In 2012 I am offering performances of new scores to the following films:
Murnau’s Nosferatu – to commemorate the centenary of Bram Stoker
3 films by Maya Deren – ‘Meshes Of The Afternoon’ (pictured); ‘A Study in Choreography For Camera’ and ‘Meditation on Violence’.
Man Ray’s experimental short films L’ Etoile De Mer (1928) & Emak-Bakia (1926)
Full details of all of these offers are below.
For each performance I can also offer an introduction to the film for audiences.
The centenary of Bram Stoker takes place in 2012 (12 April being the actual centenary date of Stoker’s death), and Dracula fever will no doubt sweep the airwaves as the media looks set to mark the memory of a remarkable writer. There is then no better time to revisit the origins of the vampire in the mass media than this, and why not do so with a showing with live piano accompaniment of Murnau’s Nosferatu – the first film version of Dracula.
I am offering performances of the newly commissioned score, first performed in November 2011 at An Lanntair, Stornoway, live as accompaniment to the digitally remastered version of Nosferatu, and performance can be booked throughout 2012. The performance is suitable to venues of any size, and can be performed with or without amplification, all I need is a good quality (tuned) upright or a concert grand if you have one available!
The score draws on a wide range of sources many of which are specific to the locations and era of the film - from episodes based on Carpathian folk tunes to high Gothic melodrama. My aim, first and foremost, is to restore an immediate sense of horror to the film, and a real sense of drama to the cinema experience.
If you would like a short introduction to the film and its history, I am also happy to oblige.
Fees etc fully negotiable, please contact me to discuss your requirements.
The photo above shows the opening of the first performance by me of my new score to Nosferatu at An Lanntair Arts Centre, Stornoway, November 2011. Photo by John MacLean.
Leaflet for Promoters:
I am currently assembling live performance accompaniments to two short Man Ray films – L’Etoile De mer (1928 / b&w 16 mins – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0146367/) and Emak-Bakia (1926 / b&w 16 mins- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125073/).
Both films continue to attract disdain and adoration in seemingly equal measure, and are a challenge to the live performer in terms of their flow of surreal but, I think often gripping, images. I am particularly interested in the way that live music interacts with this kind of narrative construction.
I am working to digital restorations of these films. Both can be programmed together, or as a single, solo showing.
DATES:
14th March 2012: XPosed Club, Francis Close Hall Chapel, FCH Campus, Uni. of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham.
Hot off the press this one – delighted to announce that I’ve just received notification that my Cage concert – Silence & Transmission - on 20th September 2012, An Lantair, Stornoway is to be included the ’120 Hours For Cage’ radio broadcast in New York state on radio free103point9.org
We’re going to try to broadcast live from Stornoway to New York the second part of the concert featuring Radio Music etc. Watch this space!
At the gig in Cheltenham on 14th March (see details above), I’m playing a new short score to Kirsanoff’s ‘Brumes d’Automne’. I am really taken with this movie, and the performance by Nadia Sibirskaia - who was something of a muse to Kirsanoff and very much a major collaborator in the making of Kirsanoff’s movies.
They met when Kirsanoff (Dimitri Kirsanoff: 6 March 1899 – 11 February 1957), an Estonian or Latvian emigrant, was working as a cellist in a movie house in Paris, and Sibirskaia was, I believe, selling ice cream or other refreshments in the same establishment. They made films together using their own meagre incomes, and, according to Kirsanoff, very much in isolation from the other impressionistic and avant garde film makers in Paris at that time. Their early black and white silent movies never achieved commercial distribution but were championed by independent distributor Jean Tédesco and shown in Tédesco’s own film house cine-club Vieux-Colombier. Most of Kirsanoff’s early movies are lost but two survive – Brumes d’Automne’ and the critically acclaimed ‘Ménilmontant’.
