Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Schlafes Bruder by Robert Schneider
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Schlafes Bruder by Robert Schneider Robert Schneider's Schlafes Bruder — A Neo-Romantic Musikernovelle? ICH WEIß NICHT, irgend jemand hat geschrieben, das sei Biedermeier. […] Gut, kann man schreiben. Ich würde sagen, Romantik und nicht Biedermeier. Es ist in viel höherem Maße ein romantisches Buch.” The book in question, which none other than Marcel Reich-Ranicki labels a Romantic book in his “Literarisches Quartett,” was one of the rare literary successes of the 1990s in German-language literature, and the fact that it was given the full treatment on television is certainly indicative of the dimensions of this success. Schlafes Bruder (Brother of Sleep, 1992), the first novel of the Austrian writer and musician from the region of Voralberg, Robert Schneider, was first rejected by twenty-three publishing houses, before being finally published by Reclam Leipzig in 1992. It became an immediate and overwhelming success with the reading public and the majority of critics alike. To date it has sold over 1.4 million copies in the German-speaking world and has been translated into more than twenty- four languages. What was it that gripped the imagination of its readers to such an extraordinary extent? Schlafes Bruder tells the story of the musical genius Elias Alder, who is born into the remote hamlet of Eschberg in deepest Voralberg in the early nineteenth century. In a sublime, but also deeply terrifying experience, he is initiated into the music of nature and, through this, endowed with a unique musical talent. SCHLAFES BRUDER. The film is based on a very successful novel of recent years, written by Austrian writer, Robert Schneider. It tells the story of a man torn between his love for a woman and the musical genius that consumes him. Schneider is a novelist and playwright who had won numerous prizes for Schlafes Bruder , including the prestigious Robert Musil Prize of the City of Vienna and the French Prix de Medici. The book has been translated into 24 languages. Schneider also wrote the screenplay. Directed by Joseph Vilsmaier, the film features the richly-detailed production design of Oscar- winner Rolf Zehetbauer. Vilsmaier recreates life in a remote alpine village at the turn of the 19th century where Elias Johannes Alder is born. The boy possesses a luminous musical gift which is seared into his soul at the moment of his birth. This power frightens and fascinates the villagers of Eschberg except for Peter, Elias' only friends. The two boys spend clandestine nights in the town church, where Elias spontaneously creates masterful pieces on the church organ. When Elsbeth, Peter's sister, is born, Elias is drawn to a lake where all the sounds of the universe crash in on him in a powerful and terrifying epiphany. He emerges bound both physically and spiritually to Elsbeth and mysteriously connected to the timbres and frequencies of the world around him. As the three grow older, their consuming passions become tragically intertwined with jealousy and loyalty, culminating in a destructive rage which tears the village apart. For Elias, love, like music has finally become an act of fevered, exquisite madness. Schlafes Bruder is a film of haunting intensity and sweeping romanticism. Vilsmaier tells the story of Elias with a startling acuity that melds the harsh realism of this isolated hamlet with a profound mysticism that is both poetic and brutal. This film is an unforgettable blend of rapturous, exalted music, palpable visual images, and a cast that seems transported from another world and time. Schlafes Bruder - The soundtrack. Schlafes Bruder. 01. deine wille geschehe 02. damals 03. fahrt nach feldenberg 04. erste liebe 05. peter 06. am stein 07. kurzes glück 08. meine wille geschehe 09. abschied von eschberg 10. erinnerungen 11. erster schatten 12. der letzte wille des elias alder 13. zweiter schatten 14. komm oh tod du schlafes bruder 15. elsbeths lied. Work on the soundtrack was not always as satisfying as the presented result. The burden of the material, from which the novel by Robert Schneider is woven, weighed on our minds. The fate of Elias crept into our souls, and Joseph Vilsmaier's powerful images played their part in intensifying the atmosphere in the studio to an almost unbearable level. To that was added the plurality of opinions from the camp of experts. It was a struggle for air and light. Nonetheless, or perhaps therefore, it was an unforgettable time. I'm thinking just of the snowy winter nights in the mountains, as the stars touched the peaks and together with Norbert Schneider the theme developed; or the two mystical nights in the Salzburg Cathedral with Harald Feller at the organ; or of the recordings in Munich with Norbert conducting the orchestra. There were moments in which time stood still. I wish you an intense listening experience, as it was for us all. Harald Feller und