Le Retour à la Raison – a film by Man Ray.

“My original idea was to make the music completely independent of the film. On second thought, I that would have been a missed opportunity. By following the film closely, I could acquire a new experience in composition, so that is what I did. The short film by Man Ray consists of a chain of abstract fragments with—for our time—a rather naive character. I have tried to maintain that innocence as an aspect of my film music by referring to early American minimalism, a style in which I found the same combination of naivety and optimism. The title, Le Retour à la Raison (the Return to Reason(ability)) is one I strongly associate with American music from the 1970s. My film score also has the same static use of a very limited number of motifs and a reference to tonality. The harmonic rhythm is either very slow or very fast and can never be completely pinned down. In the instrumentation, I used nothing but primary colors by not blending the four different groups (6 woodwinds, 5 brass, 2 percussion and 2 pianos and 6 strings) for most of the time.”

– Theo Verbey