Gottfried Huppertz

[adriano]

I don't fully agree with you, Alan, since there is a lot of good film music by great composers which can - and should - be listened separately in the form of symphonic suites, of course. The lenght of a piece is not a meter for quality judgement; just consider Anton Webern, whose longest written piece goes for 10 minutes (Passacaglia op. 1, one of the greatest masterworks of the 20th century), or 6 minutes (Variations for Orchestra, op. 30) - and the shortest just  35 seconds. All works of a genius.
So you know why I have recorded many magnificent film scores. But they are by composers who were principally writing symphonic, chamber, theatre and vocal music, meaning that the artistic level was much higher - and they wanted to give a film good music.
That's how, for example, great British film music of the 1950s came to be written. It was Muir Mathieson who encouraged Bliss, Rawsthorne, Addinsell, Walton, Vaughan Williams, Bax, Ireland, Alwyn and others - because he knew that they would contribute with much more than a usual washy accompaniment. And it was always agreed that they should write pieces, some of which could be recorded afterwards (on 78s - all greatly conducted by Mathieson or by the composers), in order to make the music better known - and the films promoted. "Things to Come" is a famous example: it's symphonic music, good for the concert-hall as "Peer Gynt", "A Midsummer Nigth's Dream", or Fauré's and Sibelius's "Pelléas et Mélisande". Vaughan-Williams made a splendid Symphony of his "Scott of the Antartics" score, taking various cues and without even re-arranging them too much. You certainly know Ireland's "The Overlanders", Bax's "Oliver Twist" - or, the most famous and successful case of English film music, the "Warsaw Concerto". In France and in the USA we had a lot more of such cases, like Honegger, Rozsa and Herrmann!
All those 78s were an important part of my collection; I could learn a lot from them. And I never thought that one day I would be allowed to record beautiful pieces like "Baraza" - and "The Voyage" from Bliss's "Christopher Columbus"! Now these 78s are all in a public Library and I still enjoy my own private transfers :-) If anyone is interested, I can make copies of these 2 CDRs, but meanwhile many of them have been re-released on commercial CD.
And what about Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Khachaturian? Some of their pieces work even better if listened without some painful/embarrassing images! Hugo Alfvén also agreed to write film music, even if he was totally unexperienced in this field - and he produced two wonderful scores. In Germany, there was very little of such high standard because no leading and inspiring fugre à la Mathieson took care of convinncing great composers. In my opinion, only Hanns Eisler succeeded, and this with scores which were written in close collaboration with the film directors, so there were also sequences which were planned according to the lenght and message of a musical piece - as it was the case, for example, of Herrmann's "Citizen Kane" and "The Manginficent Ambersons" or Auric's "La Belle et la Bête". The latter is even more interesting, since Coctceat asked Auric to write something in this or that mood, by just showing him a (still unshot) scene's resumé. Auric went home, carried on composing, then the music was recorded and attached to an appropriately apt scene during the final montage only - of which Cocteau had not heard a note. Fellini and Rota worked in a similar way. Rota was sitting at a nearby piano during the shootings and Fellini asked him to improvise some piece after the composer had watched. If he liked it, he orderd that it should be completed and orchestrated - not always fixing a scene's exact minutage in advance. A very expensive way of working, which today would not be possible anymore!
(As far as I remember, Alan, I already reacted in a similar way to such a comment of yours years ago).

[Alan Howe]

Of course, great composers can transcend the medium - I accept that. I enjoy 'symphonic suites', although they're not really 'symphonic'. They should be called 'orchestral suites'.

I wasn't really thinking of great composers, though. I was thinking of those such as Huppertz whose music just isn't interesting enough to survive on its own unarranged.

Otherwise, I agree with everything you say.

[Ilja]

I think I do agree with most of what is said here. But there is a lot of attractive material here; I treat it like a sort of musical pick & mix when the visual image is absent, and that gets me through the day.

[M. Yaskovsky]

If film music isn't designed to be listened to without the visual image; the same goes for opera?

[Mark Thomas]

No, because listening to an opera one still has the words and music. Anyone who has attended a concert performance of an opera, where the visual aspect is present, but unimportant, can attest to that.

[adriano]

... and Opera on TV has its disadvantages too, sometimes. You have to see singer's stressed faces in close-up, making grimaces - or, due to a bad camera mix, you things which have nothing to do with what is being sung :-) Seeing everything from a spectator's seat it's still the most bearable :-)

[Alan Howe]

One of the greatest operatic experiences of my life was Davis' concert performance of Les Troyens at the Barbican in London. And then there's the opposite problem of a visual staging which actually detracts from the overall effect - all-too common these days, in my experience.