Hubert von Goisern. Norbert J Schneider. An extract from an interview with the director, Joseph Vilsmaier: "The strongest manifestation of the film's mystical depths is the "Hörwunder" (the Wonder of Hearing). How did you go about translating this in cinematic terms?" "With fear, at first. We were trying for months, threw it out, tested again. Hubert von Goisern for example strongly believed in something like a Tibetan choir, like spherical sounds. What didn't we try! The postproduction process was immense, including the work with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. We worked on it excessively and only stopped once we thought 'now we've got it'. Several times I was reminded of a sensation I experienced in the preparation of the film: We were driving as high as 10,000 feet in the Alps to scout locations. In some of the villages that were truly in the middle of nowhere, we were met with total rejection. We were standing in empty streets, all the houses were locked, yet we felt very clearly that hundreds of eyes were watching us from behind those closed curtains. " The score for Brother of Sleep was written by Hubert von Goisern and Norbert J. Schneider. Harald Feller was responsible for all the organ passages. On these tracks Hubert provided vocals and the acoustics and also played the flute and the archaic drum. Norbert J. Schneider was responsible for all the electronic keyboard instruments as well as the strings and the wind arrangements for the members of the Munich Philharmonic (whom he conducted). Matthias Loibner played the barrel organ and former Alpinkatzen members Wolfgang Maier and Sabine Kapfinger played the toms and sang respectively. Soundtrack Reviews. Forget everything you've heard previously from Austrian Hubert von Goisern. The soundtrack to the Vilsmaier film has nothing, nothing at all to do with the music from the folk rocker hitherto. Here one finds sound sequences, organ music and orchestral sounds which, at the first go, astonish and repel, but also achieve their impact even without having seen the film. An instrumental listening experience away from all current trends, but all the more impressive. 5 stars. Aschaffenburger Stadtmagazin, February 1996. Schlafes Bruder is not just the name of the new film from Josef Vilsmaier, based on the novel by Robert Schneider, but also the title of the soundtrack by and with Hubert von Goisern, developed under energetic collaboration with Norbert J. Schneider. The film starts on 5th October in more than 200 German cinemas, the premiere in Austria was around a month ago, and there Schlafes Bruder stands at number 1 in the cinema charts. The now released film music is only identical in part to the original soundtrack. It has been partly re-recorded and mixed by Wolfgang Spannberger and Klaus Strazicky, as well as some parts being extended. Musik Markt, 23rd October 1995. "Yeah, who says now that the dissolution last year was just a promotion gag?" some people will probably now be thinking. But far from it, although "Hubert von Goisern" is written in big letters on the CD case, Schlafes Bruder has very little in common with the Goiserer's Alpinkatzen time. There are indeed alpine sounds in this film music, but he holds back with the rock. Rather more, there are worlds of sound without vocals. Von Goisern has an excellent grasp, like a painter, of how to portray whole landscapes with his music, which are at times dark and sad, in the next moment monumental and at the same time oppressive, enormously emotionally charged. Blizzards CD-Kiste, 1995. Boxoffice Movie Review. Only a small step shy of utter magnificence and more than deserving of its foreign-language Oscar nomination, the latest from Joseph Vilsmaier (the vigorously moving Stalingrad ) recalls the best days of Peter Weir - the early era of his brooding and otherworldly Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Last Wave . There, Weir was able to make perceptible a level of reality too ethereal to be pictured, and here Vilsmaier matches him with an ability to make the metaphysical terrene. That said, Vilsmaier and scriptwriter Robert Schneider (adapting his novel Schlafes Bruder ) also effectively mix in a contrasting muck of soap-opera dramatics, establishing their tale as one all too sadly of this earth. Brother of Sleep , a story whose most important element will be almost orgiastic keyboard music, opens with a spectacularly chilling silence: High in the Alps, in a tiny and forsaken mountain village in the 1800s, a baby emerges stillborn from his mother (Michaela Rosen). Flustered by death, the hapless midwife (Regina Fritsch) begins to sing Te Deum - and the baby comes alive. Grown, the boy Elias (Kaspar Hauser's Andre Eisermann) - so strangely different that the townspeople treat him scornfully when they venture close enough to treat him at all (even his mother says his gaze makes her shiver with the fear that he was born of the "cold sperm" of Satan) - exhibits a talent beyond perfect pitch.