November 1, 2009: The mysterious Hans Erdmann

Last night at Davies Symphony Hall I learned why it had been so difficult for me to find any information about Hans Erdmann and the score he composed to be performed at screenings of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (translated in the program book as "Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror").  In the introductory chat delivered by organist Dennis James before last night's screening, I discovered that only about twelve minutes of Erdmann's score has been recovered, not very much to cover a film that runs about one and a half hours.  Thus the statement in the program:

Score by Hans Erdmann, arr. Dennis James

is not particularly accurate.  However, the truth turned out to be almost as interesting.

James explained that he was in Toronto performing Francis Poulenc's organ concerto when the Toronto Film Festival arranged a screening of a restored print of Nosferatu.  The plan was to have a pianist improvise while the film was screened;  but, after seeing the film itself, the pianist gave up and backed out of the project.  James accepted the invitation to provide an organ accompaniment in place of the piano, and the story of his relationship with this film began.  Having had so little time to prepare, he worked with what he knew, which happened to be Poulenc's score.  As anyone who has heard the opening bars of this concerto knows, this was a pretty good judgment call;  so James got the job done basically by fantasizing over Poulenc for the duration of the film.  It was only later that he would encounter what little of Erdmann's music has survived;  and over the years he has concocted a score of his own that weaves Erdmann and Poulenc together with several other sources, many of which, such as the "Dance Macabre" of Camille Saint-Saëns and Paul Dukas' "Sorcerer's Apprentice," add to the generally French bias of the music.

As is often the case with projects like this, some decisions work better than others.  We should all thank the Scheduling Fates for putting Poulenc at James' disposal when he was first summoned to this task.  Played with the full force of the Davies organ, it immediately sets the mood for a "symphony of horror," thus liberating us from the tired organ cliché of the opening measures of the D minor toccata by Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 565).  On the other hand it has become impossible to listen to Dukas without seeing Mickey Mouse and his army of mops (just as it is impossible to listen to the overture to Gioachino Rossini's William Tell with a straight face any more);  and the misfit of those spritely passages triggered a burst of audience laughter.  However, since the spirit of the evening had more to do with high camp than with film history, that laughter was far from the only instance and not particularly out of place.

That spirit was further sustained by percussionists Mark Goldstein and Todd Manley.  They were not responsible for filling in missing percussion parts in James' arrangement (even in the Poulenc portions).  Rather, they provided sound effects, following a tradition that goes back at least to the days of radio drama if not common practice in silent films.  (Most of the "Mighty Wurlitzer" theater organs have built-in percussion;  and James has considerable experience with these instruments, including the one in our own Castro Theatre.)  Many of those sounds had a comic side, which I assume was deliberate.  When it was a matter of enhancing the "symphony of horror" mood, Goldstein drew upon the electronic technology of Ed Buchla in the form of the Buchla Lightning Wands.  (According to James, Buchla was on hand to enjoy the performance.)

Some day some musicologist may finally turn up the entirety of Erdmann's conception for Murnau's creation;  until then, James has homed in on an alternative that is both suitable and delightful.