[adriano]

I love concert performances of operas, even historic ones - this also because I have worked in an Opera House for 25 years, and had to deal so many times with stagings having very little or nothing to do with the original pieces, or with stage directors who just used the "work in progress" system because they weren't prepared, and had to deal with sceneries which they once agreed upon with the responsibles, a thing which very often is being realised 1-2 years before the actual rehearsals. A general concept has been discussed, in order to have the scenerie's construction started. Many stage directors just forget about it, travel around doing other stagings and come back 5-6 weeks before the rehearsals in question, to be confronted with imminent realities and a lot of unforseen details.
But there still are some serious directors.
Very "modern" opera staging can be exciting if a stage director has a thoroughly conceived conception and has the awareness of not damaging the music. We had "Lulu", "Pelléas et Mélisande" and "Die Tote Stadt" staged by Sven Eric Bechtolf - in a very daring way, but they worked perfectly and made a great impression (the first two are available on DVD). Sven always started rehearsing with the music completely in his head, without needing to consult a vocal core, he sometimes knew more and better than the musical staff involved. In these two cases we had a conductor who wasn't too seriously prepared either. Bechtolf could tell a singer exactly in what place something was to do, referring to bars and sung texts. A little memorandum book with notes sketches was always lying on his table, but he consulted it very rarely. He only had to succumb once, in a too special version of "Otello" (taking place in a kind spaceship), but this only because the three Italian stars involved refused to do what he wanted, so from the first day they started disputing and claiming, and damaging the working atmosphere. Iago revenged himself for having to stay there all the time due to his contract, and made himself fall ill the very morning of the première. He could not be replaced on such a short notice, so Bechtolf himself acted in costume - and a singer sang in front of a notestand from the stageside.
Live opera CDs of concert performances are much better too, since you do not have to cope with all kind of stage noises. Mozart's "Così fan tutte" with Solti, Fleming, von Otter, Lopardo a.o. - live (1994) from the Royal Festival Hall is a really exciting recording. One has the felling of just sitting there amongst the audience in a great atmosphere.
Suppose, Alan, we have to go back to Mr. Huppertz, but there may be nothing relevant to add...

[eschiss1]

*blink* you leave a joke like that hanging in midair ("Iago revenged himself") and then...? oh-- alright.

[adriano]

Sorry, I should have written "he took revenge".
Here's a riddle: R. R. was that Iago, Otello was J. C. and Desdemona was the late D. D.
R. R. and J. C. insulted Bechtolf during the first reheasal already in a way I never experienced in an opera production. But Italians (J. C. is not) always pretend to know Opera better than a young German stage director who, incidentally, is a highly cultural and intelligent person - and a great actor himself.

[Alan Howe]

R.R. (Iago) = Ruggero Raimondi; J.C. (Otello) = José Cura; D.D. (Desdemona) = Daniela Dessì; Zurich, 2002.

Riddle solved, I believe. Now back to Huppertz & film music...

[adriano]

Bravissimo, Alan :-)
Apropos Metropolis: conductor Frank Strobel tells in an interview that "Huppert's music is note by note an exact specification what happens in the picture"; in other words "descriptive"- and later on that "the sound tells what happens on the image". Fortunately, the score of "Metropolis" does not degenerate into Mickeymousing, but in too many scene it's, in my opinion not "descriptive" at all but just abstractly bombastic and too dramatic.
"Mickeymousing" is a Hollywood terminology for music accompanying the action almost pantomime-like. A protagonist climbs stairs and so the music ascends etc. This procedure wasn't appreciated, since some of its composers (including Max Steiner) had used it.
A particularly self-conscient composer once wrote a rather soft Main Title music and just started a big crescendo with cymbal clash once his name appeared. He was fired.

[Mark Thomas]

Ha ha!! 

[adriano]

Another typical Hollywood anecdote: They were shooting "Goodbye Again" ("Aimez-vous Brahms?"), to which music by Brahms had to be used (arranged by Georges Auric). One day the producer called his assistant, or secretary, asking him/her to find out Brahms's address in Europe...
-
As far as Huppertz's music is concerned, I just took the time this morning to watch the complete "Metropolis" film again. The music is too heavy, loud and stressing most of the time. Some very short lyrical episodes are original and well orchestrated, but do not build up valuable contasts. The most painful moments are where the composer uses the theme of "La Marseillaise", to underscore the worker's uprising. There is also a church scene, in which the "Dies Irae" theme is inappropriately (and cheaply) used.
As already pointed out, in many places the music does not really "describe" or not even tries to "counterpoint" the action. Leitmotifs are too often just endlessly quoted and re-quoted and not really variated and do not always make sense according to the image.
Still, this "Gesamtkunstwerk" show made a great impression at the time it was produced and does still do so today to unprepared watchers/filmgoers. Not to speak about the immense work the film itself had required and the avant-garde effects and tricks it contains.
As far as the score's rediscovery is concerned, the merit goes to Berndt Heller, who, in 1988, made a first (incomplete) reconstruction. He also conducted live performances and is being heard on the first VHS and later DVD recordings. The presently available "complete" version with Strobel was achieved in 2010. But Strobel had already conducted Heller versions of "Metropolis" over 180 times...

[eschiss1]

Hadrianus: no, no! I just meant it was just such an- Iago-esque thing for the actor who played Iago to do. Assuming you meant, as you seem to, that he did so outside the opera. All that was missing was for him to use the actor who played Othello to do so...