‘Brumes D’Automne’ was described by Kirsanoff as kind of ‘poem to Nadia Sibirskaia’s face’, and the IMDB review reads:
‘Brumes d’Automne is a cinematic poem – an astounding, lyrical and avant-garde oeuvre wherein Kirsanoff gets hold of the titanic task of capturing the melancholy, nostalgia, hope and hopelessness of human inner sentiments. Nadia Sibirskaia (Kirsanoff’s first wife and his muse during his early oeuvres) reflects these aims perfectly and Kirsanoff transmits them to the audience in an incredible way.
‘The genuine autumn mood is exhibited in a superior, unique, painful and even magical manner. It is an exceptional film in which the autumn atmosphere and ethereal human feelings complement each other admirably. The audience is moved by evocative images from nature (falling leaves, rain, mist frozen landscapes), all beautifully photographed by Jean de Miéville. This, combined with the suffering the heroine must undergo, makes the film a melancholy masterpiece.’
The movie can be viewed on Youtube at the link below, but again I find myself wondering about the original music!
Over the last year and a bit I’ve been buying records in the Bethesda charity shop, Stornoway, according to a pattern devised using the iChing (and John Cage’s use of the iChing) in order to construct a new version of Cage’s Imaginary Landscape 5.
John Cage’s Imaginary Landscape 5 requires 42 random records to be cut and mashed together a set pattern (broken into steps of 3 inches of tape = .20 of a second)across 8 lines of composition. The total piece includes all 42 records, or parts therefore, and last for a little over 3 minutes total. And so, whenever I visited the shop in the last 13 to 14 months or so I bought a set number of records by counting in from the front of the pile of records by the numbers generated by the iChing pattern, and bought the resulting record whatever it was.
In order to ascertain the order of the records in realisation of the piece – and track to be used on each record - I have used the same randomly generated process counting first through the records purchased, and then through the tracks.
The resulting track list is as follows:
1. Father Sydney MacEwan with Philip Green and his Orchestra (45′ Philips, year unknown) – ‘The Meeting of the Waters’
2. Lars Gullin and the Kenton Sidemen (EP Esquire, 1953) – ‘Dedicated To Lee’
3. Celia Black ‘You’re My World’ (LP EMI Starline, 1969) – ‘What The World Needs Now Is Love’
4. Sarah Vaughan ‘You’re Mine You’ LP with Quincy Jones (LP Allegro, 1966) – ‘Witchcraft’
5. Teresa Brewer/Count Basie/ Thad Jones ‘The Songs of Bessie Smith’ (LP Philips Flying Dutchman, 1973) – ‘Gulf Coast Blues’
6. Donald MacRae ‘Donald MacRae Sings’ (LP Lismor, 1976) – ‘N Am Bhi Fagail Ghlaschu’ (Leaving Glasgow)
7. Stan Getz Quartet (EP Vogue Records, 1950) – ‘Sweetie Pie’
8. Na h-Oganaich ‘The Great Sound of Na H-Oganaich’ (LP Beltona Sword, 1973) – ‘Tha M’Eudail Is M’aighear’/
9. The Modern Jazz Quartet ‘Fontessa’ (LP London, 1957) – ‘Fontessa’
10. Dizzy Gillespie ‘The Best of the Dizzy Gillespie Big Bands’ (LP Verve, 1959) – ‘Birk’s Works’
11. Stan Getz Quartet (EP Esquire 1950) – ‘What’s New’
12. Simple Minds ‘i Travel’ (EP Virgin, 1979) – ‘Film Theme’
13. Slim Whitman ‘Birmingham Jail’ (LP RCA Camden, 1969) – ‘There’s A Tear In Ev’ry Teardrop’
