„For his congenial accompanyment Buchwald did not require a major orchestra.  He simply sat down at his grand piano, laying his violin case beside it. Again and again it is baffling, how with the most basic means, he is able to translate the language of moving pictures into vibrating music 
The puffing and stomping of the steam engine, the rattling of the wagons, the sliding past of the landscape, the dancing ups and downs of the telegraph wires; even with one's eyes closed one could easily imagine what was happening on the screen."

Schwäbische Zeitung


„ ... incredible performance - I wanted to congratulate you, it was great!“    
K. Guyonvarch, Chaplin Association Paris


Cineastic Masterpiece Congenially Accompanied
Berlin - Symphonie der Großstadt,



"....incredible his ability to add a major musical scope to the movie plot..."
Int. Filmfestspiele Berlin



UNFORGETTABLE
Bonn: Silent Movies with Music

"The supreme event of the "silent movie days" was the unsurpassed interaction of film and music at the performance of Stiller's HERRN ARNES SCHATZ (1919)
[Mr. Arne's Treasure] ... by the unique concur of Neil Brand on the grand piano and Günter A. Buchwald on the violin. It was utterly fascinating to experience how both musicians enhanced one another and fused together in an improvised interplay which reached the power and the volume of an actual orchestra. One would have given a great deal to retain this moment of perfect fusion of pictorial narration and music.

But the music ceased unrecorded and thus, there remains only the memory of an evening, the aura of which lingers with anyone who  has experienced it himself. Unforgettable."

Ulrich von Thüna, epd film 10/2001



STIRRINGLY INGENIOUS INTERPRETATION

Silent movie METROPOLIS with musical accompanyment

"...The film is one part of what happened on that evening. The other part came from Günter A. Buchwald, the narrator at the piano: authentic to life and most meticulously Buchwald comments the movie plot. He does so not only by means of his keyboard but ... also by unusual tones of the resonance case, not to mention his virtuoso play of the violin. Eerily ingenious..."
SÜDKURIER, 10.10.1996



CONGENIAL SOUND TRACK
The Cabinet of  Dr.Caligari

"... set the prelude to a small series of silent movies

In addition to the visual pleasure was the acoustic one. Günter A. Buchwald a designated  expert  of silent film music delivered with his band a congenial sound track, which was a great deal more than just background music."
Bad. Neue Nachrichten 22.1.1996



THE POWER OF TONES
The Galilean

"Buchwald is a master of the play with subtle nuances, reacting as quick as lightning to dramaturgic alterations and succeeds in improvising of the appropriate music for even the slightest movement of an actor's hand. He composed the music for  "The Galilean" so as not to intensify the clearly antisemitic tendencies. Therein also lies the true power of the tones."  
Bad. Zeitung 24.7.1998



ORGAN GIVES VOICE TO THE FACES

La Passione de Jeanne d'Arc  /  Nosferatu

"Buchwald in his improvisions of the organ contrived to trace both the  course of  the plot and  the psychological constellations. This was not  simply a doubling of the motion pictures but an intonation right to the point, which was created by a counterpoint joining both picture and tone.
The sound of the facial expressions were set up by Buchwald through which he created a magnificently profound psycological  acuity."
 WAZ, Bochum 4.5.1999



THE ORGAN DEPICTS LANDSCAPES OF THE SOUL
La Passione de Jeanne d'Arc  /  Nosferatu

"...The organist supported the characters and musically contrasted them from each other. Through this empathetic music the films appeared to be reborn.
Ruhrnachrichten 4.5.1999


MODERN MUSIC
The Maiden Sumiko

"As accompanist of silent movies, the pianist and violinist Günter A. Buchwald is one of the most innovative and renowned musicians in Europe...from 25 scenic movements he developed an exceptionally versatile film scores. Overall Buchwald has achieved an impressive piece of modern music with a variety of
melodic elements conveying an exceptional timbre.
in FILM Juni/Juli 2000



EXCEPTIONALLY STIRRING MUSIc
The Maiden Sumiko

"In several film accompaniements (incl. retrospectives at the "Berlinale") the musician from Freiburg gave proof of a rare intuition for the symbiosis of vision and sound, which as a matter of course prohibits any exploitative dominance of each of both arts....

He played a music against all clichés, which is usually associated with Japanes tonal culture.
The music connects the atonality of the Moderns with echos of Asian pentatonalitiy and symphonic late Romanticism....
an inobtrusive music which
precisely because of this fact attains an enthralling quality and ...which is enduring without pictures even.
in: FILMDIENST 22 ; Oktober 2003



To be continued...