Silent Films and Live Performance
Often when I'm working on a film I'll turn off the dialogue and sound effects and just enjoy the music with the picture. It's pleasant to think of an era when this was considered normal. Theaters like the Roxy in New York had house orchestras that put on new concerts every week. Smaller theaters had at least a pianist. Today any live performance to a silent film is a special event.
Agrippina Guazzoni, 1910 - GCM Audition
Bloomer & The Egg Powder Cines, 1913 - GCM Audition
Broken Blossoms D.W. Griffith, 1919 - Fourth Universalist Unitarian Church, Manhattan, 2000
Cops Buster Keaton, 1922 - Austria, 2003
A Corner in Wheat D.W. Grifith, 1908 - GCM Audition
The Goat Buster Keaton, 1921 - Austria, 2003
The Great Train Robbery Edwin Porter, 1903 - GCM Audition
Koko's Haunted House Fleisher, 1928 - GCM Audition
The Lodger Alfred Hitchcock, 1927
The Lure of Crooning Water Arthur Rooke, 1920 - GCM, 2004
The Man With The Movie Camera Dziga Vertov, 1929 - with Donald Sosin, Walter Reede Theater, Museum of the Moving Image, 2008
Manhattan Madness Alan Dwan, 1916 - GCM 2005
Metropolis Fritz Lang, 1927 - Austria, 2002
One Week Buster Keaton, 1920 - Austria 2003
The Wind Victor Sjöström, 1928 - GCM Audition
Le Giornate Del Cinema Muto
The Giornate Del Cinema Muto, also known as the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, is the largest and most prestigious silent film festival in the world. In October of 2004 I was selected to be a part of the "School of Music to Image," which was a series of master classes taught by Neil Brand and Donald Sosin. On the last day of the program I performed an improvised score, sight unseen, to the film The Lure of Crooning Water in front of a large audience. The next year I returned with a sextet to perform a prepared score to Manhattan Madness.
Here I am with the other members of the program, from left, Costas Fotopoulos, me, Francesca Badalini, Carsten-Stephan Graf v. Bothmer, and Marie Louise Bolte
Donald Sosin giving a master class to Stephan. Keaton's "Three Ages" is on screen.
Koko's Haunted House Fleischer, 1928
This was one of my audition pieces for the GCM. Koko was a recurring character by the Fleischer brothers (who appear in the film). They are best known today for creating Betty Boop, yet in their day they were rivals to Disney.Bloomer's Egg Powder Cines, 1913
Another audition piece for GCM, this is a very silly little film.
David Robinson asked me to prepare a score for this film for the 2005 GCM. At the Library of Congress I found a cue sheet, which was two handwritten pages of music titles. After much more research, at the New York and Chicago Public Libraries, Yale University, and University Libraries in Colorado, Pennesylvania and Georga, I found 13 of the 16 pieces. I also found an obscure Irving Berlin song called "Manhattan Madness" that I incorporated into the mix. I arranged it for a jazz sextet.
After the performance, Kevin Brownlow approached me and said he wished he had my score in his DVD restoration.
Meet Steve
At the Club
2 Kinds of Horse Rides
Bus Ride
Black Burke
The Dandy
The Girl
Steve's Friends
Count Winkie
Mysterious Mansion
The Note
Maid Rescues Steve
The Girl Returns
Back at the Club
The Stock Yard
The Fight
Steve Escapes
Breaking Down Door
The Joke
The Rescue
Shipboard Romance
Other Live Performances
Theater
I have written and performed music for two productions by Stephen Earnhart. In 1998 we did an original multi-media piece called Behind the Door at a music festival in Austria.
More recently, in 2009, I wrote music for a workshop presentation of Steve's production of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle at the Asia Society in New York.
Concert
I'm writing a nine-minute piece called The Hannibal Overture.
Kind of like "Pictures at an Exhibition" the piece describes a scene of Hannibal crossing the Alps, but as it would be seen by well-heeled patrons at a 19th century art gallery. I am a big fan of showy, programmatic pieces ("The Pines of Rome") and also Shostakovich's Festival Overture, so this is my attempt in that direction. The piece is 100% written but only about 40% orchestrated. I'll post an excerpt soon.
©2010 John M. Davis