14. Carl Orff ‘Carmina Burana (Herbert Kegel / Rundfunk Sinfonie Orchester Leipzig) (LP Heliodor, 1965) – ‘In Taberna: Olim Lacus Colueram
15. Stan Getz Quartet (EP Esquire, 1949) – ‘Crazy Chords’
16. The Sands Family ‘Folk From The Mourne’s’ (LP Outlet, 1972) – ‘Ramblin’ Irishman’
17. Sarah Vaughan ‘After Hours’ (LP Music For Pleasure, 1963) – ‘Sophisticated Lady’
18. Oscar Peter Quartet (EP Columbia Clef, year?) – ‘Stompin at the Savoy’
19. Na h-Oganaich ‘Scot-Free’ (LP Belltona Sword, 1975) – ‘Come By The Hills’
20. Sarah Vaughan with Hal Mooney & His Orchestra ‘Cool Baby’ (LP Wing, 1963) – ‘It’s De-Lovely’
21. Jim Reeves (45′ RCA, 1962) – ‘Pride Goes Before A Fall’
22. Grupo Musical Teatro Narren De Estocolmo ‘Lettre Du Chili Aux Dockers Du Monde Entier’ (LP Cedrec, year?) – ‘Carta A Los Obreros Portuarios’
23. Miles Davis ‘Kind Of Blue’ (LP Fontana, 1960?) – ‘Blue In Green’
24. Bill Wolfgramme with His islanders ‘Sounds Of Hawaii’ (LP Emerald Gem, 1974) – ‘Adventures In Paradise’
25. Sarah Vaughan & Count Basie ‘ The Fabulous Sarah Vaughan’ (LP Allegro, 1966) – ‘Mean To Me’
26. Gerry Mulligan Quartet (10” Vogue, 1953) – ‘Love Me Or Leave Me’
27. Dinah Washington ‘Drinking Again’ (LP Allegro Pickwick, 1966) – ‘Lover Man’
28. Josef Schmidt ‘The unforgettable Voice of Josef Schmidt’ (EP Parlophone year unknown) – ‘Ein Lied Geht Um Die Welt’
29. Miles Davis & John Coltrane ‘…Play Richard Rodgers’ (LP Stateside EMI, 1964) – ‘Blue Room’
30. Na h-Oganaich ‘Gael Force 3′ (LP Beltona Sword, 1974) – ‘Alba Mo Ruin’
31. Stan Getz Quartet (EP Esquire, 1951) – ‘ ‘s Cool Boy’
32. John Coltrane ‘…Plays The Blues’ (LP Atlantic, 1962) – ‘Mr Knight’
33. The Lochies ‘Lewis Folk’ (LP Lismore Recordings, 1974) – ‘Mairi Bhan’
34. Chuck Berry ‘I’m A Rocker’ (LP Contour Pickwick, 1970) – ‘Christmas’
35. Miles Davis & Gil Evan ‘Plus 19′ (LP Columbia, 1956) – ‘The Duke’
36. George Shearing Quintet (EP MGM, 1950) – ‘I’ll Remember April’
37. UFO ‘C’Mon Everbody’ (LP Telefunken, 1981) – ‘Star Storm’
38. Paper Lace ‘ The Best of Paper Lace’ (LP Hallmark/Pickwick 1974) – ‘Billy Don’t Be A Hero’
39. Calum Kennedy & The Family ‘Meet The Kennedy’s’ (LP Golden Guinea/Pye 1970) – ‘A World Of Our Own’
40. De Danann ‘ The Mist Covered Mountain’ (LP Gael-Linn, 1980) - ‘Mr O’Connor’
41. Stan Getz Quartet (EP – Esquire 1951) – ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’
42. The MacDonald Sisters ‘ Four Bonnie Highland Lassies’ (LP – Emerald Gem 1969) – ‘Oran Na Maighdean Mhara’
The purchase period for this process has indeed been very entertaining. Some weeks I would call into the shop (the original chaotic place in the centre of Stornoway, and now the organised out-of-town Mall on Bay Head) and find that no new records had been purchased. It is these times that account for the density of certain artists and type of records being in the above list. I was lucky, some great jazz, and indeed some real rarities turned up. Other times, the pile would have grown by the addition of a massive set of new donations, and these visits resulted in some of the pop and more wayward purchases and the overall variety of the music. Some very odd things happened too, with the purchase of all of Na h-Oganaich’s records, for example – and not to forget the complete oddball arrivals such as Bill Wolfgramme with His islanders’ ‘Sounds Of Hawaii’.
