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THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI [2003]

movie by Robert Wiene

Live computer soundtrack by Edison Studio
Mauro Cardi, Luigi Ceccarelli, Fabio Cifariello Ciardi, Alessandro Cipriani

a Film by Robert Wiene (1919)
screenplay by Carl Mayer e Hans Janowitz
scenography by Hermann Warm, Walter Reimann, Walter Rohrig
Decla Film – Berlin, 1919
restored 4k version

Live computer soundtrack Edison Studio – Rome (2003)
Mauro Cardi, Luigi Ceccarelli, Fabio Cifariello Ciardi, Alessandro Cipriani
percussions, samplers and live electronics

Duration: 84′
Produced by Edison Studio with the contribute of ‘Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Singapore’, ‘Goethe Institut – Rom’, ‘Cineteca Nazionale di Bologna’.

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One of the true musical highlights of the conference was the world premiere performance by the Edison Studio of a soundtrack to the German horror film “Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari” directed by Robert Wiene. A visually stunning film with powerful expressionist imagery, the music composed and performed by Luigi Ceccarelli, Fabio Cifariello Ciardi, Alessandro Cipriani and Mauro Cardi provided a compelling accompaniment to this silent classic. Richly layered and aggressively beautiful, this is truly a marvelous and masterly piece of work.
David Kim-Boyle – Computer Music Journal – vol. 28 # 2 Summer 2004 – MIT Press

This soundtrack is now on DVD

Double Dvd with booklet
(duration 77′ + Extra Dvd 133′ + booklet 56 pp.)
price: 16.90 €
Published by Cineteca di Bologna

Buy the DVD

a film by Robert Wiene
language: German with Italian subtitles

with double audio track
soundtrack by Edison Studio 5.1 DTS and Dolby Stereo
music soundtrack by Timothy Brock

In the little village of Holstenwall on the Dutch border, fairground hypnotist Dr.Caligari (Werner Krauss) puts on show a somnambulist called Cesare (Conrad Veidt) who has been asleep for twenty-three years. At night, dressed in a black body-stocking and with a ghostly white face, he slithers through the town murdering people on the doctor’s orders. A student (Friedrich Feher) has his suspicions about Caligari after a friend is found dead and it transpires that the doctor is the director of a lunatic asylum. But the story also has a sting in the tail…

A masterpiece of expressionist cinema and the first cult-movie in cinema history, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari takes its inspiration from the most advanced experimental work carried out at the beginning of the last century in literature and art. Strongly imbued with a theme that denounces the sufferings of a deceptively free human condition, poised constantly between reality and fiction, Wiene’s film also seems to be filled with surprising historical premonitions.

After more than eighty years, the composition of the electroacoustic soundtrack by Edison Studio brings us once again a film that is eloquently redefined. The composition, commissioned by the International Computer Music Conference (Singapore 2003), was preceded by a lengthy phase of analysis and interpretation of the film. This led to the definition of the expressive atmosphere, formal programme and sound material that constitute the choice of timbre in the score: instrumental and vocal samples, pre-existing musical fragments, concrete and synthetic sounds. The score is for computer, MIDI keyboards connected to samplers, percussion instruments and resonant objects. The performance in real time, in keeping with and going beyond the silent film tradition, restores the excitement of a live invention not only of music but also of sound and verbal language environments that themselves blend into music and make it possible to develop flexibly and dynamically the intricate relationships existing between the sound material and the expressive and symbolic world of the characters and places.

Perfomances of the restored version with new soundtrack

Mar 28, 2017 – Rovereto, Auditorium Melotti, MART, Musica Macchina
Jun 03, 2017 – Ravenna, Palazzo dei Congressi, Ravenna Festival
Jul 31 2017 – S.Mauro Pascoli
Oct 29, 2017 – Roma, Macro Testaccio – la Pelanda, RomaEuropa Festival
Oct 14, 2018  – Matera, Casa Cava, Mute Festival
Apr 11, 2019 – Sorrento – Incontri Internazionali del Cinema di Sorrento
Jun 09, 2019 – Forlì – Area Sismica
Dec 19, 2019 – Cagli – Teatro Comunale

Previous perfomances of the not restored version

Oct 2, 2003 – International Computer Music Conference – ICMC 2003, Singapore
Dec 15, 2003 – Roma, Goethe-Institut Rom
May 8, 2004 – Malmoe, Svezia, “Eletrisk 04”
Oct 1st, 2004 – Catania, Auditorium Zo, Ass.Mus.Etnea
Nov 18, 2004 – Cremona, Musica Insieme Cremona
Nov 22, 2005 – Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.,  “Scream 2005” – Redcat (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) in Disney Concert Hall
Jun 2, 2006 – Bourges (Francia), Festival Synthèse 2006, Maison de la Culture, Petit Thèatre
Dec 4, 2006 – Lipsia,  Teatro dell’Opera, Kellertheater, Eine Frage (nach) der Geste
Feb 10, 2007 – Trieste, Teatro Miela, AllEstdellEden, rassegna di artigianato musicale europeo
Mar 27, 2007 – L’Aquila, Cinema Massimo, Società Aquilana dei Concerti “B.Barattelli”
Sep 6, 2007 – Budapest, Museo di Belle Arti, Sonor’Art, Manifestazione finale della mostra “Viaggio nell’Arte Italiana”
Apr 16, 2008 – Trieste, Teatro Miela, FEST (Fiera dell’Editoria Scientifica di Trieste)
Nov 12, 2008 – Roma, Università di Tor Vergata, Auditorium Ennio Morricone, Convegno Internazionale di Studi sulle componenti sonore
May 14, 2010 – Ferrara, festival miXXer, Ridotto del Teatro Comunale
Jan 21, 2012, Roma, SpazioNovecento, Artmediamix (ore 21, replica ore 23)
Feb 2, 2011 – Leicester (UK) DMU University
Jul 2, 2012 – Bologna, Piazza Maggiore
Jul 2, 2012 – Cividale del Friuli, Mittelfest
May 2, 2013 – Perugia, Segnali 2013, cinema Zenith
May 27,  2013 . Latina, Le Forme del Suono, cinema Oxer
Sep 18, 2014 – Florence (Italy), Flame Festival, Museo Nazionale del Bargello.
Nov 23, 2014 – Roma, 51° Festival di Nuova Consonanza, Teatro Tor Bella Monaca
Apr 22, 2015 – Manizales (Colombia) – Teatro Los Fundadores,  Universidad de Caldas – Festival Internacional de la Imagen

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