Music Composed by: Edward Shearmur  Music conducted by: Andy Brown  Additional Orchestrations by: John R. Soll  Orchestra: London Metropolian Orchestra  Tarogato player: Nicolas Bucknall  Recorded and mixed by: Stephen P. Mc Laughlin  Music editor: Greg Pettigrew  Recording date: 1998  Review available

Tracklist currently not available

Total time: 69'00

On Ed Shearmur’s score this instrument called the tarogato was of vital importance. It’s kind of like a saxophone/clarinet combination. Just like the alto saxophone it has a similar bore, while the open holes are similar to those of a clarinet. The sound is a combination of these two instruments and you can play pretty vibrant sounds on it. Its origin lies in the Hungarian roots, where it’s considered as the national instrument. Gypsy bands from Hungary and Romania used this tarogato a lot. In Jakob the Liar there’s a great example of such a Gipsy band during several occasions when the Jews are in a row 'dancing' to these kind of music before they head off to work. The particular piece they’re dancing on is called the "Pop Beer Polka", which sounds pretty authentic and was used to look at the past and hope for a better future. Shearmur’s score is in the same line. Among the London Metropolian Orchestra a magnificent clarinet player named Nicholas Bucknall was to perform this most important instrument utilized for the score. His tarogato is made by Stowasser of Budapest around 1920, which makes this one of the best specimen of them all. Nowadays these aren’t produced anymore.
The approach the composer took was as closely authentic to the time, with a high klezmer quality put into the score. Klezmer is a Jewish piece of musical culture that used a lot of foreboding and happy moods. Considering it as 'just a style' is wrong, because it’s kind of the way Jews think and how they live, it expresses it all. From a historic point of view klezmer did change by the influence of jazz and such, but still kept promise to the Jewish tradition. Both accordeon and tarogato (or actually clarinet in real klezmer) are very important in that tradition, so Shearmur used them a lot and for various moods.

2 Short clips of the score including sounds of the Tarogato:
clip 1 (1,4 Mb - MP3 file)
clip 2 (0,7 Mb - MP3 file)

Sometimes it happens so that a great score isn’t released, which can happen for a variety of reason, but most of the times nobody wants to risk it because you will never know if it would sell. Some scores are risky because they are fairly unknown to the greater audience. Though lots of small independent films have their own score on the market. Very important is the amount of money that’s involved. Luckily the dvd features an isolated score, so that people could enjoy his wonderful work.

Shearmur about his unreleased Jakob the Liar score
‘’There are scores that I wish people had access to – Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her, Jakob the Liar, Charlie's Angels – but I'm sure they'll find their way out sooner or later.’’

Director Peter Kassovich about choosing the composer
"I’m hearing this music of Ed Shearmur. He really succeeded to make a good mixture between ethnic music and score. At first when we where talking about the film, my first idea of the composer was to ask Goran Belagovich, who is Kusturica’s composer. And then we troubled with the schedule and we couldn’t get him, so we then got to work with a Polish composer. His name is Preisner, he was Kieslowski’s composer. And then we had no good understanding with him. I mean the artistic point of view didn’t really match. So we separated. And then we were looking for a composer. I was visiting a lot of cities and we found this young composer, Ed Shearmur. I met him in Paris. And he really understood what we needed and he did a very good score. Actually at the end you will hear all this Russian kind of music; to make Jakob’s lies growing (even the music).''

Kassovich approached these two composers for a very good reason; he looked for someone familiar with Slavic, Balkan musical emotions. But in the end Shearmur did it the best way possible. But why did the director ask Bregovic and Preisner? A small sketch of both composers:

- Goran Bregovic was a great first initiative from the director. Bregovic was born in Bosnia and every Emir Kusturica project he worked on involved Slavic and Gypsy influences. For example on the film Dom Za Vesanje, he based his score on Romanian folk music, that featured a lot of accordeon and horns. So more contemporary musical scores that were influenced by these folk songs.

- Zbigniew Preisner was perhaps an even more appropiate composer, who was born in Poland and had a good relationship with Krysztof Kieslowski. His Poland background can be recognized throughout his career, like in all the Dekalog parts he did with Kieslowki. He was highly influenced by other Polish composers like Gorecki, or Chopin in scores such as Trois Couleurs Blanc. Preisner is very good at scoring dramatic films, so perhaps he didn’t like the concept of combining both drama and humour into the score.

The director about a temp score and how Shearmur worked with that
"And the music is great. The funny thing is when you do the score, which is difficult for a composer. Actually as with these previews, you have to do this fake score, a temp score, edited with existing music. And so at the end you bring it to the composer and tell him: You see we would like something like that. I think that it sometimes isn’t easy to get out of it. And I think that Ed made a good job out of it."

The very first piece of Shearmur’s score starts in the first sequence of the film as Jakob Heym chases a piece of paper around the ghettos, which feels very alive. Immediately the tarogato and accordion play in an upbeat pace along with Jakob and later additional strings. When the character reaches the square where he has his café, he witnesses a couple of people who are being hanged. Of course the mood turns into something really sad, and feels dark and brooding. Only this opening cue can give you a pretty accurate estimation of how the score will be like. Much is concentrated on deep emotions, which means less comedy time. You notice at once that the music hints at the hard life of the ghetto, and even harder of a human being in fact.

He meets this little girl named Lina who he takes care of and hides her in his own house. When they first meet, both are in a pretty tight spot; Jakob is on the street after the time clock that has been set on 8 o’clock, while the girl named Lina is being smuggled away by her parents, who ended up being deported on a train. That sequence called for the first a tense bit of score with echoing accordion and suspenseful use of strings, as they sneak passed the flashes of nazi lights who're always looking for people violating this time-law. Finally in the safe zone a thematic theme for Lina was written by the composer which’s fairly enough a simple piano/string combination which works effectively to connect Jakob and the girl. Actually this girl is the reason that he is willing to go as far as he goes with lying, so an easy to pick out musical thing for the girl was vital for the score. Even this thematic showcase is put through different stages; while it's beautiful, it’s also used in a more melancholic way further into the score.

