The Film Music of Edmund Meisel (1894–1930)

The Film Music of Edmund Meisel (1894–1930) FIONA FORD, MA Thesis submitted to The University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy DECEMBER 2011 Abstract This thesis discusses the film scores of Edmund Meisel (1894–1930), composed in Berlin and London during the period 1926–1930. In the main, these scores were written for feature-length films, some for live performance with silent films and some recorded for post-synchronized sound films. The genesis and contemporaneous reception of each score is discussed within a broadly chronological framework. Meisel‘s scores are evaluated largely outside their normal left-wing proletarian and avant-garde backgrounds, drawing comparisons instead with narrative scoring techniques found in mainstream commercial practices in Hollywood during the early sound era. The narrative scoring techniques in Meisel‘s scores are demonstrated through analyses of his extant scores and soundtracks, in conjunction with a review of surviving documentation and modern reconstructions where available. ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for funding my research, including a trip to the Deutsches Filminstitut, Frankfurt. The Department of Music at The University of Nottingham also generously agreed to fund a further trip to the Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin, and purchased several books for the Denis Arnold Music Library on my behalf. The goodwill of librarians and archivists has been crucial to this project and I would like to thank the staff at the following institutions: The University of Nottingham (Hallward and Denis Arnold libraries); the Deutsches Filminstitut, Frankfurt; the Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin; the BFI Library and Special Collections; and the Music Librarian of the Het Brabants Orkest, Eindhoven. This thesis has been greatly enhanced by the generosity of many researchers and practitioners of silent-film music. In particular I would like to thank Alan Fearon for allowing me access to his scores, programmes and posters, and for sharing knowledge gained during his reconstructions of Meisel‘s scores to Battleship Potemkin and October; Tony Fletcher for British cinema journal sources on Meisel in England; Helmut Imig for information regarding his Potemkin reconstruction; Nina Goslar of ZDF/ARTE for information on the restoration of October with Meisel‘s score reconstructed by Bernd Thewes [forthcoming, 2012]; Professor Douglas Kahn for directing me to an online copy of his article ‗Eisenstein and Cartoon Sound‘; Naum Kleiman for providing an electronic copy of his published commentary on Eisenstein‘s sound notes to The General Line; John Riley for sharing his research on musical performances at the Film Society; Professor Vincent Porter for alerting me to Thorold Dickinson‘s account of the Film Society performance of October; Martin Reinhart and Thomas Tode for sharing their research materials regarding Meisel‘s sound films; Doctor Emma Sandon for the reference to Thelma Gutsche. Acknowledgement is made to Martin Reinhart for permission to reproduce the photograph in Figure 12.1. It has proved impossible to trace or contact the copyright holder for the photograph reproduced as Figure 8.14. If notified, the author will be pleased to rectify any errors or omissions at the earliest opportunity. I would like to pay particular thanks to Doctor Sarah Hibberd, my co-supervisor, whose interest in melodrama opened my eyes and ears to the roots of silent cinema accompaniment, and to my supervisor, Professor Mervyn Cooke, whose approach perfectly suited my manner of working. His MA seminar on ‗Shakespeare at the Movies‘ was primarily responsible for kindling my interest in film music. And finally to my daughters, Zoe and Hazel, for putting up with my academic idiosyncrasies, and to my husband, David, whose technical wizardry enabled several successful conference presentations and the layout of this thesis. iii Abbreviations and acronyms ARTE Association Relative à la Télévision Européenne (Franco-German TV network) BFI British Film Institute, London BIFD British International Film Distributors BTP British Talking Pictures FEKS Factory of the Eccentric Actor IAH Internationale Arbeiterhilfe (the International Workers’ Aid) KPD Kommunistische Partei Deutschland MGG Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Finscher 2001) MOMA Museum of Modern Art, New York RCA Radio Corporation of America RGALI Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, Moscow SWR Südwestrundfunk (German public-service broadcasting corporation) Ufa Universum Film AG ZDF Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (German public-service television broadcaster) iv Notes o Film titles are given in full on their first occurrence but