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BLACKMAIL– SILENT VERSION (1929)
Dir – Alfred Hitchcock |
| Score (2008) by Neil Brand, orchestrated and conducted by Timothy Brock,
commissioned by Cinema Ritrovata, Bologna, first
performed in the Piazza Maggiore, Bologna, July
1st 2008 by the Orchestra of the Teatro Communale. |
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REVIEWS:
‘…the Piazza Maggiore late-night screenings featured another awesome
sight: an audience of 5,000 hooked on every twist of the silent version of
Hitchcock’s Blackmail accompanied live by Neil Brand’s first score
for full orchestra, a Herrmann-esque creation pulsing with fear and desire.
Spectacular.’
Geoff Brown, Sight and Sound. |
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‘ I’ve seen Blackmail many times but never like that – Neil
Brand’s score was amazing, it picked out so many details that you might
miss without the music being there, and it really brought the film to life…
this odd coincidence of people and light and chemicals trapped in this medium
but somehow being conjured back to life before our eyes and ears in that [performance]
was extraordinary.’
Matthew Sweet – ‘Caught on Film’
BBC Radio 4
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‘Movies need viewers, and Bologna's biggest events were saved for the
open air of the Piazza Maggiore, where at 10pm every festival night 5,000
seats beckoned delegates and Bolognese alike. Tuesday night was a particular
thrill: the silent version of Hitchcock's Blackmail, accompanied by the premiere
of Neil Brand's especially commissioned new score, arranged for full orchestra
by Timothy Brock. As night set in, and the piazza gazed up at Anny Ondra's
unravelling date in 1929 London, Brand's echt-Hitchcockian motifs and harmonies
folded us right back into the drama, with all those commingling Bernard Hermannn
and Miklós Rósza references in tow.’
The Guardian |
| 2009 will be the 110th anniversary of Hitchcock’s birth and the 80th
anniversary of the making of Blackmail. |
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