Maria Fuchs is a Maria Fuchs is a senior postdoc at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, where she heads the FWF project ‘The Sonic Imaginaries of Africa in German Cinema (1930–2000)’. She works at the intersection of music, film, media and cultural studies. Most recently, she was a research fellow at the International Research Centre for Cultural Studies (ifk) in Vienna and from 2020-2023 a senior postdoc at the University of Freiburg and the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where she led the FWF project ‘Soundscapes from Heimat: Mapping Musical Signatures in Heimatfilm und Bergfilm (1930–1970)’. She has published on music in audiovisual culture and on early attempts at a theory and aesthetics of film music (Schüren 2017). Most recently, she co-edited the book World Music and its Critique. Postcolonial Approaches to Global Music (Waxmann 2023). Address: https://mariafuchs.org
The yearbook "World Music and its Critique: Postcolonial Approaches to Global Music" takes up the... more The yearbook "World Music and its Critique: Postcolonial Approaches to Global Music" takes up the current debates on the decolonization of music with the problematic concept of "world music". It is dedicated to the Eurocentric status quo of world music as part of global music practices and highlights the diverse dependencies between the global majority and the global North. In addition to researchers, composers, musicians and curators of global music also have their say in the form of reports and interviews.
When films transitioned to sound around 1930, translation methods such as dubbing and subtitling ... more When films transitioned to sound around 1930, translation methods such as dubbing and subtitling did not develop immediately. It was in this context of experimentation that the first systematic audiovisual translation strategy of film history emerged: the multiple versions, a mostly European-related phenomenon. Multiple versions were intended to make films accessible to different national and linguistic audiences. In this article, we focus on an aspect that has been largely neglected up to these days, namely the role of music in the process of adaptation of multiple versions to their respective cultural contexts. We argue that this popular phenomenon ought to be analysed also in regard to the musical component of the films and go through the challenges of such research. We plead for a comparative audiovisual approach to the topic with transdisciplinary methods and theories, transnational source research, and a wide variety of archives.
Becce’s compositional approach to sound-film scoring was strongly informed by his earlier work fo... more Becce’s compositional approach to sound-film scoring was strongly informed by his earlier work for ‘silent’ films. He repeatedly reverted to the compilation practice, working with specific film-musical topoi across genres and times. Becce’s intertemporal use of existing compositions also reveals the emergence of genre-specific musical conventions, such as those evoked by the routine narrative strategies of German-language Heimat and mountain films—while a collective idea of Heimat was audio-visually shaped. His approach is the result of the idea of recyclable film music that can be traced to his Kinothek series (1919–1929). Although Becce is recognized internationally as one of the most influential and prolific German composers for film, few studies deal with his work for sound films in detail and draw extensively on primary sources, as this chapter attempts to do
Cinema & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal, 2023
The discovery of the Alps in the specific genre of the mountain film was originally a German answ... more The discovery of the Alps in the specific genre of the mountain film was originally a German answer to the Westerns from the USA in the late 1920s. This brought a number of important personalities such as Fanck, Riefenstahl and Trenker onto the German film market, though the genre developed in different ways in other contexts, too. The mountain film Der Sohn der weißen Berge / Les Chevaliers de la Montagne by Trenker and Bonnard was coproduced as a German-French multiple version (MV) in 1930 and represents the beginning of a longer series of 'multiple' coproductions by Trenker. During the generalization of sound, MVs are meant to create the 'same' film for each country interested in it. In order to make the versions successful in their contexts, each of them is shaped according to early audiovisual techniques and adapting elements such as cast, fictional nationalities, music, dialogues or gestures. This article aims to approach the two MVs from a comparative, transcultural perspective in order to highlight their specificities. The aim is to investigate the transcultural character of the Alps arguing that, due to their semantic openness, the Alps provide an ideal setting for transcultural communication and for the nationalization process essential to the MVs. As a territory at the crossroad of several countries and cultures, the Alpine environment proves through Der Sohn der weißen Berge / Les Chevaliers de la Montagne to be a privileged territory for multiplecinematic cultural transfers that contribute to the establishment of European cinema.
