Hamnet is based on an historical fiction novel written in 2020 by Maggie O'Farrell, who also co-wrote the film's screenplay with the director Chloé Zhao.
While it is true that Shakespeare had a son called Hamnet who died at the age of 11, the rest of the story is imagined and the suggestion that the play Hamlet is some kind of homage to Hamnet is pure speculation. The film is about how Shakespeare and his wife (called Agnes in the film) are impacted by this cruel loss. This event sets the tone of the film's music score by composer Max Richter. One track in the score called "On the Nature of Daylight" is a pre-existing (and widely used) track that comes from Richter's 2nd album "The Blue Notebooks", and it may be that this track was selected as the template for the Hamnet score, at least in terms of mood and sound.
In many ways the score is the very definition of minimalist music, using a narrow range of instrumental timbres and tempi, perhaps in keeping with the simplicity of life in those times. Most tracks are dominated by strings and vocals, often blended together in a smooth slowing evolving legato. In artistic terms this is like a watercolour "wash", and conveying a narrow spectrum of emotions centred around grief and stoicism. I don't subscribe to the sentiment that "the best film music is the type you don't hear" but Hamnet seems to apply this maxim very successfully. There is no mention of synths on the sleeve notes, but the score has certainly been thoroughly "processed" in the engineering sense. I first listened to the album in the car and the bass frequencies were on the verge of being felt through one's bones rather than the ears, but you can adjust this as necessary.
The first track "Of Agnes" (Shakespeare's wife in the story) sets out the key instrumentation with a gentle soundscape of strings and wordless vocals. Then "Of Orpheus" (a story told by Shakespeare to Agnes) features a melodic sequence on harp, later joined by strings. And track 3 uses the same instruments to depict a tranquil mood, before "Look At Me" has strings and vocals rising in a gentle crescendo. After a relatively quiet and unobtrusive start, "Of Earth and Heaven" brings back track 2's harp melody on piano against string chords. Track 9 "Of remembrance" also has this theme on piano, and we note that Richter himself is credited as the pianist. In track 10 rather than a choir, we are hearing two distinct vocal lines playing in counterpoint, and track 11 is the first that you might describe as loud with some forceful brass, before reverting to a new quiet yet simple melodic line on piano. Brass almost-stabs in track 14 "The Great Globe Itself" against repeated string notes, which feels like a key narrative point as the great man's "Hamlet" is performed, before the score returns to its subdued level in "Of a Ghost" before repeated orchestral stabs ebb and flow and ultimately recede.
This leads to the aforementioned "On the Nature of Daylight" whose rising string lines feels in this context as a resolution of sorts to the whole story. The penultimate track "My Robin to the Greenwood did Go" is a simple folk song co-written by Richter with Maggie O'Farrell. The final track "Of the Undiscovered Country" brings back the simple string theme heard earlier for a final cathartic restatement. In summary the score is a simple one, reminiscent of (though even more minimal than) the simplicity of Debbie Wiseman's music for "Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light", and coincidentally depicting events during a broadly similar historical time period. However despite (or because of) this simplicity, it is also a remarkably effective score conveying every required emotion with a superb economy of musical gesture. It's a kind of magic how successful minimalism can be in film scores and this is the perfect example - highly recommended. Find it on Amazon at these links: Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.
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