In a moment of highly enjoyable and unexpected madness, I entered the Bethesda shop on Friday last and, in an equally unexpectedly formal manner, asked to speak to the manager. Luckily the manager was in, and I explained in as normal a manner as possible, the above process, ending with the suggestion that I would like to complete the process by giving the first performance of the new construct live in the shop (using the chairs and sofas in store at the time of the performance as our venue), as a fundraising event and as part of my own programme to mark the centenary of John Cage.
The manager of Bethesda is a nice, very well organised and committed individual, anda thankfully she also has a very good sense of humour, and kind of understood where all of this was coming from in a moment. With her support for this made venture, I’ve approached the equally nice people who own and run the shop as part of the vital fundraising work for Bethesda Hospice to let this happen. The performance will of course be a fundraiser, and I’m also going to gift the construct to Bethesda (I’ll do this whether or not the performance happens in store) for them to sell as an MP3 download if they so wish.
Watch this space for details.
In September 2012 I will be giving /leading a concert at An Lanntair, Stornoway, to mark the centenary celebrations of the birth of John Cage (September 1912) and indeed, the twentieth anniversary of his death (in August 1992). The programme will include a performance of Cage’s Radio Music (part of which is pictured) which, as the set of parts states is: ‘a piece to be performed as a solo or ensemble for 1 to 8 performers, each at one radio’. Other works I’m performing in the programme include Cage’s Music For Piano 26-36 & 37-52 (1955); Music For Piano 69-84 (1960); 4’33” (1952) & Imaginary Landscape 5 (for 42 random records and tape – more on this in next blog), and all of which, as far as I can tell, will be getting their first performances in the Outer Hebrides.
The poignancy of this performance of Radio Music is not simply in the fact that it celebrates the life and work of one of the most influential – and to my mind interesting - of musicians, but also because with the looming switch-off of the analogue radio signal in favour of the DAB type digital signal, it will be impossible to perform Cage’s large oeuvre for radio (which includes Radio Music (1956), Speech (1955) and Imaginary Landscape 4 (1951)) in the UK when the analogue signal turned off for good in 2017.
Cage’s Radio Music requires multiple, precise retunings of each radio during the performance according to a set list of frequencies (with some periods of silence), which do not change according to the geographical location of each specific performance and which therefore enables chance and random soundings to occur. In the Outer Hebrides, we have access to very few radio stations even on the analogue signal, so a great deal of the performance here will consist of the white noise blur of the FM/AM radio spectrum. The simple fact is that the sequence of retunings cannot be achieved on the DAB digital system. With digital radio you have all the available channels or none, and you cannot select an individual frequency to listen to if it is not part of a digital package. A kind of performance could be achieved with different frequencies on the civil scanning systems of transport, emergency service and CB radio signals, but the chance flirtations with popular music and speech radio in Cage’s original will no longer be available.
It is my hunch that Cage might not have objected to this threat to his music, other than in the loss of a major domestic source of random noise. Digital is bringing us closer to silence, but a sterile kind of featureless silence. I’d go further and say that just as in Freud death is the real state of being and life a false interlude, so in Cage’s music, noise longs for silence, and slowly Cage’s music is returning to silence.
So, whilst it would be a beautiful act of futility to ask David Cameron to ensure the continuation of the analogue signal beyond 2017 for the sole purpose of enabling performances of Cage’s music or as a resource for experimental musicians, I think the gradual drift to silence of these pieces should be embraced.
Why not join me in Stornoway in September for a celebration of a threatened form of noise and music, and a celebration of Cage’s work?
If you are interested in being one of the 8 radio musicians in September, I’m sorry but I’ve no money to pay anyone, but you’re very welcome to commit to playing a part, I guarantee a great time on Lewis and I’m sure some accommodation could be arranged. let me know if you want to take part by leaving your e-mail in a comment below, and come and join us in the rehearsals. Full details to follow.