Lexikon Schriften über Musik: Vol. 2. Musikästhetik in Europa und Nordamerika / Music aesthetics in Europe and North America. Bärenreiter/Metzler, 267–269., 2022
Published by the composers, conductors and musicologists Hans Erdmann, Giuseppe Becce and Ludwig ... more Published by the composers, conductors and musicologists Hans Erdmann, Giuseppe Becce and Ludwig Brav at the traditional Berlin publishing house Schlesinger'sche Buch- und Musikhandlung in 1927, the "Allgemeines Handbuch der Film-Musik" is an attempt to combine the theory and practice of silent film music. The two-volume edition is conceived as a practice-oriented textbook of its time, the core of which is a reference work of pre-existing compositions for the compilatory art of illustration, as it was then used as the most common method of musical accompaniment to the moving film image. Referring to the musical hermeneutics of the German musicologist Hermann Kretzschmar, the editors took up the music-aesthetic form-content debates of the early 20th century in their discussion of musical film illustration to be adapted according to meaning and mood.
Retuning the Screen Sound Methods and the Aural Dimension of Film and Media History, 2022
In this article, I examine the constitutive relationships between sound and genre, focusing my at... more In this article, I examine the constitutive relationships between sound and genre, focusing my attention on the South Tyrolean mountaineer, filmmaker, and storyteller Luis Trenker and on the genre of early mountain film, which produced a series of hit songs that have since become part of the standard repertoire of popular song and have left a lasting mark on the sound of the Alpine region. My article examines the medialization strategies of these songs and argues that the traces of the mountain film have taken on a life of their own in other media and continue to act in collective memory as memory-forming potential.
En, desde y hacia las américas . Músicas y migraciones transoceánicas, 2021
Transnational and transcultural links between film production and different film cultures have be... more Transnational and transcultural links between film production and different film cultures have been explored within film studies for quite some time: not only films themselves, as a reproducible and transportable medium, but also stars, genres, techniques, aesthetics and theoretical approaches have been circulating on an international level since the first decades of the 20th century. And although the music of the silent film was not technically fixed, it too circulated internationally: for example, the ability to move around of musicians, conductors and composers played an important role in the global standardization of silent film accompaniment, as did international distribution of music materials. A Hungarian composer and conductor Ernö Rapée, certainly became a symbol of such mobility in the 1920s in the field of film music, and celebrated his stardom both in the USA and in 1920s Berlin. His film music anthologies acted as a kind of prototype in improving and standardizing the practice of silent film accompaniment on an international level. Using Rapée's one-year stint at the Ufa-Palast in Berlin as an example, this article aims to show how international mobility to and from the North American continent influenced aesthetic practices in the entire entertainment industry.
The Allgemeines Handbuch der Film-Musik was published by Hans Erdmann, Ludwig Brav, and Giuseppe ... more The Allgemeines Handbuch der Film-Musik was published by Hans Erdmann, Ludwig Brav, and Giuseppe Becce in 1927 by the Berlin-based publisher Schlesinger. It represents the most comprehensive and undoubtedly most significant document pertaining to the practice of "silent"-film accompaniment during the 1920s in Germany. The four hundred-page work is divided into two volumes: The first one delivers an elaborate aesthetic and theoretical debate about the prevalent and ideal methods of film accompaniment, and the second volume contains a cinema music catalog, the so-called Thematisches Skalenregister (Thematic Music Index), with over three thousand musical incipits. While the Handbuch was firmly grounded in the musical practice of cinema musicians, the two parts were not solely intended as a manual to facilitate the fast-paced working routine of practitioners, like the numerous cinema music catalogs that were published in Germany in the wake of Becce's Kinotheken (1919-1929). In these catalogs, music pieces of various origins were organized according to certain parameters in order to satisfy the musi-co-dramatic demands of day-today "silent"-film accompaniment. The pieces were interpreted for their extramusical associations and labeled under specific semantic categories in order to be used for specific and recurrent types of film scenes. This labeling of music was based on the tradition of "musical hermeneutics," and it inspired the conception of the Handbuch's second volume, the Thematic Music Index, which is a complex and multilayered classification system for cinema music. Thus, in addition to providing a precise method for film accompaniment, the Handbuch contains a theory and an aesthetics that applies the music-hermeneutical ideas of German musicologist Hermann Kretzschmar to the practice of film accompaniment. Kretzschmar (1848-1924) located the core problem of musical hermeneutics-a discipline of music analysis that essentially studies musical meaning and interpretation-in the nomenclature of musical expression, which formed the basis of the musical accompaniment method in "silent" cinema. This essay focuses on the influence of Kretzschmar's theory of musical hermeneutics on the indexing system of the Handbuch as well as on the author's intentions to ground their work in academic theory.
