Philip Glass

Philip Glass' score for Notes on a Scandal works as a kind of internal view of Judi Dench's deranged character. No matter how placid things appear to be on the surface, events are being interpreted through Dench's bitter views and hidden madness. The music's sense of dread is softened by a lush romanticism that draws from Bernard Herrmann's work for Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo and Marnie as much as from Glass' signature "swirling strings" style.