Carter Burwell has posted some interesting notes on his homepage about some of his thoughts as he wrote the score for Breaking Dawn.   There is quite a bit of information on his website for people interested in all the details.  Here is a sample:  

I started writing music for Breaking Dawn Part 2 more than two years before it was released. The director, Bill Condon, suggested that, just as Edward had played “Bella’s Lullaby” for Bella in the first Twilight film, he should now create a lullaby for his daughter Renesmee. This meant that I had to write it before they shot the film, which was happening at the same time as Breaking Dawn Part 1. And, as Rob Pattinson wanted to play it on screen, I had to write something that Rob could play and give him time to learn it.

Only a few weeks before Bill made this suggestion, I learned that I was about to have a baby girl myself. Inevitably I wrote the piece thinking as much about my daughter as about Edward and Bella’s. In its way this echoed the story of how “Bella’s Lullaby” had been written originally for my wife. For some reason there is a running parallel between my life and Edward’s.

“Renesmee’s Lullaby” was hinted at during Bella’s pregnancy in Breaking Dawn Part 1, but only really came into its own in Part 2. As Bill saw it, Edward would play it on the piano, as though he were making it up on the spot. Renesmee, who grows very quickly and has unknown but prodigious powers, would sit at the piano with her father, appearing to be five years old. She joins in and they develop the piece for four hands. As they do so, the scene shifts to Volterra, Italy.

Visit Carter Burwell’s website for more details. Thank to Joshua Roberts for the heads up!

Carter Burwell talks Breaking Dawn Score and bring it all together for the final movie.

Did you know where you would be taking “Breaking Dawn – Part 2” before you actually jumped into it?

I knew a fair amount about it. I read the scripts for Part 1 and Part 2 before they shot them, so I knew the general idea of where we were going. And one of the most important musical elements, which was the theme for Renesmee, I had to write before they even shot Part 1 and Part 2.

They shot both films together, and there was a scene where Rob Pattinson plays that piece of music on the piano for Renesmee, and then she plays it with him, and finally, she plays it by herself. So that had to be written before they even shot the scene. So yeah, we had a pretty good map of where we were going.

See the rest on the soundtrack examiner.

Breaking Dawn and Twilight Composer Carter Burwell talked to his local Sag Harbor paper about his creative process and let a Breaking Dawn II tidbit drop.

At what point in the filming process will you come onboard?

Generally, I don’t actually write anything until a film has actually been shot. But, there are some exceptions.

In the movie I’m working on right now, which is “Breaking Dawn: Part II,” they needed Rob Pattinson and the actress who plays his daughter to play piano onscreen. I had to write this duet before they shot the film so they could actually learn the parts. Rob is a musician, so he prides himself on working out the fingering for these correctly.

See more on SagHarbor online

This is unusual for the tight-lipped Burwell who locked his Twitter account after tweeting and following and discovering that people were in fact actually reading what he wrote.

The Twilight Examiner has an excellent article up on the music used in the Breaking Dawn Trailer.

“The answer is no, per Jack Morrissey[Bill Condon’s partner]. The score was being recorded in London, England last week, so there was definitely no time for that to be incorporated into the trailer. Besides, most trailers don’t include music from the actual film.

Note: You might recognize a few notes from the Breaking Dawn – Part 1 trailer in the Into The Wild trailer (at the 1:40 mark). One Twilight sleuth noticed that yesterday.”

See more at TwiExaminer.