As bewitching and mesmerizing as Frances O’Connor’s film, the Emily original soundtrack by Abel Korzeniowski perfectly encapsulates raw, compelling emotions. It’s one of the most haunting original scores of the year and one that deserves to be on everyone’s period drama list of favorites. (We aren’t the only ones who have a list, right? Because you should all have one.)
Korzeniowski’s compositions beautifully complement the film’s enthralling excavation of troubles and heartaches as they move listeners toward muddy grounds and worthwhile experiences. There’s something so achingly sad in nearly every track, but at the same time, like The Banshees of Inisherin’s original score by Carter Burwell, it’s easy to listen to. It’s easy to find ourselves getting lost in the tracks, allowing our fingers to type for hours on end as the music almost effortlessly inspires words to pass from thought to paper.
As far as period drama original scores go, many have similar, refreshing beats that take us through the countryside from a different time, and the Emily original soundtrack is no different. It’s a marvel in every way, with stunning operatic sounds alongside the instrumental compositions. Comprised of twenty-four songs that span about 42 minutes, it’s a tracklist that could have made my initial reading of Wuthering Heights in high school more exciting.
The soundtrack is full of gorgeous numbers like the opening “The Strange One,” “Teacher,” “Rondo II,” “Freedom in Thought,” “Through the Sheets,” “The Cottage,” “Wuthering Heights,” “To the Moors,” “The Autumn Tree,” and more. Quite frankly, it’s a no-skip soundtrack with melancholically calming sounds that prompt thinking and emotions for hours. It’s the kind you finish listening to the restart from the beginning right away.
The work that Korzeniowski brings to this album is utterly astonishing. So much of the film works because of the brilliant score, and so much bleeds gorgeously into the story’s truth that it’s almost as if the track is as old as the history behind it.
Listen to the Emily original soundtrack below, and let us know which tracks are your favorites.