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Alloy Orchestra will be scoring the new restoration of the sensational VARIETE, by E.A. Dupont. Alloy's premiere will be in September of 2016 at an undisclosed venue. The group will tour extensively with the film after that. Please get in touch with me if you're interested in a performance.

Ken Winokur

Awesome! I hope a Seattle performance is in the works!
G

Boy if ever a film needed a new score, that's the one!

Yeah, I hate to ever badmouth a fellow musician, but the Tiger Lillies score really misses the mark. I find the music reasonably engaging, and appropriate for the film (German cabaret music), but the singer narrates the entire film - and tells all the action BEFORE it happens in the film itself. Also, so repetitive!

grainy wrote:Awesome! I hope a Seattle performance is in the works!
G

I haven't even started booking our tour (other than the premiere). I certainly hope to get to Seattle with it.

Ken Winokur wrote:Yeah, I hate to ever badmouth a fellow musician, but the Tiger Lillies score really misses the mark. I find the music reasonably engaging, and appropriate for the film (German cabaret music), but the singer narrates the entire film - and tells all the action BEFORE it happens in the film itself. Also, so repetitive!

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Dare we hope that there might be a Region A Blu-ray release with your score as an option?

A stop in Raleigh/Durham would be wonderful, but I know that is never going to happen. We just don't get many things like that.

ajabrams wrote:

Ken Winokur wrote:Yeah, I hate to ever badmouth a fellow musician, but the Tiger Lillies score really misses the mark. I find the music reasonably engaging, and appropriate for the film (German cabaret music), but the singer narrates the entire film - and tells all the action BEFORE it happens in the film itself. Also, so repetitive!

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Dare we hope that there might be a Region A Blu-ray release with your score as an option?

I don't believe our score will be included in the American release.

mwalls wrote:A stop in Raleigh/Durham would be wonderful, but I know that is never going to happen. We just don't get many things like that.

I'd love to get us back to Raleigh Durham. It's been too long. I'll look into it.

Ken Winokur wrote:

mwalls wrote:A stop in Raleigh/Durham would be wonderful, but I know that is never going to happen. We just don't get many things like that.

I'd love to get us back to Raleigh Durham. It's been too long. I'll look into it.

That would be wonderful. Thank you.

Matthew

Any chance of recording your performance from start to finish uninterrupted and releasing it as a digital download?

bigshot wrote:Any chance of recording your performance from start to finish uninterrupted and releasing it as a digital download?

Yes, good chance we'll release an audio recording in some format or other. But, we haven't written the score yet. We won't record it until just before the premiere (Sept), and so it's unlikely to be available in any form till 2017.

Terrific. I hope I will be able to merge it with the blu-ray and get a decent soundtrack. I can't get far into it with the current track. Silent films are well served on blu-ray image-wise. But when it comes to sound, there are some totally boneheaded choices made on several important films. (Sherlock Jr on DVD, Variete on blu, Melies A Trip To The Moon, et al)

It was announced last night at the Coolidge Square Theater that the Berklee Silent Orchestra would be recording a score for Kino's release of Variete. I can testify after a showing that it works. Timeless and or period sounding and very attentive to rhythm and mode, it enhanced rather than fought the film.

nolisome wrote:It was announced last night at the Coolidge Square Theater that the Berklee Silent Orchestra would be recording a score for Kino's release of Variete. I can testify after a showing that it works. Timeless and or period sounding and very attentive to rhythm and mode, it enhanced rather than fought the film.

I'll gladly double dip for this. So long Tiger Lillies!

That's good news, the film is well worth seeing but I certainly understand holding off from buying the Tiger Lilies version.

That film is unwatchable with that crappy score. I am totally up to double dip on this. I'll be able to make it further than ten minutes into the picture without bailing.

According to Blu-Ray.com, Variete will be coming out also from Masters of Cinema in the UK, no release date announced. I wonder if they will also have the new score. I can't imagine they would keep the Tiger Lillies.

Well, we are still saddled with that awful music on Melies' Trip To The Moon. It's great when we are contractually obliged to listen to lousy music. It's like the scene in Clockwork Orange with the straight jacket and eyelid devices.

Really, they come to your house and physically prevent you from listening to classical music on your iPod while watching it?

Nothing will ever be as annoying as the guy who was at the Facets screening of Pickpocket, and went "hmm" about 30 seconds. Chinese water torture. Tiger Lilies are easy by comparison.

Mike Gebert wrote:Really, they come to your house and physically prevent you from listening to classical music on your iPod while watching it?

The music in a silent film is supposed to reflect what's happening on the screen, not act as aural wallpaper. Random music is random. The blu-ray companies should hire professional musicians to score and perform idiomatic music that enhances the film. If they don't do that, they aren't presenting the film properly. That is my opinion at least.

Excellent news that the restored VARIETÉ will be rescued from the Tiger Lillies' aural assault. Hopefully next on the rescue list: the color version of A TRIP TO THE MOON and every silent film scored by Maria Newman.

nolisome wrote:It was announced last night at the Coolidge Square Theater that the Berklee Silent Orchestra would be recording a score for Kino's release of Variete. I can testify after a showing that it works. Timeless and or period sounding and very attentive to rhythm and mode, it enhanced rather than fought the film.

That's good news. The score will also be performed live by the Berklee students at SFSFF on Friday, June 3.

Berklee Silent Orchestra's recording of its score for Kino's release of Variete is on schedule for a February of March release according to a believable source.

I really don't know what comes into the heads of some people who put on silent pictures when they don't seem to give any credit to the musical accompaniment. It should be compulsory for these people to read the erstwhile pages of this Forum - where a whole host of wonderful musicians, compilers and composers reside.

I have seen some very beautiful performances of silent pictures - some with the full orchestra in attendance, others with just the organist or pianist. Then I have sat through the excruciating - can you imagine a rock band with electric guitars and drums playing a picture? Especially during a manifestly obvious Charleston number on the screen. No? I couldn't either - but apparently the person in charge didn't know of any other style of music than this?

As to "Variete" - all I can say is that it may have been a German attempt at presenting something completely different in the manner of the avant garde - where appropriateness never entered the equation.

I am grateful to those concerned that an alternative to the "Tiger Lillies" will be eventually available.

I preordered the Masters of Cinema version to be released on Monday. Per the notes there are Three scores: one by Stephen Horne, one by The Tiger Lillies, and one by Johannes Contag. So, the Tiger Lillies score, which I now know to avoid, is on there. Fortunately, I have two others from which to choose.

Matthew

Well I got stuck with the lousy Tiger Lillies only version of this. I just looked at the DVD Beaver review and picked up the Masters of Cinema release. I hate having to double dip, but I wasn't able to get through the film before. May the Tiger Lillies rot in hell.

Will wait for the Kino version?...hopefully it is complete....the Masters of Cinema/Eureka version is the American release print running 95 minutes.....Loving the Classics has a full version....poor print and good luck when you order. Would love a a good print print full version of the film.....

There are two versions of the film on Masters of Cinema... both the US and European cuts. It was the same on the German blu-ray, but only the US version was tolerable on that.

There's some talk about the different versions starting here:

viewtopic.php?p=149756#p149756" target="_blank

Honestly, it's still not clear to me what the running time difference between different versions ever was, but the 95-minute German version seems to be as complete as it's going to get today.