2020 MUSIC TIMES PRESS KIT - JANUARY 2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS - FOREWORD 3 © Roy Export Co Ltd 1. CHAPLIN AND MUSIC 4 2. 2020 MUSIC TIMES - CHAPLIN’S WORLD AND ITS OUTSTANDING SUPPORTERS 6 4. OUR PARTNERS 12 9. CHAPLIN’S WORLD 19 9.1 Fourth anniversary coming up 3. 2020 MUSIC TIMES – THE PROGRAMME 5. 2020 MUSIC TIMES, 9.2 International outreach AT CHAPLIN’S WORLD WORLDWIDE CELEBRATIONS 14 12 9.3 Overview in figures 3.1 Temporary exhibition: The sound 6. A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY 9.4 Awards and distinctions of Charlie Chaplin 15 9.5 A brief history of the creation of Chaplin’s World 3.2 The Tramp’s Musical Circus! 7. CHAPLIN IN SWITZERLAND 9.6 Key dates in Chaplin’s World history 3.3 Halloween: Cult horror classics 17 3.4 Concerts and discussions to fill Chaplin’s home with his music 8. CHAPLIN IN NUMBERS 18 10. PRACTICAL INFORMATION 21 Front page photo credit: © Roy Export Co Ltd 2 In 1952, the Chaplins left Hollywood, Chaplin’s music will have a particular settling in Switzerland the following year. resonance in 2020, and will be the sole At his new home, the Manoir de Ban, focus of the programme at Chaplin’s Chaplin devoted much of his time to music. World, with a series of special events and After dinner, he would turn off the lights concerts organized around the temporary so that the family could listen to classical exhibition “The Sound of Charlie Chaplin”, records by candlelight. Famous musicians that is being held at the Philharmonie de were often invited to the Manoir (Rudolf Paris until the end of January. Serkin, Arthur Rubinstein, Isaac Stern, and Clara Haskil were regular guests). The programme will show the extent to There were many memorable parties that which music was part of Chaplins timeless FOREWORD lasted till the early hours, when Chaplin filmmaking, and how the compositions he let loose on the piano. At a dinner party produced until his dying day attest to his immortalised by photographer Ken Heyman, love of beauty, work and life. © Roy Export Co Ltd © Roy Chaplin sang La Traviata while Leonard - Bernstein played the piano. Because Chaplin’s whole life was infused Hailed as a genius of film and pantomime, violin in a vaudeville act but, as time went with music. Charlie Chaplin was introduced to music on, I realized that I could never achieve Chaplin’s films and musical compositions and song by his parents, both of whom excellence, so I gave it up.” have the same essential quality of were music hall artists. One evening, timelessness. Countless contemporary while performing at the Canteen Theatre In 1916, hoping to promote his musical artists have been inspired by his catchy Béatrice de Reyniès in Aldershot, his mother, Hannah, lost her compositions, he founded the Charlie compositions, and Smile has been sung by Managing Director, Chaplin’s World voice during a song and was booed off the Chaplin Music Publishing Company. The the biggest names in the music business, Kate Guyonvarch stage. The manager, who had heard Charlie enterprise was unsuccessful, however, and including Nat “King” Cole, Michael Jackson, Managing Director, Chaplin Office sing, sent the five year-old to take her folded after the publication of just three Diana Ross and Céline Dion, from the place, convinced the boy could be a crowd pieces, Oh! That Cello, There’s Always groove version by Eric Clapton to the cover pleaser. Charlie’s rendition of Jack Jones One You Can’t Forget, and The Peace crooned by hip hop artist Janelle Monáe at was such a hit that the audience showered Patrol. the White House in 2016. him with pennies! City Lights, released in 1931, was the This Is My Song has also been extensively Music was therefore a guiding influence in first film whose credits listed Chaplin as covered, most notably by Frank Sinatra. Chaplin’s life from childhood – sometimes composer, and the filmmaker’s own music Chaplin was also the inspiration behind the discreet, sometimes crucial, but always began to accompany the Tramp’s every 2004 hit Modern Times by J-Five. Musician present. move. Around the same time, Chaplin Charlie Winston’s stage name is a tribute undertook the mammoth task of compiling to Chaplin, whose music is still used in Chaplin spent his first wages on a violin, the scores for all his previous feature contemporary film productions, the latest then a cello. The London street urchin had films, beginning with The Gold Rush, first example being the Todd Phillips film Joker, music in his veins, and meant to make it released as a silent film in 1925, and starring Joaquin Phoenix, which features his career. re-released in 1942 with narration and extracts from Modern Times, with the