Oscars 2023: ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ composer Volker Bertelmann wins ‘Best Original Score’
Volker Bertelmann won the ‘Best Original Score’ at the 2023 Oscars ceremony for his music for All Quiet on the Western Front, Edward Berger’s brutal World War I epic.
During his acceptance speech, the composer explained that the harrowing nature of the film influenced his approach to the score. “By working on a film like that, you are always touched,” he began, “sometimes you have to make the screen very small because there are so many explosions happening.”
While the win marks the German composer’s first Academy Award, he was previously nominated for his 2016 Lion score, which he co-composed with Dustin O’Halloran under his stage name Hauschka. He also won the BAFTA for All Quiet on The Western Front in February.
A German-language remake of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 anti-war novel of the same name, All Quiet On The Western Front, explores the brutality and brutalising effects of war through a group of friends who all enlist in the same regiment. It is the latest in a long line of collaborations between Edward Berger and Bertelmann, which also includes the 2018 Showtime series, Patrick Melrose.
For his score, Bertelmann close-mic’d his great-grandmother’s harmonium, allowing him to capture the details of the pump organ’s inner mechanism, which the composer said sounded like “a war machine.” The score relies on a beefy three-note “destruction motive”, which apparently reminded Berger of Led Zeppelin. Bertelmann has also scored Ammonite and The Old Guard.
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