Varčse Sarabande released Everest – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack digitally and on CD September 18, 2015. The album features the original music composed by Dario Marianelli.
"My initial instinctive approach to the score, which our director, Baltasar Kormákur, liked and encouraged me to follow, was to have a calling voice, a distant siren call," explained Marianelli. "It is at the same time a voice that represents the ancient goddess-like mountain, but also a luring and irresistible calling to one's own destiny."
"The opposite point of the musical compass is the 'conquering' attitude of the mountaineers, a kind of macho, go-getting approach to nature," Marianelli continued, "which is reflected in a much more propulsive, percussive and energetic musical idiom."
Marianelli's musical "siren call" was performed by singer Melanie Pappenheim. He concluded: "The same tune that I wrote for Melanie was also played by two wonderful string players in many variations—Caroline Dale and David La Page, with whom I also have worked on several other movies," he said. "There were also moments where I tried to evoke a primal, raw power, and I tried to build a sense of surging pressure with the blasting brass instruments."
Universal Pictures' Everest is currently available exclusively on IMAX 3D and premium-large format 3D screens. It will be released wide—including standard 2D and 3D—on September 25.