a musical score by Chaplin himself. song Smile as a mysterious, half alarming, By the age of nineteen, Chaplin was a star and half reassuring hymn. in the troupe of Fred Karno, but he took Shortly before leaving Hollywood in the every available opportunity to perfect his early 1950s, Chaplin expanded the scope Across generations, all of these artists, musical skills. ‘Each week I took lessons of his musical creativity, composing contexts and musical genres have secured from the theatre conductor or from pastiches of Edwardian music-hall songs Chaplin’s place in music history. And someone he recommended,” he would and sketches for Limelight (1952) and deservedly so: he was a master of the remember. “I had great ambitions to be a parodies of 1950s popular songs for A universal languages of film and music. concert artist, or, failing that, to use the King in New York (1957). 3 In Chaplin’s view, music heightened the In those days, music was generally used emotional impact of film. He reworked, to heighten a comic effect. For Chaplin, adapted, analysed and manipulated his emotion was key. He considered music too melodies until their sharps and flats sacred to be used as ‘ambient sound’, and created an emotional journey, in perfect detested the ‘Mickey Mousing’ technique harmony with the image. He saw music as a in which visual gags were underscored means of conveying emotion and, above all, by sound effects and cymbal crashes. as a subtle counterpoint to comedy: ‘I tried To explain his intentions, he would often to compose elegant and romantic music refer to a particular composer or musical to frame my comedies in contrast to the style. ‘”We should make this Wagnerian”, tramp character, for elegant music gave my he would say, or, “this part should be more comedies an emotional dimension,’ he said. Chopin. Let’s make this light and airy, a lot Although most of his arrangers did not of violins,” or, “I think we could use an oboe share his opinions, they were overwhelmed effect in this passage”,’ Charles Chaplin Jr by his determination. recalled. © Roy Export Co Ltd © Roy 1.CHAPLIN AND MUSIC -From his earliest childhood, music was pervasive in Chaplin’s life: both his parents were music hall performers, and he acquired an unconditional, lifelong love for this art form. In fact, he spent his first wages on a violin. Beginning with City Lights in 1931, Chaplin As a self-taught musician, Chaplin needed composed the scores for all his films as arrangers to write down his compositions; he released them, and then returned to he was inflexible in his ideas, and legend score some of his previous works. He was has it that he often gave his arrangers an absolute perfectionist and a precise, a hard time, determined to impose his determined and demanding creator of own musical structure. He threw himself melodies. For weeks, once filming had wholeheartedly into the process and spent ended, he would meet daily with his much precious time on composition. The arranger in a screening room equipped score for City Lights was completed in six with a piano, a phonograph and an audio weeks, with Arthur Johnson writing down recorder. the melodies that Chaplin invented and hummed. 4 The subtle synchronisation of image and ‘You are instinctively a music was a constant priority for Chaplin: musician and a dancer’ : music enhanced the rhythm and tone of As early as 1910, the visionary French the images. ‘I can’t compose the music composer Claude Debussy discerned without seeing the images,’ he confided in Chaplin’s potential as a versatile artist. the columns of the magazine Paris Match. To write his scores, he would sit at the At the Manoir de Ban, his home for nearly living-room piano while Oona operated a quarter of a century, Chaplin spent much the 16mm projector, and he would stop, of his time composing original scores for go back and play a sequence as many his silent films. The charm of The Kid, times as necessary, with the help of Eric A Dog’s Life, The Pilgrim, Pay Day, A James, who was his arranger for over Day’s Pleasure, Sunnyside, Shoulder twenty years. Once the music was written Arms and The Idle Class owe a great deal down, Chaplin went to London or Paris to to the melodies he created for those films. record it. No stage of the creative process The same is true of the films he worked on escaped his control and, when it was over, in his later life, A King in New York and he sometimes held test screenings at the A Countess from Hong Kong. Cinema Rex, in Vevey. From City Lights (1931) to A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), Chaplin Export Co Ltd © Roy experimented with different musical ensembles, from jazz bands to symphony orchestras.