Dieser Artikel stellt die Kritik der Kinomusik zwischen 1919 und 1928 in Deutschland dar. Es zeic... more Dieser Artikel stellt die Kritik der Kinomusik zwischen 1919 und 1928 in Deutschland dar. Es zeichnen sich Ressentiments gegenüber der sogenannten „Musikillustration“ ab, welche die vorherrschende Methode für die Begleitung von Stummfilmen darstellte. Das Kompilieren von vielfach präexistenter Kunstmusik des späten 19. Jahrhunderts galt ästhetisch und stilistisch als überholt, dem modernen Filmmedium nicht angemessen. Der Wert der Musikillustration wurde vielfach von Vertretern der Moderne im Spannungsverhältnis zur originalen Filmkomposition diskursiviert. Für die Darstellung der Kritik wurden Artikel der Tageskritik, Filmfachzeitschriften und Musikzeitschriften herangezogen.
In the course of this article I shall put into perspective the Allgemeines Handbuch der Film-Musi... more In the course of this article I shall put into perspective the Allgemeines Handbuch der Film-Musik of Erdmann, Brav and Becce in relation to Hermann Kretzschmar’s musical hermeneutics. The Handbuchs’s proximity to musical hermeneutics is primarily based on biographical backgrounds. Both, Erdmann and Brav were graduated musicologists. They were acutely aware of Kretzschmar’s attempt to describe and catalogue musical content and this knowledge informed their reflections on film music. In this sense, a musico-historical tradition is carried over into the conception of the Handbuch and consequently into German-language film music theory. By comparing it internationally with Ernö Rapée's mood music catalouges, the music hermeneutic profile of the Handbuch becomes even more evident.
The yearbook " World Music and its Critique: Postcolonial Approaches to Global Music" takes up th... more The yearbook " World Music and its Critique: Postcolonial Approaches to Global Music" takes up the current debates on the decolonization of music with the problematic concept of "world music". It is dedicated to the Eurocentric status quo of world music as part of global music practices and highlights the diverse dependencies between the global majority and the global North. In addition to researchers, composers, musicians and curators of global music also have their say in the form of reports and interviews.
„Ob Liebe, Haß, Sturm oder Brand, Nimm stets die Kinothek zur Hand!“ – Mit diesem Slogan wurde di... more „Ob Liebe, Haß, Sturm oder Brand, Nimm stets die Kinothek zur Hand!“ – Mit diesem Slogan wurde die Praxis der Stummfilmmusik treffend in einem Branchenblatt beworben. In sogenannten Kinomusikbibliotheken wurden Musikstücke unterschiedlichster Herkunft nach allgemeinen, wiederkehrenden Filmsituationen aufgeschlüsselt und katalogisiert. Das Verfahren, bereits existente oder auch neukomponierte Musik ihrem Stimmungs- und Affektgehalt nach zu zerschneiden und dem Filmgeschehen entsprechend zu einer Begleitmusik zusammenzufügen, wurde als „musikalische Illustration“ bezeichnet. In den Stummfilmkinos hatte sich dieses Verfahren in unterschiedlicher instrumentaler Besetzung regelrecht durchgesetzt. „Das Allgemeine Handbuch der Film-Musik“, das Giuseppe Becce, Hans Erdmann und Ludwig Brav 1927 in zwei Bänden herausgaben, dokumentiert und reflektiert eingehend die „musikalische Illustration“ des Stummfilms im Deutschland der 1920er Jahre und ist Ausgangspunkt für die Beschreibung der unterschiedlichen theoretischen und praktischen Diskurse der Stummfilmmusik dieses Buches.
Die Tagung nimmt populäre Musik unter dem Label »Weltmusik« in den Blick. »Klassik«, »Black Music... more Die Tagung nimmt populäre Musik unter dem Label »Weltmusik« in den Blick. »Klassik«, »Black Music«, »Weltmusik« und viele mehr – diese Kategorien stehen durch postkoloniale Perspektiven in Wissenschaft, Kunst und Gesellschaft zunehmend in der Kritik – das »decentering« europäisch-hegemonialer Wissensordnungen ...
“American Showmanship” in German Picture Theatre. Transcultural and Transnational Perspectives on ‘Silent’ Film Sound Practice, 2019
“American Showmanship” in German Picture Theatre. Transcultural and Transnational Perspectives ... more “American Showmanship” in German Picture Theatre. Transcultural and Transnational Perspectives on ‘Silent’ Film Sound Practice
II Congreso MUSAM-SEdeM.
EN, DESDE Y HACIA LAS AMÉRICAS.
MIGRACIONES MUSICALES: COMUNIDADES TRANSNACIONALES, HISTORIA ORAL Y MEMORIA CULTURAL (25.10.2019)
Within film studies, transcultural and transnational links between film production and various film cultures have been already long explored in various spheres: not only “films” themselves, as a reproducible and transportable medium, but also stars, genres, techniques, aesthetics and theoretical approaches have circulated internationally since the first decades of the 20th century.