If there is more than 8 wishing to participate I might also programme Cage’s Imaginary Landscape 4 (march 2) for twelve radio performers.
I am currently working on new performance scores for Maya Deren’s ‘Meshes Of The Afternoon’ (pictured) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036154/), and two shorter films: ‘Meditation on Violence’ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040578/) and ‘A Study in Choreography for Camera’ (pictured below) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0124148/).
I have been a fan of Deren’s films for many years, and my scores and performances for these movies are very much a personal response to the imagery and flow of the films. With Deren’s films the tight hand of narrative is open (perhaps like the flat palm on which she places a key) and there is space for accompaniment outside of the normal round of melodies and resolutions.
I have never though been much of a fan of the music that Deren’s films now come complete with. In ‘Meshes’ I find the sound/music too insistent, too obliterating of silence, and so I am working on a sound set for the film that is entirely pianistic but at the same time sensitive to the movie. As in all my work in film, I place the relationship between the viewer and the screen as the principle relationship in the theatre space at the time of performance, and the first ‘layer’ of response to the film is for me that of accompanist. Many might find this a kind of denial, but for me the space of the accompaniest is too little explored, and vastly underated as a creative space.
Every time I perform, the film remains the same, it is immutable, it does not perform with me, but still its meaning and impact can change and are fluid. Part of the joy of this process is, for me, that live music does have the ability to enhance and provoke different responses in the audience, maybe enabling new insights into familiar films.
A great deal of interesting material is available in book form and on the web exploring Deren’s films and her impact as a filmmaker.
Speaking of her own film, ‘Meshes Of The Afternoon’, Deren said:
“This film is concerned with the interior experiences of an individual. It does not record an event which could be witnessed by other persons. Rather, it reproduces the way in which the subconscious of an individual will develop, interpret and elaborate an apparently simple and casual incident into a critical emotional experience.” —Maya Deren on Meshes of the Afternoon, from DVD release Maya Deren: Experimental Films 1943–58.
For the other two short films in the programme, my approach is very much more improvisatory, hopefully providing a contrast of materials and styles across the three films.
For promoters / film programmers, I think Deren’s films are always worth showing. They are widely recognised as masterpieces of avant garde filmmaking and film making by women. They show also what can be achieved by filmmakers with little or no budget, and are a great strarting point for exploring non-mainstream film in general.
The 50th anniversary of Deren’s death occured in October 2011, but little was done to mark or explore this highly influential film maker’s work at that time, outside of the main national film organisaitons and academic institutions. Deren’s reach is far greater than that.
A huge thank you to the large and great audience for the 1st performance of my new score for Nosferatu, and a big thanks to Roddy Murray and all the staff at An Lanntair, Stornoway for the commission and for making the event such a pleasure for me as a performer.
First reviews: ‘What a treat it was to view a classic…Peter Urpeth played a blinder in creating the film’s soundtrack, and excelled himself with a non-stop performance that lasted an hour and a half.’ Eilidh Whiteford, Stornoway Gazette
The show is now available to hire, and will work great as part of a horror or vampire series, or as something a little out of the usual in film programmes. It is a real event and a celebration of the rare art of live movie music.
Peter Urpeth performing live to Nosferatu, An Lanntair, Stornoway
Horror is not an inherent element of any cultural construct, product or object – film, music, drama, novel. What constitutes the horrific is entirely subjective, varying from person to person; from culture to culture and from age to age, and with every subdivision inside each of these main distinctions. Horror requires intent.
For me, I feel or experience no sensation of ‘horror’ when watching Murnau’s Nosferatu. I find pleasure in his craft. Perhaps, I am simply immune, for whatever personal reason (unknown to me), to the horror that some might feel when watching this movie. Perhaps contemporary constructions of horror now render Murnau’s work mute, ineffectual but nonetheless, curious.
This film is not horrific to me because I have seen worse or more shocking films: it is no longer horrific because I no longer fear what its
makers wanted me to fear, and I no longer need to express in communal public spaces (cinemas) the pleasure of shared revolution at its contents. I/we no longer need to demonstrate our conformity to the high notion of the ‘human’ by expressing revulsion around the film’s central themes in a highly visible and public manner.
