Each year we have a small but highly respected Independent Film Festival in the town where I work called Oldenburg. Last year there was the world premiere of the Thai film The Maestro which starred composer/conductor Somtow Sucharitkul who had also written the screenplay and the film score. For the premiere he conducted his orchestra the Siam Sinfonietta performing the entire score (as well as excerpts from Hans Erdmann's Nosferatu score) before the film.
Because this was so successful he was invited back this year for a concert of Bernard Herrmann featuring pieces and suites from Citizen Kane, Anna and the King of Siam, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, Jason and the Argonauts, Fahrenheit 451, Obsession and Taxi Driver.
For this year's retrospective they invited Peter Hyams and his son John Hyams. Sadly Peter Hyams could not attend in person but participated in an online Q&A session with his son who was attending the festival. To honor Hyams Somtow Sucharitkul had his assistant transcribe the main title from Capricorn One which he conducted during the concert and the opening ceremony of the festival.
Following are a few excerpts from the concert. Most were recorded during the opening ceremony where they gave a preview of the upcoming concert.
First the Oldenburg Filmfestival Fanfare which Somtow Sucharitkul wrote for last year's festival:
Main Title from Capricorn One by Jerry Goldsmith
An excerpt called Burmese March from one of Somtow Sucharitkul's ballets which was only performed during the opening ceremony
Main Title and Scene d'Amour from Vertigo (Bernard Herrmann)
Suite from Psycho (Bernard Herrmann) - this is from the actual concert held at the Lamberti Church in Oldenburg
My favourite piece from the concert - the Theme from Taxi Driver. As the orchestra does not have a saxophone player the saxophone parts were transcribed for clarinet.
For the audience this was probably the first time they heard real film music in concert. These kind of concerts are not usually done in cities with just 170.000 citizens. I had a great time and it was nice to hear from a conductor of classical music how much he loved Bernard Herrmann. I had the pleasure to talk to him after the concert and he shared some anecdotes about meeting Ray Harryhausen at various cons where they were both guests (Somtow is also a writer of science fiction novels). He also talked about Anna and the King of Siam which he could not perform in Thailand and how the score had absolutely nothing to do with Siamese music. Instead Herrmnn based it on Indonesian music but in 1946 nobody cared that Asia had so many different cultures.
