Derrick Werlé: ‘We Learn Music Like We Learn a Language’

In our latest feature, we caught up with French film composer, pianist and orchestrator Derrick Werlé who talked to us about how he was fascinated with Mozart, his forthcoming Sanskrit opera “Siddhartha,” work in the Indian film industry as well as his plans for 2023. Read excerpts below:

You’ve talked previously about how no one in your family was into music and also about how you were adopted. Do you think your fascination with music has something to do with your biological parents and also what was it about music that made you pursue it?

I believe that music is an ability that we acquire after we are born. We learn music like we learn a language. No one is born with a language and in the same way, if music is a universal language, we must learn it and are not born with it.

Mozart was a genius and a child prodigy. He was exposed to music from an early age, as his father was a minor composer. But many musicians have become great composers without being born into musical families. For example Chopin was an amazing composer, famous for his piano music, and his father wasn’t a musician but a teacher. We cannot therefore say that if a child is a musician, his talent must come from his parents.

To illustrate my point, let’s take that musical ability called “perfect pitch”. This ability allows a musician to recognize an isolated note, without using a reference note (usually the 440 Hertz “A”). This ability is often praised as something extraordinary: on YouTube, you can see a lot of videos talking about which musicians have perfect pitch and which do not. One video I remember is Charlie Puth demonstrating perfect pitch and being tested many times by people including Jimmy Kimmel. This “amazing” ability that some musicians have is not biologically inherited and most of the world’s great musicians don’t even have it. I believe that musical abilities have little to do with biology.

Many studies suggest that perfect pitch is influenced by biological inheritance and some studies say the contrary. However both say it requires a lot of training to acquire perfect pitch. So it does not really matter if perfect pitch is inherited or not, without proper training you cannot get it. Perfect pitch is not even a prerequisite to be a great musician, some don’t have it and are still great musicians. I truly believe that we are what we decide to become and not limited by what we are attributed at birth.

What made me pursue film music is really the fact that I always enjoyed “tonal music”. This wasn’t easy because in French academia, if you go anywhere near the tonal realm, you are perceived as an amateur. It’s a shame it’s like this. I’ll always remember my orchestration teacher contemptuously telling me that my style was reminiscent of “film music”. As a matter of fact, I realized that in film music, I would be free to use tonal music as well as atonal music, or any other kind of music, according to my inspiration.

Also, I loved Opera from a young age. The stories told in operas are really fascinating. Most people wrongly think of opera as some kind of elite music, but this is not true. I have always seen the operatic genre as a precursor to film and even musicals. There’s a line of inspiration that goes from Wagner’s Ring to “The Lord of the Rings”. All that led me to film music.

You attended UCLA in the U.S. – what was your experience studying there and what were some of your takeaways from your time there?

It was an amazing experience, also because the campus is just outstandingly beautiful. It is where I was able to fully be myself composing the music that I truly love. I also made many great friends that I still keep in touch with today. I even became friends with Jason Hayes, the composer of World of Warcraft, Diablo and Warcraft III. My Ph.d. dissertation was on his music: “The Music of the World of Warcraft”. I believe it’s available online, one just needs to google it.

I enjoyed my time at UCLA, but I would say that most of the skills I use in the film music industry come from my work experience with Hans Zimmer.

I read that Hans Zimmer complemented you once by saying you don’t make any mistakes. How did you cross paths with him and what was your first interaction with him like? Also, what is he like to work with?

I graduated from UCLA and I got a chance to be his intern. In the beginning, I brought him coffee and food and did all the errands in his studio, including washing dishes and throwing out trash. I didn’t tell anybody about my two Master’s and my PhD, but they found out online and were astonished I’d do that kind of job with my background. I said that doing menial tasks gave me the opportunity to prove my dedication and work ethics and as a matter of fact, when the internship finished, I was hired and was given the opportunity to work on movies. No job is too small to be done well.

