Concert Pulse
This season
Man with a Movie Camera
Dziga Vertov's "Man with a Movie Camera" remains relevant 95 years after its release. The silent film, which dispenses with intertitles, has received various musical interpretations as an experiment in a universal cinematic language. Thomas Sauerborn's composition intensifies the film's pull, drawing viewers into life in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odessa in 1929. Sauerborn, along with two companions from "Das Ende Der Liebe", brings two trombonists into this ensemble and opens the space between wind instruments, manipulated Nintendo Gameboy sounds, and live samplings. They bring the everyday life and rhythm of 1929 into today, juxtaposing it with the life and sounds of the 21st century. Light and shadow, the visual language of silent film, influenced the dramatic use of light and shadow in 1920s German Expressionist cinema. By manipulating light and shadow, reality is distorted, and the audience is drawn into the characters' inner world, enhancing emotional intensity.