The Phoenician Scheme (soundtrack)

The Phoenician Scheme (Original Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the 2025 film The Phoenician Scheme directed by Wes Anderson. The film score is composed by Alexandre Desplat, and its soundtrack accompanied seven cues from his score with the remainder of them consisting of classical pieces composed by Igor Stravinsky, Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach amongst others; it was produced by Anderson along with his usual music supervisor Randall Poster. The album was released through ABKCO Records on May 30, 2025, and a vinyl edition set for release on July 11, 2025.

Frequent Anderson collaborator Alexandre Desplat worked on the score, as with another collaborator of the director, Randall Poster, also worked as the music supervisor and compiled and produced the soundtrack.^[1] Desplat's score incorporates the compositions of Igor Stravinsky, with a piece from his ballet The Firebird (1910) served as the "seed of the score" with a short melody which he twisted and expanded, to create a leitmotif serving as the film's musical anchor. On playing the piece, Desplat "thought about what Stravinsky had done, and tried to stay in Stravinsky’s world".^[2] Variations of that piece play over the transition cards, that indicates the events happening throughout the film.^[2]

Besides "The Firebird", the film also featured several works by the composer, including "Apotheosis" from Apollo amongst others, along with other works from Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven, along with jazz arrangements by Gene Krupa, Gerry Mulligan and Glenn Miller.^[3][4] Desplat aimed to "slalom around" these pieces while writing the score, as "there are too many things happening, and I just can’t musically link them [...] So I have to avoid them and let them play, and then find a flourish of mine — and another. These songs, these pieces, keep going along, and I just jump around."^[2] Desplat pointed that the only music the characters hear comes directly from tracks by other artists, which were played through radios, bands and turntables which were considered diegetic music.^[2] The non-diegetic music, which was the score, had to be connected with the diegetic music which goes in and out the image. Despite the film's ensemble cast, he did not want to compose music for the individual characters, instead crafted melodies that enriched the film's atmosphere that served as "a Rubik's Cube to give colors to every character".^[2] Desplat used a toolbox—consisted of glockenspiel, the choir, the mandolin, the banjo, recorders—which he had since their maiden association with Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) and used the piano and drums from that toolbox to provide the musical palette for the score.^[2]

Amy Nicholson of Los Angeles Times called it a "thrilling ticking time bomb of a score".^[5] David Ehrlich of IndieWire described it as "breezy".^[6] Tim Grierson of Screen International called it a "lilting orchestral score, supplemented by selections from Stravinsky and Beethoven".^[7] Peter Debruge of Variety noted that Desplat's score infuses "a dose of Lalo Schifrin-esque suspense".^[8] Jason Gorber of Paste wrote "Composer Alexandre Desplat adds in another dose of Francophilic exuberance".^[9] Siddhant Adlakha of Inverse wrote "Despite Alexandre Desplat's propulsive score in the vein of The French Dispatch, the images here never quite feel as exciting as the music."^[10] Robert Kojder of Flickering Myth called Desplat's score "a combination of propulsive thrust and farcical silliness".^[11] Tara Brady of The Irish Times wrote "Alexandre Desplat’s effective score sounds awfully like the one before."^[12]

Credits adapted from liner notes:^[13]