This paper aids to shed on light on transcultural and transnational perspectives of ‘Silent’ Film Sound Practice, which has only recently been observed in the field of film music.
Although the music of the ‘silent’ film was not fixed technically, it also circulated internationally: For example, the mobility of musicians, conductors and composers played an important role in the global standardization of ‘silent’ film accompaniment, as did the international distribution of the musical materials.
The symbol of these mobilizations in the 1920s in the field of film music was certainly the Hungarian composer and conductor Erno Rapée, who celebrated his stardom both in the USA and in Berlin in the 1920s and whose film music anthologies as well as his methods of film exhibition acted as a kind of prototype in improving and standardizing the practice of ‘silent’ film accompaniment in Germany as well as his writings on film music were translated into Japanese at the end of the ‘silent’ film period. Besides, using Ernö Rapée as an example, it is possible to point out the widespread public discourse of “Americanism” as well as “Anti-Americanism” in Germany around the mid-1920s.
prototype of a so called "Autorenillustration " of silent films, which in the Allgemeine Handbuch... more prototype of a so called "Autorenillustration " of silent films, which in the Allgemeine Handbuch der Film-Musik from 1927 was called a musical score, that contained parts of specially composed music as well as segments of already existing pieces of music. Today Becce's original film music for The Last Laugh is available only fragmentarily through the remaining piano and violin parts. Using them, in 2002 the film music was re-orchestrated, edited and supplemented by Detlev Glanert in the course of the film's restoration. Using as an example Becce's hurriedly-thrown together music for The Last Laugh, this paper will shed light on the possibilities and limitations that arise in the reconstruction of an original piece of 'silent' film music.
Der italienische Komponist Giuseppe Becce ist als einer der wichtigsten und einflussreichsten Fig... more Der italienische Komponist Giuseppe Becce ist als einer der wichtigsten und einflussreichsten Figuren in der Geschichte der Filmmusik anzusehen. Mit seinen Kinotheken (1919 – 1929) entwickelte er in den 1920er Jahren ein funktionales Konzept der Filmmusik, das es ihm erlaubte, in kürzester Zeit je nach Genre und Standardsituationen auf bestimmte Grundmuster zurückzugreifen. Seine atmosphärischen Musikstücke in den Kinotheken waren auf Wiederverwendbarkeit angelegt. Auch wenn Becce Musik direkt für einen Film schrieb, bediente er sich gewissenmaßen einem flexiblen Baukastenprinzip. In den zahlreichen Berg-, Heimat-und Dokumentarfilmvertonungen zwischen 1930 und 1960 ging er ähnlich kompilatorisch vor, wie zu Zeiten der Musikbegleitung des Stummfilms. Einzelne Musikstücke tragen Titel nach Art einer Kinothek und wurden für einen jeweiligen Tonfilm variiert angepasst. Becces kompositorisches Vorgehen ist mit einer konventionalisierten Werkästhetik kaum zu vereinbaren, vielmehr stellt sein gesamtes OEuvre eine Art filmmusikalisches Archiv dar, worauf der Komponist über Jahrzehnte hinweg immer wieder zurückgegriffen hat. Im Vortrag soll anhand einer Auswahl Becces Filmmusiken der Stumm-und Tonfilmzeit ein Querschnitt seiner Methode gegeben werden.
The yearbook "World Music and its Critique: Postcolonial Approaches to Global Music" takes up the... more The yearbook "World Music and its Critique: Postcolonial Approaches to Global Music" takes up the current debates on the decolonization of music with the problematic concept of "world music". It is dedicated to the Eurocentric status quo of world music as part of global music practices and highlights the diverse dependencies between the global majority and the global North. In addition to researchers, composers, musicians and curators of global music also have their say in the form of reports and interviews.
When films transitioned to sound around 1930, translation methods such as dubbing and subtitling ... more When films transitioned to sound around 1930, translation methods such as dubbing and subtitling did not develop immediately. It was in this context of experimentation that the first systematic audiovisual translation strategy of film history emerged: the multiple versions, a mostly European-related phenomenon. Multiple versions were intended to make films accessible to different national and linguistic audiences. In this article, we focus on an aspect that has been largely neglected up to these days, namely the role of music in the process of adaptation of multiple versions to their respective cultural contexts. We argue that this popular phenomenon ought to be analysed also in regard to the musical component of the films and go through the challenges of such research. We plead for a comparative audiovisual approach to the topic with transdisciplinary methods and theories, transnational source research, and a wide variety of archives.
