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THE ELECTRONIC HAMLET
A new score for the Asta Nielsen film "Hamlet"
Initially, in 2005, there was an extraordinary find:
The first original, tinted print of the classic silent film "Hamlet"
produced by and starring Asta Nielsen.
ZDF/Arte commissioned a new score for its new restoration
from composer and improvising clarinettist Michael Riessler,
who was born in Ulm, Germany, in 1957.
He's a passionate exponent
of crossover between new music and jazz.
At the start I was simply searching for a sound
that I would associate with the Middle Ages.
Knowing Marco Ambrosini brought me into contact with the nyckelharpa.
Then there's a barrel-organ,
so they're all instruments we associate with the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries.
Composer and conductor
But only as an allusion
to a kind of music that might have been played at that time.
All of us have a kind of "acoustic trash" within us,
many sounds which, in terms of association, we regard as historical.
Not using real quotations
allowed me to play my "quasi quotes" off against each other,
and to bring together historical elements that don't fit together at all.
Apart from that, I have laid trails to quite different levels
that involve Hamlet's psychology:
This never-ending nightmare
was more important to me
than sticking completely to the historical sound.
In this case, there was a lot of trial and error.
We pieced together a lot of things using the computer
and then created the natural aural ambiance.
The most important contributor in the final two weeks was Federico Savina,
who in my view is the reference for Dolby sound in films.
Over the past two weeks he has concerned himself with the segues,
and how to sculpt these in space
so that you feel as if you're seated in the midst of an orchestra.
In the cinema, the screen is the focus.
Sound engineer
The remaining space can be used for music and sounds.
It's a kind of reverse perception:
Rather than listening, the audience absorbs the music unconsciously.
The sound wizard Savina worked with world cinema's giants:
Visconti, Fellini, Sergio Leone, Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota.
I'm the assistant to the composer, not a creator.
I just add my feelings to the music.
It's bad when directors say: "Violins up front,
trumpets louder! Bass quieter! Up and down!"
Then I say: "Do it yourself!
Please, here's the tone control: Up and down, as you like!
Or maybe you could tell me what you want to achieve.
Then I can try to put it into practice."
And that's what Michael Riessler's acoustic-electronic concept was like,
one that Federico Savina supported with his sound design:
Working with mosaic-like, small composition units.
I didn't record anything that was longer than 30 seconds,
just tiny building blocks
that were placed in a new light,
a new ambiance time and again.
That was new for me.
Until then I had always written out the score in full, in the classic way,
recorded it and then refined it.
This time, I first created a large-scale construction site,
from which I took individual musical elements,
to develop first a grammatical system and then a language.
With Riessler's complex composition, a real orchestra
would've overshot any budget with all those rehearsals.
Only in chamber music form with live electronics and percussion
was he able to create the full orchestra sound that the film demands.
I think the film drew a big response, especially in America,
and for a good reason: Because it's the kind of film
that demands a mass audience.
That's why it was always clear to me that I needed an orchestra sound
that has this dimension, this pull that Asta Nielsen was striving for.
Subtitling by SUBS Hamburg Keith Semple, Andrea Kirchhartz