The Original Soundtrack of Kite Runner by Alberto Iglesias

Marc Forster's film The Kite Runner is based on the best-selling first novel by Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini, which plays against the backdrop of Afghan history over the past three decades. Its original soundtrack has been created by Spanish composer Alberto Iglesias, a regular collaborator with Pedro Almodovar; his soundtrack for The Constant Gardener was nominated for an Oscar for best original score in 2005.

When Alberto Iglesias first read Khaled Hosseini's book, it put him in mind of Kipling. "But also," he says, "of how Afghanistan forms part of the geopolitical scene today." He had been told by director Marc Forster that his music would be needed as an aid to telling the story. "He wanted me to use it to give a feeling of distance - both geographical and in time, a journey spanning thirty years of life, encompassing exile, and the rise and fall of regimes. It had to express the way you can never forget your country, and the way you are always drawn back to it."

Iglesias had warned Forster that he was not in any way close to Afghan culture, "but he replied that he wanted me to function as a composer, not as a musicologist. But of course I did then have to study Afghan music. In San Francisco I heard Ensemble Kaboul, and from that point on I began to understand Afghan culture. It's not Arabic in style, it's closer to Persian with an admixture of Pakistani music - the melodic patterns are peculiar to that part of the world, with Indian influences - for example the tabla - thrown in. Indeed, the rhythms are often Indian. But it's not as codified or sophisticated as Persian music - it's more direct, more from the gut. But as I didn't want to present myself as a fake Afghan composer writing imitation Afghan music, I tried to suggest its essence, obliquely, as though perceived from the outside."

On the other hand, Iglesias chose to insert several tracks of the real thing, most notably two recordings by Ahmad Zahir (1946-1979), the "Nightingale of Afghanistan" whose music is as popular now - not only in that country but also in Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey - as it was in his lifetime. Accompanying himself on his accordion, this talented son of a one-time Afghan premier rose to prominence thanks to his position as a regular performer on Radio Afghanistan. Before the country's descent into civil war in the Seventies, the radio played a key role in binding the country's different ethnic groups together: the house style was structured round a solo verse, chorus, and instrumental section built to a climax, paused precipitously, then plunged into the next verse in the traditional Pashtun manner. Zahir's lyrics grew steadily more politically engaged, until his enemies could take it no more: on his 33rd birthday he was murdered on the orders of a Communist general, who employed one of Zahir's best friends as an accomplice in the crime. Iglesias has refrained from direct reference to the way the Taliban proscribed all music apart from unison chant, but by drawing on music which long predates the era in which the film is set, he hints at this: "Supplication" is an old religious chant.

Meanwhile, the songs by Ehsan Aman bring us more or less up to the Afghan present, even though this singer has spent most of the past 25 years in exile. He is actually a character in the film - one of the musicians in the story - and the wedding song "Omaid e Man" he wrote for it is what we hear: you can easily imagine, in the infectious eagerness of his voice, the way he can galvanise huge crowds with his music.

The track entitled "End Phone Call" is a recording of the charismatic Iranian singer Sussan Deyhim, whose work with performers as diverse as Bill Laswell, Jah Wobble, Bobby McFerrin, and Peter Gabriel have made her the darling of the Western art world. "I first encountered her voice many years ago," says Iglesias. "And I have always regarded her as an incredible performer. Last year she happened to be in Los Angeles on tour, so I gave her a general indication of what was needed, and she simply improvised on it. The music she gave us is hers, not mine. She has the Iranian complexity, but also the gut strength of Afghan music."

In his own score, Iglesias says he felt the need to "open up the sonority", and not to limit himself to indigenous Afghan sounds. But he has used instruments from the region as a way of getting under its skin. In "Kite Shop" we hear the Iranian santoor zither, and many different kinds of flutes (including one from China), and also the Cretan lyra, an instrument from the same family as the Iranian kemanche spike-fiddle. "This became the most important instrument in the film, as I connected it with Hassan. For me it came to signify both the timbre of his voice, and his suffering after the sexual assault, the pain of his whole existence. For me the lyra is the sound of a boy crying." In the rape scene, the lyra is backed by synthesisers and a full string orchestra.

The opening track begins with the sound of lyra, but its main melody - inspired by a meld of Afghan and Persian music - is played by the rebab lute. "I use it to evoke the whole atmosphere of Afghanistan in the Seventies - the landscape, the quality of social life." For the track entitled "The Truth" Iglesias has employed the Armenian duduk and the Turkish clarinet, both instruments which are very connected with the human voice: "They are really voices without words," he says, adding that the dudukist trained with Djivan Gasparian, Armenia's top virtuoso. But the quality of life, and the atmosphere of the events with which the film is studded, are things which Iglesias has striven mightily to reflect. And with "Russians Invade", he has aimed, he says, to give an impression of urgency, fear, and fugitive speed.
- Michael Church