Becce’s compositional approach to sound-film scoring was strongly informed by his earlier work fo... more Becce’s compositional approach to sound-film scoring was strongly informed by his earlier work for ‘silent’ films. He repeatedly reverted to the compilation practice, working with specific film-musical topoi across genres and times. Becce’s intertemporal use of existing compositions also reveals the emergence of genre-specific musical conventions, such as those evoked by the routine narrative strategies of German-language Heimat and mountain films—while a collective idea of Heimat was audio-visually shaped. His approach is the result of the idea of recyclable film music that can be traced to his Kinothek series (1919–1929). Although Becce is recognized internationally as one of the most influential and prolific German composers for film, few studies deal with his work for sound films in detail and draw extensively on primary sources, as this chapter attempts to do
Cinema & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal, 2023
The discovery of the Alps in the specific genre of the mountain film was originally a German answ... more The discovery of the Alps in the specific genre of the mountain film was originally a German answer to the Westerns from the USA in the late 1920s. This brought a number of important personalities such as Fanck, Riefenstahl and Trenker onto the German film market, though the genre developed in different ways in other contexts, too. The mountain film Der Sohn der weißen Berge / Les Chevaliers de la Montagne by Trenker and Bonnard was coproduced as a German-French multiple version (MV) in 1930 and represents the beginning of a longer series of 'multiple' coproductions by Trenker. During the generalization of sound, MVs are meant to create the 'same' film for each country interested in it. In order to make the versions successful in their contexts, each of them is shaped according to early audiovisual techniques and adapting elements such as cast, fictional nationalities, music, dialogues or gestures. This article aims to approach the two MVs from a comparative, transcultural perspective in order to highlight their specificities. The aim is to investigate the transcultural character of the Alps arguing that, due to their semantic openness, the Alps provide an ideal setting for transcultural communication and for the nationalization process essential to the MVs. As a territory at the crossroad of several countries and cultures, the Alpine environment proves through Der Sohn der weißen Berge / Les Chevaliers de la Montagne to be a privileged territory for multiplecinematic cultural transfers that contribute to the establishment of European cinema.
Lexikon Schriften über Musik: Vol. 2. Musikästhetik in Europa und Nordamerika / Music aesthetics in Europe and North America. Bärenreiter/Metzler, 267–269., 2022
Published by the composers, conductors and musicologists Hans Erdmann, Giuseppe Becce and Ludwig ... more Published by the composers, conductors and musicologists Hans Erdmann, Giuseppe Becce and Ludwig Brav at the traditional Berlin publishing house Schlesinger'sche Buch- und Musikhandlung in 1927, the "Allgemeines Handbuch der Film-Musik" is an attempt to combine the theory and practice of silent film music. The two-volume edition is conceived as a practice-oriented textbook of its time, the core of which is a reference work of pre-existing compositions for the compilatory art of illustration, as it was then used as the most common method of musical accompaniment to the moving film image. Referring to the musical hermeneutics of the German musicologist Hermann Kretzschmar, the editors took up the music-aesthetic form-content debates of the early 20th century in their discussion of musical film illustration to be adapted according to meaning and mood.
Retuning the Screen Sound Methods and the Aural Dimension of Film and Media History, 2022
In this article, I examine the constitutive relationships between sound and genre, focusing my at... more In this article, I examine the constitutive relationships between sound and genre, focusing my attention on the South Tyrolean mountaineer, filmmaker, and storyteller Luis Trenker and on the genre of early mountain film, which produced a series of hit songs that have since become part of the standard repertoire of popular song and have left a lasting mark on the sound of the Alpine region. My article examines the medialization strategies of these songs and argues that the traces of the mountain film have taken on a life of their own in other media and continue to act in collective memory as memory-forming potential.
En, desde y hacia las américas . Músicas y migraciones transoceánicas, 2021
Transnational and transcultural links between film production and different film cultures have be... more Transnational and transcultural links between film production and different film cultures have been explored within film studies for quite some time: not only films themselves, as a reproducible and transportable medium, but also stars, genres, techniques, aesthetics and theoretical approaches have been circulating on an international level since the first decades of the 20th century. And although the music of the silent film was not technically fixed, it too circulated internationally: for example, the ability to move around of musicians, conductors and composers played an important role in the global standardization of silent film accompaniment, as did international distribution of music materials. A Hungarian composer and conductor Ernö Rapée, certainly became a symbol of such mobility in the 1920s in the field of film music, and celebrated his stardom both in the USA and in 1920s Berlin. His film music anthologies acted as a kind of prototype in improving and standardizing the practice of silent film accompaniment on an international level. Using Rapée's one-year stint at the Ufa-Palast in Berlin as an example, this article aims to show how international mobility to and from the North American continent influenced aesthetic practices in the entire entertainment industry.
