Some four thousand years ago Joseph walked the sands of Egypt, and much, much later Juris Karlsons trod those same paths – he had already trodden them in the early 1980s, when the Daile Theatre staged Rainis’s “Joseph and His Brothers”, and out of that production’s music there grew, some decades later, “Joseph’s Visions” – a work full of distant mysteries and starry radiance. The second half of the concert brings Edgar Allan Poe’s tale of horror about the fall of the House of Usher, set in striking, sinister black-and-white light and shadow by the French film impressionist Jean Epstein.
Regular LNSO concertgoers will have noticed that once a season the orchestra screens masterpieces of silent cinema and plays the musical accompaniment. This time the choice has fallen on the iconic silent classic of 1928, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, directed by the French film impressionist Jean Epstein (Epstein). The film is based on Edgar Allan Poe’s horror story of the same name. The screenplay was co-written by Luis Buñuel.
For this concert the film’s soundtrack has been assembled from works by several French composers – ClaudeDebussy, Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger and Maurice Ravel. Written before 1928, these pieces are typical of the symphonic landscape of their time and fit the atmosphere of mystery, dread and drama that Epstein conjures up. It is fascinating to watch these scenes with modern eyes and to compare what counted as an ideal of beauty and what seemed terrifying 90 years ago.
The music has been selected and arranged by the internationally sought-after Latvian conductor Ainārs Rubiķis, a man with a true feeling for the theatre, who will also conduct the LNSO on this cinema evening.
The evening’s special treat – in the first half of the concert we will hear Juris Karlsons‘s striking and exotic soundscape “Joseph’s Visions”, which paints the mysteries of ancient Egypt and whose soloist is Daumants Kalniņš.
An hour before the concert, at 6 p.m., Dāvis Sīmanis and Ainārs Rubiķis will talk about the choice of film in the Pre-concert Conversations (free entry on presentation of a concert ticket).
Daumants Kalniņš – baritone