are abbreviated thereafter where possible. Where necessary, distinction is made between releases of the same film in different countries under different titles. o Screening times of silent films have been estimated using the Film Measurement Tables in Cherchi Usai (2000: 170–4). o Specific references to pages from Meisel‘s extant piano scores are prefixed by the abbreviation PS, to distinguish these from page references to literature. o Meisel‘s extant piano scores are riddled with errors and inconsistencies. Where extracts have been reproduced, the most obvious errors have been amended without further comment. o The author-date system is used to acknowledge the majority of citations. Dates for newspaper articles are rendered in the expanded format of year-month-day where possible. Similarly, some journal articles from the 1920s and 1930s (for example from Close Up) are rendered in the format year-month. This enables greater chronological accuracy in the bibliography when listing multiple articles occurring within a narrow timeframe, many of which are anonymous. o Footnotes are used for additional clarification where necessary, but these have been kept to the bare minimum. o All translations from the German originals are my own unless otherwise stated. o Author pseudonyms have been included in the bibliography where known. o Full details of archival sources pertaining to Meisel‘s time in England are collated in Appendix V. This lists items from the BFI collections for the Film Society, Ivor Montagu and James Anderson, together with documents housed in Oswell Blakeston‘s papers at the University of Texas. Within the thesis, the reference numbers for these documents are prefaced by the abbreviations FS, IM, JA and OB respectively. v Table of Contents List of Tables .............................................................................................................. ix List of Figures ............................................................................................................. x INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 12 PART ONE. CONTEXTS 1 A Bibliographical Survey ............................................................................... 18 Biographical data 18 Letters, articles and press reports 20 Formative critiques by German contemporaries 22 Eisenstein on Meisel 25 Core film-music texts 27 2 Meisel’s ideal film score ................................................................................. 31 Berlin‘s West End: Filmpaläste and orchestral accompaniment 33 A brief history of original scores in Germany 35 Improvisation 35 Kompilation or Illustration 36 Autorenillustration or Originalkomposition? 39 The presence of narrative scoring techniques 43 Leitmotif systems 44 Exact illustration of the image 47 Mickey takes the blame 51 3 Meisel and the stage: An overview ................................................................ 55 PART TWO. 1926: FROM REVOLUTION TO ROMANTICISM 4 Panzerkreuzer Potemkin: Harnessing the power of empathy ...................... 60 Berlin premiere and reception 64 Extant sources 70 Print restorations and score reconstructions 72 Analysis 79 Leitmotifs 80 Ostinati: The Odessa Steps massacre and the squadron encounter 89 Sound effects and musical illustrations 99 Borrowed materials 100 Harmonic and melodic language 102 5 Überflüssige Menschen ................................................................................. 104 6 Der heilige Berg: Romantic yearnings ........................................................ 109 vi Censorship history 111 Extant sources and reconstructions 112 Analysis 114 Leitmotifs 115 Diegetic music 121 Simulated speech and vocal gestures 124 Sound effects and musical illustrations 130 Rising sequences 132 Cross-cutting to demonstrate parallel action 136 Lasting impressions: hypermodernism or kitsch lyricism? 139 PART THREE. 1927–1928: RHYTHM AND NOISE 7 Berlin. Die Sinfonie der Großstadt: Extrinsic Modernism ........................ 142 Ruttmann‘s optical music 142 Premiere and reception 147 Extant sources and reconstructions 151 Analysis 155 Comparisons with the scores to Entr‟acte and Ballet mécanique 162 Berlin beyond Berlin 164 8 October: ‘A thousand bars that shook the eardrum’................................. 166 Meisel in Moscow 167 Premiere and reception 169 Extant sources and reconstructions 175 The Film Society performance 176 Restoring the film: Alexandrov 178 Reconstructing the score: Kershaw and Fearon 180 Analysis 183 Sequences 184 Caricatures 191 Visible sound 199 Meisel‘s sound recordings for Schwejk 204 Was Eisenstein a co-composer of the score? 213 PART FOUR. 1928–1929: THE TRANSITION TO SOUND 9 Deutsche Rundfunk / Tönende Welle ..........................................................

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