have a timing reference during the actual performance heard in the show. So I needed to make some trims and tucks here and there to sync everything up. Once that was done, I sent the music and vocals back to Steve Foxon who applied reverb and EQ and such to make it all sound diegetic, then he sent it back to me to be mixed back in to the final version.

And what role do you play throughout the completion of the audio production?

At Big Finish, the majority of the projects I work on include the sound and music jobs. I have a few sound designers I’ve worked with here in LA who handle the bulk of the sound work for me, then I do a final polish and also the score. My first jobs in LA in the mid-'90s were at sound studios, where I learned how to edit dialogue, cut sound effects, walk foley, all of that, so I do have some qualifications in that area.

However, I do all the music myself. I don’t have assistants or ghost-writers or anything like that. I am a one-stop shop for all the music.  I write it all myself, I perform it all myself, and I mix it into the show myself.

For Box of Delights, I was commissioned only for the music, and Steve Foxon in the UK was responsible for the dialogue and sound effects, the editing and premixing of all that. Because there is no picture element for all of us to work against, unlike on a movie, I cannot really start composing the final music until I get an edit from the sound designer that is pretty much locked down timing-wise.  Now, I have some latitude in terms of timing, certainly more than in a movie or TV programme, because I don’t have to worry about where picture cuts fall or where a character runs or jumps or such. So things can be adjusted in the sound even after I’ve written the cue. But it really isn’t possible for me to write the score to the script except in broad strokes, and the cues that need to fit the specific scenes need to be written to the final audio.

Since the music is the last step in the process, I am also responsible for the final mix, which marries the music to the dialog and sound effects, as well as the final mastering for CD and download. To that end, I make the final mixes, which are submitted to the director, producer, and other decision makers at Big Finish, and there can be a notes process that goes back and forth until everyone is satisfied.  Then the discs are authored and sent off to the pressing plant, and the audio files are mastered for download, which is uploaded to Big Finish for internet delivery to the listeners.

Do the voices of the actors and their distinctive styles play a role in what you write? 

Absolutely. Nicholas Pegg in particular in this story has a great characterization for Foxy Faced Charles. It was constantly making me laugh, so I wanted to have some music for him that reflected his humorous approach. Similarly, Lisa Bowerman’s portrayal of Caroline Louisa has such a classic British 'lady-of-the-house' tone to it that I felt the music had to live up to the blue-blooded quality of her voice.  The kids in the show all bring a terrific personality to their work as well, from Maria’s over-the-top military bearings to Kay’s earnest, forthright heroism. I wanted all of these personalities to be reflected in the music, so that the score had lots of diversity and character.

George Lucas often said that from a musical perspective, the Star Wars films he worked on were essentially silent movies, with the music explicitly telling the story, and I definitely tried to work in that kind of way.

What role did the period and era of the book play in the music you composed?

Well again, since there is no visual component, the music must help set the scene for the listener, both in terms of geography, and in terms of time period. So the score has what I hope is a British tone for scenes at, say, the train platform, or at the house where Kay stays, while there are some more exotic sounds for the scene where Cole Hawling’s explains the history of the Box of Delights. Since this is a story from the era of steam trains and automobiles, I tried to root the music in orchestral, acoustic instruments, with only the bare minimum of anything explicitly synthesized. Having the Hely-Hutchinson music as the opening/closing theme tune does help set the stage for the listener’s expectations of what kind of music they’ll be hearing in the show. I also avoided any of the more modern Christmas carols, not only because of licensing issues, but also because it would have been anachronistic to the time period of the story.

The Box of Delights is a book (and televised drama) much loved by many, with a particular resonance for audiences. Did that affect what you composed - did you seek to add a fresh sound-world, or to draw on those resonances?

It absolutely inspired me as a composer. I have learned over the years that I am more of a traditionalist in my tastes, and so something like this is very much going to appeal to my senses in that way. I did not want to disappoint those listeners who loved the book, or the previous realizations of the book for TV or radio. From the moment the project was announced to the public by Big Finish, excited fans were making it clear they expected certain things to be part of the final product, and fortunately, those expectations seem to fall right in line with my ambitions for the show as composer.  

That’s not to say that I don’t try to be innovative in my work. It depends on the project.  For something that is a classic, like The Box of Delights, I want to contribute to the catalogue of classic sounding scores with some melodies of my own. Same thing with Mission Impossible or Emily and the Magical Journey, a family film I scored last year. These projects all have certain things the audience expects from them, based on the franchise they are part of, or the impressions they get from the poster or trailer. I just finished a score for a film called Old Man, which was a departure for me in many ways. I don’t want to say too much about the film itself, but the score was made entirely with piano and cello. Everything you hear in the score is a result of either playing a piano or cello traditionally, or in some avant garde way, or sampled and manipulated to create something that may not even sound so much like a piano or cello anymore. For example, the percussion was made by hitting or knocking the piano or cello in different ways. Stuff like that. That kind of approach worked really well for that film, but I think it would have frustrated people if I had done such a thing for The Box of Delights.

One thing I am generally driven by is to solve whatever music challenges a project poses with musical solutions rather than production solutions. That means coming up with a melody or inherently musical gesture to signify something in the film, rather than saying 'oh I’m going to use this synth patch for outer space', or 'this arpeggiator for the main character'. I think often of a story Lalo Schifrin told me from when he was working at Universal. He had a writing room along a hallway full of writing rooms, and the other rooms were occupied by John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith and Bernard Herrmann. This was in the early '70s. And Jerry and Lalo and John were all working on scores that were using aleatoric techniques (perhaps Williams was writing Images for Robert Altman?). Apparently it got to Herrmann one day and he finally burst out of his room into the hallway and bellowed 'Can’t any of you just write a simple tune?!'. Everyone had a good laugh over it, but it was a valid point.  

Finally, can you point us towards one or more particular musical moments you're proud of in this production - either for how they helped you tell the story, or simply for purely musical reasons!

There is a moment where Kay is riding on horseback at the beginning of Part Three, and they leap over the baddies and ride to safety, that really achieves what I always hope to with a score – it elevates all the elements of the scene into a magical moment that takes the listener completely out of the day-to-day reality of life, and transports them to another reality, of magic and mysticism and heroism and villainy. Since I first went to the movies as a little kid and saw things like Star Wars and Superman The Movie, I have tried to capture that feeling in my own work, and it’s really delightful when I can find a moment like that in a project I am scoring.  I also really enjoyed incorporating the classic Christmas carols into the score, and I hope the listener enjoys hearing those interpolations too!

Find out more about the new audio adaptation of The Box of Delights