The Allgemeines Handbuch der Film-Musik was published by Hans Erdmann, Ludwig Brav, and Giuseppe ... more The Allgemeines Handbuch der Film-Musik was published by Hans Erdmann, Ludwig Brav, and Giuseppe Becce in 1927 by the Berlin-based publisher Schlesinger. It represents the most comprehensive and undoubtedly most significant document pertaining to the practice of "silent"-film accompaniment during the 1920s in Germany. The four hundred-page work is divided into two volumes: The first one delivers an elaborate aesthetic and theoretical debate about the prevalent and ideal methods of film accompaniment, and the second volume contains a cinema music catalog, the so-called Thematisches Skalenregister (Thematic Music Index), with over three thousand musical incipits. While the Handbuch was firmly grounded in the musical practice of cinema musicians, the two parts were not solely intended as a manual to facilitate the fast-paced working routine of practitioners, like the numerous cinema music catalogs that were published in Germany in the wake of Becce's Kinotheken (1919-1929). In these catalogs, music pieces of various origins were organized according to certain parameters in order to satisfy the musi-co-dramatic demands of day-today "silent"-film accompaniment. The pieces were interpreted for their extramusical associations and labeled under specific semantic categories in order to be used for specific and recurrent types of film scenes. This labeling of music was based on the tradition of "musical hermeneutics," and it inspired the conception of the Handbuch's second volume, the Thematic Music Index, which is a complex and multilayered classification system for cinema music. Thus, in addition to providing a precise method for film accompaniment, the Handbuch contains a theory and an aesthetics that applies the music-hermeneutical ideas of German musicologist Hermann Kretzschmar to the practice of film accompaniment. Kretzschmar (1848-1924) located the core problem of musical hermeneutics-a discipline of music analysis that essentially studies musical meaning and interpretation-in the nomenclature of musical expression, which formed the basis of the musical accompaniment method in "silent" cinema. This essay focuses on the influence of Kretzschmar's theory of musical hermeneutics on the indexing system of the Handbuch as well as on the author's intentions to ground their work in academic theory.
Dieser Artikel stellt die Kritik der Kinomusik zwischen 1919 und 1928 in Deutschland dar. Es zeic... more Dieser Artikel stellt die Kritik der Kinomusik zwischen 1919 und 1928 in Deutschland dar. Es zeichnen sich Ressentiments gegenüber der sogenannten „Musikillustration“ ab, welche die vorherrschende Methode für die Begleitung von Stummfilmen darstellte. Das Kompilieren von vielfach präexistenter Kunstmusik des späten 19. Jahrhunderts galt ästhetisch und stilistisch als überholt, dem modernen Filmmedium nicht angemessen. Der Wert der Musikillustration wurde vielfach von Vertretern der Moderne im Spannungsverhältnis zur originalen Filmkomposition diskursiviert. Für die Darstellung der Kritik wurden Artikel der Tageskritik, Filmfachzeitschriften und Musikzeitschriften herangezogen.
In the course of this article I shall put into perspective the Allgemeines Handbuch der Film-Musi... more In the course of this article I shall put into perspective the Allgemeines Handbuch der Film-Musik of Erdmann, Brav and Becce in relation to Hermann Kretzschmar’s musical hermeneutics. The Handbuchs’s proximity to musical hermeneutics is primarily based on biographical backgrounds. Both, Erdmann and Brav were graduated musicologists. They were acutely aware of Kretzschmar’s attempt to describe and catalogue musical content and this knowledge informed their reflections on film music. In this sense, a musico-historical tradition is carried over into the conception of the Handbuch and consequently into German-language film music theory. By comparing it internationally with Ernö Rapée's mood music catalouges, the music hermeneutic profile of the Handbuch becomes even more evident.
The yearbook " World Music and its Critique: Postcolonial Approaches to Global Music" takes up th... more The yearbook " World Music and its Critique: Postcolonial Approaches to Global Music" takes up the current debates on the decolonization of music with the problematic concept of "world music". It is dedicated to the Eurocentric status quo of world music as part of global music practices and highlights the diverse dependencies between the global majority and the global North. In addition to researchers, composers, musicians and curators of global music also have their say in the form of reports and interviews.
