– restored version –
a Film by Robert Wiene
screenplay by Carl Mayer e Hans Janowitz
scenography by Hermann Warm, Walter Reimann, Walter Rohrig
Decla Film – Berlin, 1919
restored 4k version
ive computer soundtrack by Edison Studio
new surround 7.1 version (2026)
Mauro Cardi, Luigi Ceccarelli, Fabio Cifariello Ciardi, Alessandro Cipriani, Vincenzo Core, Andrea Veneri
previous version 5.1 (2003)
Mauro Cardi, Luigi Ceccarelli, Fabio Cifariello Ciardi, Alessandro Cipriani
duration: 84′
produced by Edison Studio with the contribute of ‘Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Singapore’, ‘Goethe Institut – Rom’, ‘Cineteca Nazionale di Bologna’.
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 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.
More than a hundred years later, Edison Studio’s electroacoustic soundtrack returns the film to us in a newly defined expressive form. Originally commissioned by the International Computer Music Conference (Singapore, 2003), the composition was reworked in 2026 for a new 7.1 surround version and an expanded ensemble.
The creative process was preceded by an extensive phase of analysis and interpretation of the film, during which the expressive atmospheres, formal trajectories, and sound materials that form the timbral palette of the score were defined: instrumental and vocal samples, fragments of pre-existing music, concrete and synthetic sounds.
The real-time performance, processing, and spatialisation of sound—both within and beyond the tradition of silent cinema—restore the sense of live invention, not only of music but also of sonic environments and verbal language, which themselves dissolve into music. This approach allows for a flexible and dynamic development of the intricate relationships between the sonic material and the expressive and symbolic world of places and characters, through an expressionist sound logic that connects in unprecedented ways with the estranging perspectives of this cinematic masterpiece.
Perfomances of the restored version with new soundtrack
Live performances of the new soundtrack for the restored version (2026)
May 5, 2026 – Ferrara, Teatro Comunale, Ferrara Musica
Live performances with screenings of the film in its restored version
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