The horrific is perhaps a construct that works with notions of the transgression of local [and recent] taboos that are understood and common in the culture of the viewer: with abjection, with deviancy and above all with the same power of spontaneity that makes such notions appear to be beyond human culture, innate and timeless in nature (confirming the transcendence of the human over the inhuman). In public spaces we demonstrate our innate humanity through seemingly spontaneous acts of repulsion – screaming, hiding the eyes, leaving.
Murnau’s monster – Count Orlok – is human. Orlok’s horror comes from how he is human, and perhaps from the fact that he is human but undead. He is made to be both physically and mentally repulsive; with supernatural powers but with a flaw that will be his undoing. For the makers of Nosferatu, Orlok’s physical repulsiveness centres on the stereotype physical features of Jews, and Jews were to their oppressors a pestilence that would over-run and destroy Europe, if allowed.
Orlok, unlike Dracula, does not procreate through vampirism. His victims either survive in tact or die as humans. We do not know if he has any other means of procreation, if he has children, if he is in any normal way a human sexual being. We do not know of whom and of what nature were his parents. If he is undead, how did he die? What process resulted in his current being? All we know is that he is, and that his (after) life is devoted to the fulfilment of a self-seeking and destructive path.
Horror is just one theatre in which the notion of the human is established and reaffirmed, and in which the inhuman is likewise defined and reaffirmed, and the come into being together at the same moment.
In Nosferatu, now, perhaps our horror could extend to the anti-Semitic nature of the film?
In fumbling into this territory of philosophical consideration, I find that I take my role as pianist way beyond the normal role for a musician in silent movies. I find myself wanting to interrogate the film maker, to explore oppositions to his notions rather than to confirm superficial moods.
We know that Orlok’s Castle is in the western Carpathian region, a region that was home to settled and integrated communities of Jews.
This history is not innocent of problems, but of all the localities Murnau could of chosen as the home of his monster, this was one of the most pointed and disruptive of choices. In the estate agent’s office, early in the film, our young traveller examines and points at this region on the office map and his face displays dismay. We are being asked to confer with his sentiments, this our noble hero is one we can trust – he is, after all, human, pure.
I have explored the music of this region in an attempt to find some suitable reference points for the development of thematic materials
for the film accompaniment, and have picked up on two strands. Firstly, the music of the Hutsul and, secondly, the ceremonies and rituals of death and burial in the western Carpathian region, especially with interest to the use of long horn fanfares and the tuning of church bells. These materials will be present in the first performance on 29th October. Of special interest is the relationship between Hutsul and Klezmer music in the Carpathians in the early parts of the last century. One noted scholar of this music (Dumneazu) charts the overlapping of these styles in bands in the north and west Carpathia. I bring this music to the film almost as a note of defiance against the makers of the film and their anti-Semitism.
But what of mood, if the Hutusl exploration is a source of some materials do I join in this suspense? Yes, I like emphasising the mood and adding to the sense of suspense, and maybe thorugh that great forgotten tool at the musicians disposal – silence. And yes, I guess I’ve now moved toward a largely composed response to this film.
On Saturday 29th October 2011, I am giving the first performance of a new commission from an Lanntair Arts Centre, Stornoway, for
music to the silent movie classic Nosferatu (directed by F Murnau, 1921/22). The performance is part of this year’s Faclan Hebridean Book Festival, being held at an Lanntair, Stornoway, and which this year has the theme of second sight.
For me, this is a very interesting commission in that, as an improvising pianist, silent movie music is an activity of immense historical
importance to my chosen art form. In this blog, I want to muse on some of the processes I am using to assemble the materials for this performance, and to look at some of the basic ideas around different approaches to the role of accompanist to silent movies.