„Ob Liebe, Haß, Sturm oder Brand, Nimm stets die Kinothek zur Hand!“ – Mit diesem Slogan wurde di... more „Ob Liebe, Haß, Sturm oder Brand, Nimm stets die Kinothek zur Hand!“ – Mit diesem Slogan wurde die Praxis der Stummfilmmusik treffend in einem Branchenblatt beworben. In sogenannten Kinomusikbibliotheken wurden Musikstücke unterschiedlichster Herkunft nach allgemeinen, wiederkehrenden Filmsituationen aufgeschlüsselt und katalogisiert. Das Verfahren, bereits existente oder auch neukomponierte Musik ihrem Stimmungs- und Affektgehalt nach zu zerschneiden und dem Filmgeschehen entsprechend zu einer Begleitmusik zusammenzufügen, wurde als „musikalische Illustration“ bezeichnet. In den Stummfilmkinos hatte sich dieses Verfahren in unterschiedlicher instrumentaler Besetzung regelrecht durchgesetzt. „Das Allgemeine Handbuch der Film-Musik“, das Giuseppe Becce, Hans Erdmann und Ludwig Brav 1927 in zwei Bänden herausgaben, dokumentiert und reflektiert eingehend die „musikalische Illustration“ des Stummfilms im Deutschland der 1920er Jahre und ist Ausgangspunkt für die Beschreibung der unterschiedlichen theoretischen und praktischen Diskurse der Stummfilmmusik dieses Buches.
Die Tagung nimmt populäre Musik unter dem Label »Weltmusik« in den Blick. »Klassik«, »Black Music... more Die Tagung nimmt populäre Musik unter dem Label »Weltmusik« in den Blick. »Klassik«, »Black Music«, »Weltmusik« und viele mehr – diese Kategorien stehen durch postkoloniale Perspektiven in Wissenschaft, Kunst und Gesellschaft zunehmend in der Kritik – das »decentering« europäisch-hegemonialer Wissensordnungen ...
“American Showmanship” in German Picture Theatre. Transcultural and Transnational Perspectives on ‘Silent’ Film Sound Practice, 2019
“American Showmanship” in German Picture Theatre. Transcultural and Transnational Perspectives ... more “American Showmanship” in German Picture Theatre. Transcultural and Transnational Perspectives on ‘Silent’ Film Sound Practice
II Congreso MUSAM-SEdeM.
EN, DESDE Y HACIA LAS AMÉRICAS.
MIGRACIONES MUSICALES: COMUNIDADES TRANSNACIONALES, HISTORIA ORAL Y MEMORIA CULTURAL (25.10.2019)
Within film studies, transcultural and transnational links between film production and various film cultures have been already long explored in various spheres: not only “films” themselves, as a reproducible and transportable medium, but also stars, genres, techniques, aesthetics and theoretical approaches have circulated internationally since the first decades of the 20th century.
This paper aids to shed on light on transcultural and transnational perspectives of ‘Silent’ Film Sound Practice, which has only recently been observed in the field of film music.
Although the music of the ‘silent’ film was not fixed technically, it also circulated internationally: For example, the mobility of musicians, conductors and composers played an important role in the global standardization of ‘silent’ film accompaniment, as did the international distribution of the musical materials.
The symbol of these mobilizations in the 1920s in the field of film music was certainly the Hungarian composer and conductor Erno Rapée, who celebrated his stardom both in the USA and in Berlin in the 1920s and whose film music anthologies as well as his methods of film exhibition acted as a kind of prototype in improving and standardizing the practice of ‘silent’ film accompaniment in Germany as well as his writings on film music were translated into Japanese at the end of the ‘silent’ film period. Besides, using Ernö Rapée as an example, it is possible to point out the widespread public discourse of “Americanism” as well as “Anti-Americanism” in Germany around the mid-1920s.
prototype of a so called "Autorenillustration " of silent films, which in the Allgemeine Handbuch... more prototype of a so called "Autorenillustration " of silent films, which in the Allgemeine Handbuch der Film-Musik from 1927 was called a musical score, that contained parts of specially composed music as well as segments of already existing pieces of music. Today Becce's original film music for The Last Laugh is available only fragmentarily through the remaining piano and violin parts. Using them, in 2002 the film music was re-orchestrated, edited and supplemented by Detlev Glanert in the course of the film's restoration. Using as an example Becce's hurriedly-thrown together music for The Last Laugh, this paper will shed light on the possibilities and limitations that arise in the reconstruction of an original piece of 'silent' film music.
