As gorgeously seen and heard in Young Victoria, the “People’s Queen” ascended to her throne at a tender age with much promise to be fulfilled. Ilan Eshkeri might be just a few years older than the monarch his score so memorably gives voice to, but it’s likely this potentially Oscar-nominated score will elevate his stature considerably. Having worked with the kingly composer Michael Kamen (Robin Hood), the English Eshkeri composed his own impressively dark scores for Layer Cake and Hannibal Rising before making his true symphonic splash with the fantastical music of Stardust. Now, this fall, Eshkeri is segueing from the visceral action of Ninja Assassin to the stately, swooning beauty of Young Victoria, a woman whose own musical tastes were anything but blue-blood.

Daniel Schweiger: Before I saw Young Victoria, my impression of the Queen was of this heavyset, prudish woman. That’s certainly not the case now. Do you think your score will help a similar picture in the minds of the audience members who also know about her?

Ilan Eshkeri: Hopefully they’ll hear Victoria as a really passionate woman, especially in her love and romance with Prince Albert. But what I really hope they’ll get from the film is that Victoria was a very fashionable woman of her time, especially when it came to music. We see this with her love of waltzes, which were the “new” dance of the time. Waltzing was her generation’s kind of hip-hop, because young people really saw this as the new, cool dance to do, so we spent a lot of time trying to find authentic waltzes that Victoria would have danced to, and quite a few of them were written by Johann Strauss. In fact, she was such a fan of his that Strauss would actually write a waltz for Victoria later in her life.

DS: People expect a “period” score to sound a certain way, especially one involving royalty. How did you want to play to audience’s musical perceptions yet try to do something original with Young Victoria?

IE: I try not to focus on being “original.” When I was in college, I took it to heart when one of my teachers told me how a lot of composers spend too much time trying to think about how to be unique and not enough time just writing music. I think that’s very true. So when I sit down to write, I just try to compose what I think is going to work for the material, and that’s what I did for Young Victoria. While I certainly used the orchestra in a traditional way, there were some things that we tried to do differently, especially in how the score and the “source” music would seamlessly melt into each other. A majority of the waltzes were subtly changed to reflect what was happening on the screen, like when we see Victoria arriving at Buckingham Palace for the first time. The waltz sounds more expansive and lyrical when we’re outside. But once Victoria walks in, the music is smaller to play off of her reactions. Another thing was using a really interesting instrument called a glass harmonica. It was invented by Benjamin Franklin and then went out of fashion, for some reason. It has these glass balls that are set into each other, and when they spin around, you handle them. That creates this ghostly, ambient sound that we used in a few places to create a dreamlike atmosphere, like when Victoria finds out that her uncle, the king, has died.

Ilan Eshkeri (Getty Images)

DS: For a period soundtrack to really sock it home, you’ve got to have that “great love theme,” which your score has in spades between Victoria and Albert. How did you create such a memorable melody?

IE: It was really difficult, and the love theme was actually one of the last things I wrote. When I’m struggling with a theme, I try to write everything else first, like the short textural cues, or the ones that have a very specific job to do. That buys me some “thinking time” before I have to present the theme to the director and the producers. It was tricky knowing the love theme had to be quite regal yet also emotional, which isn’t what you expect in music for a queen. It took quite a lot of themes before I achieved that, so I just sat at the piano until I got something that I thought would work. But the most important part of the process, for me, is always imagining what it’s like to be that person and to experience their emotions. What’s it like to be in love like that?

DS: On that note, the love theme is an equally effective song by Sinead O’Connor — something which usually isn’t the case when a popular singer tries singing what already works as the wordless melody it was first written as…

IE: It was really exciting to work with Sinead, and we were really lucky that she was inspired enough by the film, as well as the song and the lyrics to do it. Because I remembered listening to her as a kid, I was particularly looking forward to meeting Sinead. We went to Antwerp in Belgium to record her in a small studio. She was fantastic — quite shy, but a sweet, lovely lady who brought so much to the film in the way she sang “Only You.”

DS: You’ve certainly got an interesting name. Where are you from originally?

IE: It’s a Hebrew name. My father is from Jerusalem in Israel, and my mother is from Paris, France. They moved here when they were young and have lived in London for most of their lives, which is were my brother and I grew up.

DS: How did you inspire yourself for Young Victoria?

IE: To start with, my favorite pub is named The Prince Albert, which has got many pictures of Albert and Victoria inside of it, and I certainly got inspiration there. But in terms of actual research, I didn’t do a lot of it because I remember a fair amount about Queen Victoria. She and Albert were responsible for evolving the monarchy into what it is today. Victoria really was “The People’s Queen,” because she and Albert were the first monarchs to really engage with the public. They were also truly interested in the problems of the common man, and you can see how her and Albert’s architectural ideas can be seen in today’s London when you walk around with the two-family housing they first drew on paper, which you see in Young Victoria. So Victoria’s inspiration is all around me and the places I go every day.

DS: Young Victoria’s music certainly has the public appeal that might get you an Oscar.

IE: I don’t know about that. I’m just happy that the score has gotten some nice compliments. If anything happened beyond that, it would be amazing.

DS: But if a Best Score nomination does come out of Young Victoria, what do you think it is about the music that would affect audiences, let alone Oscar voters?

IE: I really don’t know. Perhaps you can look at the difference in this score and the one I just did for Ninja Assassin. The emotional focus of that music is to be “fun,” with music that’s energetic, scary and plays the action. You’re not so much deeply empathizing with the characters as you are watching them on this journey. The purpose of Young Victoria’s score is to really get you in the heart and to move people. Our director, Jean-Marc Vallee, brought a lot of that engagement to the table. He really captured Victoria’s family life because, when it comes down to it, they really are just a family. You identify with them. Albert’s feelings of being nervous about meeting Victoria are the same of any man who’s meeting a girl they really like. And Albert always writing Victoria might make you think of how many times you have to e-mail a person before getting the response you want. The music also had to draw you in like that and make you really feel for the characters. So maybe that’s why people respond to scores like Young Victoria. As opposed to making you have a fun time, this is music that’s designed to make you feel strong emotions.

Special thanks to Nancy Bishop and Venice Magazine.