It is amazing to work with Hans because he is a perfectionist and extremely dedicated to his work. I am too, that is why it was such a great honor that he recognized that in me. It is of course very challenging but I like challenges and it doesn’t deter me. There are weeks I worked probably up to 100 plus hours. A lot of times I didn’t even have time to sleep. I drove home and changed clothes and took shower then I went right back to work.

You’re currently working on an opera in Sanskrit called ‘Siddhartha.’ What was it that planted the seed for this project to happen? You’ve also learned a bit of Sanskrit pronunciation to help with the music, was it challenging having to put this massive body of work together?

I was approached by a production company that wishes to produce an opera based on Hermann Hesse’s novel “Siddhartha”. I knew Hesse’s work through the “Four Last Songs” by Richard Strauss. The first three songs were composed on poems by Hesse. I really like those songs. After reading this novel, I felt strongly connected to it, as did the producer. This is where it all began. This opera was supposed to be finished this year, but I had a lot of work in Hollywood and with Netflix, and there was the pandemic: all of that caused a year’s delay. I am now in the final sections of the opera. I expect to finish it at the beginning of the year, so we should be able to fully launch production in the middle of next year.

I like challenges as you can see. It is of course not easy to put this massive work together, and it’s the first time I am orchestrating an opera. My classical training helps a lot in terms of instrumentation, and also on how to associate the rhythm of the speaking pattern with the music. Because I don’t know Sanskrit, the production company hired an Indian Sanskrit scholar to pronounce all the libretto, so I am able to get a feel of the rhythm of the language. A composer writing music for a language that is not his mother tongue is quite common. As you know in the classical period, a lot of composers wrote operas in Italian, even though they weren’t Italians themselves. Composers wrote music in Latin, a dead language. All requiems are in Latin, and Mozart’s Requiem has exactly the same Latin text as the Requiem by Berlioz, Britten or even Fauré. All these composers interpreted the text differently, in their own way.

Who are some of the people you’ve got on board to bring ‘Siddhartha’ to life? And when is the opera set to be ready for audiences?

The opera will premiere next year. Probably at the end of the year to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse.

It’s a project that was offered to me by a production company, so I don’t have much say about who should work on the opera. However, I know that most if not all of the singers will be of Indian origin. I’m really happy that the production vision gives more visibility to Indian musicians.

Apart from the Opera what else are you dabbling in? More film work, an album, shows, etc.?

I will have an Indian film coming next summer to orchestrate. I am unable to disclose the film, but I will keep you informed once it’s out.

 In January 2023 I will be flying to New York for a recording session. Later on in 2023 there is a musical art installation that will be performed in the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, we are still talking about the details as to how and when it will happen.

Next year, hopefully during the summer, or at the latest at the end of the year, I will release an album with a well-known French pop singer, Jonatan Cerrada. We worked on this album during the pandemic. Now it’s almost done. I can’t talk too much about it until the album is released. Jonatan Cerrada won the first French edition of “Pop Idol”, in 2003. In 2004, he represented France in the Eurovision contest. I am very proud to be part of this album.  We will have new never released songs composed by me and him.

What do you hope to achieve in 2023?

I hope the coming year will be peaceful for everyone in the world. If we had invested all our resources and energies into developing our civilization as human beings, we would have achieved much more. We, human beings, try too hard to divide ourselves instead of trying to find what is common amongst us and work towards a common goal. We are all in this together on this planet and we share a common future as humans, inseparable from each other.

I also take this opportunity to mention a few people who have supported me a lot since the beginning of my career in film music. Brandon Campbell was the first composer to hire me as a musical assistant. He is a great composer and a good person. Shalini Singh, Hans’ studio manager and Cynthia Park, Hans’ administrative assistant were very kind to me and looked after me constantly. Of course, finally, I have to thank Hans for his trust.

As for myself, I am glad I was able to spend some time with my family and friends in France in 2022. I hope that maybe I will be able to visit India in the coming years and also maybe work on an Indian Bollywood project as a film music composer.