In these ghettos a tremendous depressive atmosphere overrules everything else and leading to a lot of suicides. Jakob accidentally hears a radio news bulletin about the war and from that moment on he tells stories that he just made up. Thus trying to keep the faith and make people happy in these terrible times. After Jakob lies to Mischa stating that he has a radio, soon everyone in the ghetto knew about it. Since everyone knows or beliefs he has a radio, he has to be very creative and give them something new each time. Almost all these conversations take place during their break while working for the nazi's. Shearmur connects his score with the imaginative radio ideas that Jakob thinks of. So the task for the composer results in adding a sweetening element to the storyteller tale. The first time this turns up is when someone asks him what kind of music they play on the radio. Jakobs claims they play the tango a lot and the composer reacted to that by letting a tango slide down the funny atmosphere. Later he claims they might be freed by the Russians soon, a small militaristic sounding hint sneaks up for a brief moment. And so when some plains are soon to fly towards the working ground of the Jews, a Russian militaristic grandeur motif with bombastic horn outbursts and fast paced strings. This were supposed to be the planes from the Brittish but as it turns out these were just German scouts. This is a cue that simulates something with heroic potential. Similar is the cue where Mischa is planning the attack nazis with a crowbar, with the military, heroic motif. All of these are just these kind of teasers, not resulting in the actual thing.

But the biggest one is also the most real or actually surreal, which is musically the most wonderful, magical moment of the entire score. This is when he really starts to get good at it. Jakob has another round about with other workers and they ask him if he has any news on how the allies are doing. They all gather around him and listen curious to his story like little children. But this is war, so any vital or small thing that could hint at the end of the war was good. He tells them that Leningrad’s army is advancing quickly and draws the frontline into the sand. While telling these Russian vocals, heroic brass and a military motif are woven with the words. A band accompanies the army, as the military motif sounds more fanfare like. But they play jazz to cheer up and the allies; saxophone, strings clarinet, brass and three women vocals. All of these ideas are made by Shearmur though, who kind of mimics the sentences from Jakob. These hopeful moments are most of the times sputtered with a funny and beautiful work of the tarogato.

The consequences of all his lies result into a serie of funny sequences, which are all musically approached with the thing you would expect to hear. The thing as heard in the opening cue is used throughout; for Jakob chasing Mischa who told everyone about his supposedly secret radio, to pick out one. Later, one will notice that the funny pace is used for just about any situations where people run around for the radio. The tarogato is used here for amusement use, though this could also be used for a dramatic part. So this instrument can be used for both moods, while differences between the two in use of the instrument is not that obvious. Bringing back the opening, the cue used there, was like said before the best example to describe to overall score. Funny can turn sad and the other way around. Like when Jakob searches for some new info and decides to sneak into a German toilet, he smells the danger around the corner. This is all very much fast rhythm in style, but a short hint of danger with some tense strings, but the tarogato pulls the joy together. But when someone risks his life to make sure that Jakob isn’t discovered by a nazi, dramatic cello’s and strings make up for drama. Another good example is Jacob and other Jews gather around. They need a hero, a leader for the resistance, so Jakob is the one that is going to be just that. This is all very played very catchy musically, with still some fun as they hide for the Gestapo that barges in for Kirgbaum.

Every funny musical idea was thrown out near the last part of the film by Shearmur as Dr. Kirgbaum is taken away to take care of a general. That’s were the pure dramatic score parts stand their ground. When Kirgbaum poisons himself, the real tragedy of the story stopped playing hide and seek, because he sacrifices his life for a liar, from whom he knew had no such thing as a radio. At that time people already made Jakob’s lies bigger than they were and they even selected him as their resistance leader. The death of professor is shivering and deeply moving with the saddest piano and strings in the world. The nazi’s take proper action and try to search the whole ghetto for the man with the radio. These provide some very hard and realistic sequences as people are all thrown out of their houses, with lots of violence and heart wrenching moments. Images seen here are already strong enough, so the composer only adds another layer to this by using lots of violins and pounding percussive tools and bass, with a military march. This underline the atmosphere where nothing is laughable and also cello’s add greatly to that.

At a certain point Lina finds out that there’s no radio and has one last talk with Jakob who’s going to say goodbye to her. Her theme is resolved here, but the piano is to feature quite a lot later as Jakob meets his end. When he gave up and reported to the nazi’s, he’s being tortured and is taken to the same location from the opening sequence where he found the hanging people. All the people who believe in him watch him standing their, almost ready to be executed. This part could be seen as a reprise of the opening cue with dark string and tarogato use, but the piano plays an important role as well. Maybe not in the Chopin kind of way, but it needed no more, since the mournful and tragic feel is already established. He doesn’t want to admit he made it all up, even though the Germans say he did. In this sunny weather, looking at the birds and laughing, the general kills him with a gun. He now is clearly dead and all the people from the ghetto are deported onto a train towards Auschwitz, where cello’s should not even had to be used to make the point. The last sequence shows us the Jews aboard the train, where among Lina, who witnesses the liberation by the Russian army who stop the train, with military musical motifs and Russian vocals. All score and source cue elements that were earlier on developed by Shearmur by lying along with some of the Jakob's lies. Lina cries as she sees there’s a band playing the "Beer Barrel Polka". In fact this is all a kind of dream, a last lie told and narrated by Jakob, even though he’s dead.