Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980)
Blackmail (1929)
– World premiere of the Film Concert with new film music for orchestra UA by MORITZ EGGERT (*1965)
Titus Engel, conductor
Blackmail is a British thriller from the year 1929, masterfully narrated by Alfred Hitchcock. Remarkably topical in its theme, Hitchcock tells in this silent film classic a veritable #metoo story under the prevailing conditions of the time. He has his main character successfully fight against the many different forms of male intrusiveness and blackmail – and does this through striking images that remain impactful to this day.
In a co-production with ZDF and ARTE, the Basel Sinfonietta presents the new film music for Hitchcock's crime film commissioned from the German composer Moritz Eggert.
Moritz Eggert, who calls himself the “Bad Boy of New Music”, mercilessly takes aim at stereotypes of new music and relishes in satirizing them. To Hitchcock's classic he has written a deliberately humorous, above all emotional music “from the gut”, which also takes on an artistic independence and pays homage to the film composer Bernhard Herrmann, whom Eggert deeply admires.
The Basel Sinfonietta envisions and contrasts Hitchcock's silent film with Moritz Eggert's music. An evening at the Burghof Lörrach mirroring past and present, film and contemporary music – and revealing the relevance of yesterday in today.
Pre-concert talk at 6:15 pm
Shuttle bus to Burghof Lörrach free of charge for subscribers
In cooperation with ZDF/ARTE and 2eleven music film and the Burghof Lörrach
UA World premiere
Program subject to change