„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...