I have movie music in my blood with both my father’s sister, Constance Urpeth, working in south London, and my mother’s aunt, Millie Byrne, working in Ireland, being in their younger days professional pianists working in the golden era of silent movies – which spans from the first to third decades of the twentieth century. Both were, of course women, and there is some evidence, though not well documented, that movie houses offered women the chance to work as professional musicians in an era when non-singing roles were
rare for women instrumentalists.
The job did have something of an air of respectability to it given that studies in the pianoforte were very much a part of a proper
upbringing for a respectable girl. But work was not as common as the stereotype image of music for silent movies might suggest. A survey in America in the 1920s found that only about 25% of film theatres used piano accompaniment – the same % for in-house orchestra, but with 50% using theatre organs. Some movies, including Nosferatu, came with pre-recorded orchestral soundtracks specifically composed for the film. For most purposes, the era of actual complete silence in movies was a period of about a decade at
the very beginnings of commercial film presentation. By the 1930s the talkies had arrived, and the role of the live movie musician declined rapidly.
In 2011, having spent some time thinking over my approach to the role and function of the musician and his/her music, one stark fact remains the same. By 1910, three methodologies had been established as to how music was put to so-called silent movies: improvised; compiled; composed.
In the improvised approach, the musician utilises whatever music is at his or her’s fingertips during the performance to set the scene and mood of the piece. This approach required the minimum of formal resources, a piano or organ, one musician, and usually a copy of the film available to the performer a short time before the actual screening.
In the compiled approach, pioneered by the Edison Film Company from 1910 onwards, films came with a music ‘cue sheet’, referencing specific pieces of music from a library of composed pieces, such as Sam Fox’s Music For Moving Pictures of 1913 which contained a large number of short pieces by the composer J S Zamecnik, and with titles such as Mysterious – Burglar Music.
This approach could work for situations of a single musician as well as with an ensemble or orchestra, where a film theatre would have
a musical director who would assemble or compile a score from the cue sheet in a matter of a few days. According to the photoplay music wiki: ‘In 1923, the Cameo Thematic Music Co. was established by M.J. Mintz, and by the end of the decade, was responsible for about 90% of cue sheets. ‘
In the composed or original music approach the fully composed orchestral score would produced and made available with the film for
theatre orchestra. This approach required vast resources in a medium very short on time and was generally the preserve of the elite of film theatres.
As an improvising musician, essentially working in a jazz idiom, it is also clear that a major part of the history of my medium - now a stage and concert music - is in the movie theatre, and also that improvisation was not only a fundamental part of the major American popular music of the 1920s, but also a fundamental part of its defining art form. And there were many points of crossover, it being well documented that Jelly Roll Morton, for one example, worked in silent movie houses.
(Incidentally – I cannot help but wonder if there is more to the timing of this than meets the eye, namely that the origins and emergence of commercial directed film and the organisation of improvisation around African rhythm and European folk and Ecclesiastical melodic systems into a commercial music called jazz, are not totally unrelated.)
As I begin the process of preparing for the performance on Saturday 29th October, I find myself faced with the same choices and with the same blend of approaches. My medium is improvisation, so I will not be producing or performing a wholly composed score. But I do find myself compiling and composing short fragments of melody and mood music for key scenes, and I find myself thinking of the film through this kind of approach.
I can also confirm that my proximity to the action of the film will vary between ‘in-close’ musical commentary and mood setting, and big-picture musical metastatements, and above all else, I will be performing in a space already filled with sound – incidental and accidental audience sound, the sound of a public building, and I intend to use the full spectrum of sound sources available to me on the night without once departing the piano stool.
In the next blog I’ll be getting into some of the idea for music, and interpretations of the film. But a final note on a bizarre and brilliant approach to film music that has now almost completely disappeared from the aural universe of us humans, and that is the mechanical Fotoplayer organ. This devise was hugely popular in the 1920s and was a common sight in film theatres. The Fotoplayer mechanically
reproduced the cue sheet music in a mix of player-piano rolls, fairground organ effects and one man band percussion. Very few of these machines now exist, but to close the first part of this blog, here’s a video a Fotoplayer being well and truly played:
