The Grand Budapest Hotel. Alexandre Desplat

In the far reaches of Eastern Europe in the former Republic of Zubrowka, there once was the Grand Budapest hotel. A young writer (Jude Law) remembers a stay at the hotel during the off season many years ago and recalls the tales he heard of the hotel's past from the elderly owner, Mr. Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham). He tells the writer about how he came to acquire the hotel and of the original concierge of the Grand Budapest, M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes). Young Zero (Tony Revolori) was a lobby boy at the time and accompanies Gustave to the reading of a will after one of their regular guests dies. She leaves Gustave a valuable painting, but when the woman's son challenges the will, Gustave and Moustafa steal the painting setting off a series of events that will lead to Moustafa's present circumstance.

Desplat describes his score as “the sound of Mittel-Europa”, a sort of cultural mish-mash of instrumental ideas and compositional styles that is intended mimic a mythical place that sounds just sort of ‘vaguely European’ to untrained American ears – much like the fictional country of Zubrowka itself is an amalgam of different architectures, landscapes and accents. To this end, Desplat augmented his orchestra with all manner of musical textures drawn from across the map: zithers, Hungarian cimbaloms, Gregorian chants, Alpen horns, whistlers, Russian balalaikas, organs, bells and even yodelers. Everything in the score tinkles and twinkles, prances and dances, and everything is built around a single recurring thematic idea accompanied by various other little vignettes which highlight a certain instrumental texture, rhythmic element, or dance style. This is Mr. Moustapha theme.