Der italienische Komponist Giuseppe Becce ist als einer der wichtigsten und einflussreichsten Fig... more Der italienische Komponist Giuseppe Becce ist als einer der wichtigsten und einflussreichsten Figuren in der Geschichte der Filmmusik anzusehen. Mit seinen Kinotheken (1919 – 1929) entwickelte er in den 1920er Jahren ein funktionales Konzept der Filmmusik, das es ihm erlaubte, in kürzester Zeit je nach Genre und Standardsituationen auf bestimmte Grundmuster zurückzugreifen. Seine atmosphärischen Musikstücke in den Kinotheken waren auf Wiederverwendbarkeit angelegt. Auch wenn Becce Musik direkt für einen Film schrieb, bediente er sich gewissenmaßen einem flexiblen Baukastenprinzip. In den zahlreichen Berg-, Heimat-und Dokumentarfilmvertonungen zwischen 1930 und 1960 ging er ähnlich kompilatorisch vor, wie zu Zeiten der Musikbegleitung des Stummfilms. Einzelne Musikstücke tragen Titel nach Art einer Kinothek und wurden für einen jeweiligen Tonfilm variiert angepasst. Becces kompositorisches Vorgehen ist mit einer konventionalisierten Werkästhetik kaum zu vereinbaren, vielmehr stellt sein gesamtes OEuvre eine Art filmmusikalisches Archiv dar, worauf der Komponist über Jahrzehnte hinweg immer wieder zurückgegriffen hat. Im Vortrag soll anhand einer Auswahl Becces Filmmusiken der Stumm-und Tonfilmzeit ein Querschnitt seiner Methode gegeben werden.
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II Congreso MUSAM-SEdeM.
EN, DESDE Y HACIA LAS AMÉRICAS.
MIGRACIONES MUSICALES: COMUNIDADES TRANSNACIONALES, HISTORIA ORAL Y MEMORIA CULTURAL (25.10.2019)
Within film studies, transcultural and transnational links between film production and various film cultures have been already long explored in various spheres: not only “films” themselves, as a reproducible and transportable medium, but also stars, genres, techniques, aesthetics and theoretical approaches have circulated internationally since the first decades of the 20th century.
This paper aids to shed on light on transcultural and transnational perspectives of ‘Silent’ Film Sound Practice, which has only recently been observed in the field of film music.
Although the music of the ‘silent’ film was not fixed technically, it also circulated internationally: For example, the mobility of musicians, conductors and composers played an important role in the global standardization of ‘silent’ film accompaniment, as did the international distribution of the musical materials.
The symbol of these mobilizations in the 1920s in the field of film music was certainly the Hungarian composer and conductor Erno Rapée, who celebrated his stardom both in the USA and in Berlin in the 1920s and whose film music anthologies as well as his methods of film exhibition acted as a kind of prototype in improving and standardizing the practice of ‘silent’ film accompaniment in Germany as well as his writings on film music were translated into Japanese at the end of the ‘silent’ film period. Besides, using Ernö Rapée as an example, it is possible to point out the widespread public discourse of “Americanism” as well as “Anti-Americanism” in Germany around the mid-1920s.
II Congreso MUSAM-SEdeM.
EN, DESDE Y HACIA LAS AMÉRICAS.
MIGRACIONES MUSICALES: COMUNIDADES TRANSNACIONALES, HISTORIA ORAL Y MEMORIA CULTURAL (25.10.2019)
Within film studies, transcultural and transnational links between film production and various film cultures have been already long explored in various spheres: not only “films” themselves, as a reproducible and transportable medium, but also stars, genres, techniques, aesthetics and theoretical approaches have circulated internationally since the first decades of the 20th century.
This paper aids to shed on light on transcultural and transnational perspectives of ‘Silent’ Film Sound Practice, which has only recently been observed in the field of film music.
Although the music of the ‘silent’ film was not fixed technically, it also circulated internationally: For example, the mobility of musicians, conductors and composers played an important role in the global standardization of ‘silent’ film accompaniment, as did the international distribution of the musical materials.
The symbol of these mobilizations in the 1920s in the field of film music was certainly the Hungarian composer and conductor Erno Rapée, who celebrated his stardom both in the USA and in Berlin in the 1920s and whose film music anthologies as well as his methods of film exhibition acted as a kind of prototype in improving and standardizing the practice of ‘silent’ film accompaniment in Germany as well as his writings on film music were translated into Japanese at the end of the ‘silent’ film period. Besides, using Ernö Rapée as an example, it is possible to point out the widespread public discourse of “Americanism” as well as “Anti-Americanism” in Germany around the mid-1920s.