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Silent Film Classic! Faust is the protagonist of a German legend; a highly successful scholar but one dissatisfied with his life who makes a pact with the Devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Save 20% with promo code SilentFilm
In many ways, this is not a film score in a traditional sense. Fascinated by the classic tale, Schnyder decided to create music linking this saga about seduction and destruction of the human soul to its traces in European musical history. Inspired by the audacity in Murnau’s dramatic language, and by Faust’s legacy to classical music of three centuries, the trio accompanies certain key scenes of the film with fully composed pieces and adaptions, while the protagonists’ actions and streams of consciousness are being interpreted by improvisations in the connecting film sequences. “I wrote this score on commission for a Goethe birthday celebration,” explains Schnyder. “I had actually never before seen the film. What I attempt here is an interplay—between the Faust story, German music history, and the three of us as improvising performers. Even though a lot of the music I cite incorporates texts, I’m counting on its visceral effects—people don’t need to know the words.” Read more in the program notes. Watch a video excerpt of the film (with a different score)
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