Petr Wajsar - The City without Jews
(music for a 1924 silent film)

Premiere: Spanish Synagogue, October 13, 2014
... within a joint project by the BERG Orchestra and the Jewish Museum in Prague

Like many of my colleagues, I’ve been asked by a number of Prague’s film clubs to accompany a silent-film screening on the piano. So when BERG Orchestra commissioned a score for this film, it did not take long for the entire concept of the evening to come to me (actually, it did, but it sounds much better to say it didn’t). The idea came to me at a music festival where there was a sound installation with an old upright piano that you could play. I spent many long intimate moments with the piano nostalgically recalling bygone eras, and caught in its spell, I decided it should have a solo part in the score. The composition literally calls for an out-of-tune piano so that the authenticity of the sound would have the greatest effect.

PLEASE NOTE: you are listening to live recording from the premiere

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