Gladiator II composer Harry Gregson-Williams on the ‘pretty rude sound’ that made it into the score

11 December 2024, 16:03

How Harry Gregson-Williams wrote the Gladiator II soundtrack

By Classic FM

@ClassicFM

Composer Harry Gregson-Williams spoke to Classic FM about writing the ‘Gladiator II’ score, working with Ridley Scott, and the phone call he made to Hans Zimmer after getting the job.

One of the most hotly-anticipated cinematic sequels of the 21st century so far, Gladiator II has arrived in cinemas and with it, another epic symphonic soundtrack.

From Celtic brass war horns and electric cellos, to a Hans Zimmer homage and Lisa Gerrard’s unmistakable voice, the Gladiator II soundtrack is the perfect musical partner to Ridley Scott’s second foray into the gladiatorial arena.

Zimmer provided the score to the first Gladiator instalment in 2000, which starred Russell Crowe as the inimitable Roman general-turned-gladiator, Maximus Decimus Meridius.

The German composer’s score has conquered the hearts of many film and music aficionados over the years but he has not returned to write the soundtrack to the sequel, passing the baton instead to his good friend and former assistant, Harry Gregson-Williams.

Best known for his much-loved scores for the Chicken Run, Narnia and Shrek franchises, Gregson-Williams spoke to Classic FM about turning his hand to Gladiator II, receiving the call from Ridley Scott, and Hans Zimmer’s words of encouragement.

Read more: Everything you need to know about the soundtrack to Gladiator II

How did Harry Gregson-Williams follow in Hans Zimmer’s footsteps?

Harry Gregson-Williams first encountered Gladiator director Ridley Scott when he was working as an assistant for Hans Zimmer.

“If I backdate it many, many years to when the original Gladiator was made, I actually was in my final year or so of assisting Hans Zimmer with his compositions,” he told Classic FM. “So I was learning my trade when he did the original.”

Gladiator II now marks the seventh collaboration between Harry and Ridley, whose films preceding the Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington-starring epic include The Martian and House of Gucci.

“I was so happy that Ridley called me and asked me to do this score,” the composer added. “I was extremely happy, a bit nervous, quite anxious to begin with. I wondered how I would get into doing a sequel to a movie that I had nothing to do with the first one.

“One of my first calls was actually to Hans to say, ‘how you feel about me doing this?’. He said, ‘Mate, you’ll probably best qualified person to do this. So, make me proud. Go for it.’”

Read more: The 10 best Hans Zimmer soundtracks

Watch the Gladiator II trailer

How did Harry Gregson-Williams score Gladiator II?

Despite, or perhaps due to being a protégé of Hans Zimmer, Gregson-Williams was keen to make the score to Gladiator II his own original material.

His first move, rather than looking at Zimmer’s original musical themes, was to write some new music related to the characters in the sequel.

“Then my next port of call was to have a look at what was done in the first movie, musically,” he added.

Gregson-Williams was particularly drawn to the ‘descending seventh’ figure heard throughout Zimmer’s original soundtrack, including in ‘Now We Are Free’.

“I thought, what would it be like if I were to write a fresh theme for Lucius? It could be a bit vulnerable to begin with, and then become quite muscular and heroic. But what if my theme contained that falling seventh, so that when I got to a moment in the movie where I actually wanted to quote Hans’ theme, which I only do once or twice, what if Lucius’ theme actually became Maximus’ theme – and that they somehow became one and the same?

“There was a line that caught my eye when I read the script, [where] Lucius becomes Maximus. So I thought, well, let’s try and do this musically. So one of the first things that I wrote was a piece containing this descending set. We call it ‘Strength and Honor’.”

What instruments were used to score Gladiator II?

The sound of Gladiator II would have been completely different were it not for a man named Abraham Cupeiro, who Gregson-Williams found “over the Internet”.

“This is a guy who makes his own instruments in the manner of instruments that might have been played at that time – in Roman times,” the composer said. “I contacted him and he said, ‘well, I am in a field in northern Spain’.

“So I flew over to northern Spain, and found Abraham in a field,” Gregson-Williams recalled. “And in his field behind his farmhouse was a barn, which he converted into a studio.

“I took with me a couple of hard drives, with some music I composed on that and had him run through these wonderful instruments – big, huge shells, that he blew through, ancient horns, which looked like they might have been a precursor to a French horn. And a wonderful florid instrument, brassy thing with a serpent’s head called a ‘Carnyx’, which made a pretty rude sound.

“Gathering all this tapestry of sounds was the greatest joy. And there are a couple of moments that I really felt like we owed the audience, and the characters, a warm and fuzzy moment or two.”

The official soundtrack to Gladiator II is out now on Decca Records.