Fresh after making its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Todd Field’s masterful drama about celebrity conductor TÁR will be accompanied by the official soundtrack.

Deutsche Grammophon has announced the release of Music From and Inspired by the Motion Picture TÁR, a concept album featuring new music by Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir. The album is slated to drop digitally and on CD on October 21, 2022, following the film’s US release on October 7, and a vinyl edition slated for release on January 20, 2023.

The film stars two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett as the fictional Lydia Tár, a queer, globally renowned composer-conductor who oversees a German orchestra with an iron fist and finds herself embroiled in a #MeToo scandal.

Along with new music by Hildur Guðnadóttir, the concept album also features extracts of notable work from Mahler and Edward Elgar. The album complements the film by presenting fleshed-out compositions of the music worked on by the protagonist, implementing elements of Blanchett’s performance. Thus, the concept album delves into Tár’s rehearsals and the process of orchestral music-making.

Recently helming the Golden Globe, Grammy, and Academy Award-winning soundtrack for the 2019 film Joker and Emmy and Grammy-winning score for the HBO series Chernobyl, Hildur Guꝺnadóttir is recognized as “a supremely creative musician [and] an experimental producer to her bones” by Gramophone. Given Guꝺnadóttir’s work as a composer, including commissions for the British Film Institute and Royal Swedish Opera, her expertise matches Tár’s ambition.

The film is director Todd Field’s first movie in 16 years, following the critically acclaimed Little Children (2006) and his breakout In the Bedroom (2001).

Following its premiere in Venice, the film was met with rapturous reviews, with Variety writing, “As the first film he has made in 16 years, TÁR takes Todd Field to a new level. The movie is breathtaking — in its drama, its high-crafted innovation, its vision. It’s a ruthless but intimate tale of art, lust, obsession, and power.”

Artists

Hildur Guðnadóttir (vocals, cello, speaker), London Contemporary Orchestra (string quartet), Cate Blanchett (speaker, piano), Jan Wolf (speaker), Rachel Smith (speaker), Natalie Murray Beale (speaker), Sophie Kauer (speaker, cello), Todd Field (speaker), Al Kay (trombone), Jeroen Vierdag (double bass), Martijn van Iterson (guitar), Frits Landesbergen (vibraphone), Marcel Serierse (drums), Zethphan Smith-Gneist (speaker), Elisa Vargas Fernandez (speaker, vocals), Dresdner Philharmoniker, London Symphony Orchestra, New Trombone Collective, Robert Ames, Martijn Sohier