On October 14, 2015 (yes, 2015...you remember back then in the old days), an Unknown (aka Jack Bone) visitor to NSS queried in the comments to a
Nash the Slash post Soixant-Neuf:
"Hey buddy (I guess that's me???
) you wouldn't happen to have Nash's soundtrack to Nosferatu?"
Well, I didn't, but I've been looking ever since & finally got a copy. Don't know if Unknown Jack Bone is still looking or will find out that I (finally) replied, but as I love all things NtSlash, here it is.
Released on Nash's own label, Cut-Throat Records ( "Music in a particular vein"),
Nosferatu is Nash the Slash's soundtrack recording to the 1922 German silent expresionist horror film
Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (translated as Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror; also known as Nosferatu: A Symphony of Terror or simply Nosferatu) directed by F. W. Murnau & starring Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok.
Nash vividly enhances the dramatic building of suspense & impending doom inherent within Murnau's reinterpretation of the Count Dracula story, capturing the romantic & tragic essence of the tale. Nash primarily uses synthesisers, drum machines, & samplers on this project (along with a haunting Romanian choir) to match the graininess of the deteriorated visuals & the feel of the time period. He superbly spotlights the recurrent themes & motifs within the film, revisiting them in various iterations to develop narrative continuity (particularly for Nina, variations on Gabriel Urbain Fauré's
Requiem [tracks 2, 4, 18, & 30] & Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns'
Danse Macabre [tracks 19 & 23]). The soundtrack never overpowers or draws attention away from the screen, but instead moodily adds to the total experience.
Nosferatu has almost certainly had more restored releases than any other silent film. Including all the illegitimate copies of the Atlas version, there are a vast number, likely in excess of a thousand, of cheap home video editions. The original film was 63 minutes, which matches Nash's soundtrack. If you want to try watching the movie sync'd to the music, there are basically five versions:
the 1965 Atlas Film version based on MoMA's print;
Elite version January 2000;
Diamond Entertainment version July 2002 with replacement pipe organ score;
& Madacy versions March 2003
& August 2004.
The Atlas version is a copy of the most complete copy extant, which was obtained by New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1947. That copy is derived from a French print from the late 1930s/early 1940s, in very good condition overall. The French version is a copy of a Czechoslovakian export print from the 1920s that was seized by the Nazis, now lost. The background story of this print has only been unravelled in recent years so many sources still refer to it as a 1926/27 "second French version". The Czech version had been shipped to the Cinémathèque Française. At the French archive the German intertitles were replaced with French ones, after which the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) got a copy that had been preserved at the Cinémathèque Suisse.
On acquisition, MoMA (in all probability through their then film curator Iris Barry) replaced the latest French intertitles with English ones in anachronistic 1927 Futura font &, as per Nosferatu's first US screenings in 1929, all the character names were reverted to the ones of the original novel: Count Orlok becomes Count Dracula; Ellen & Hutter become Nina & Jonathon Harker; Knock becomes Renfield; etc.
So the intertitles have been translated from the original German into Czech, back into German, then into French, & then finally into English… Yet somehow they still make sense!
So turn down the movie volume (it's a Silent Film, fer Satan's sake), crank up the soundtrack volume, kick back, light up, & enjoy.
Nash's world premiere performance was on Thursday July 13, 2000 at the Grand Theatre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The male choir was recorded live in Brasov Orthodox Cathedral, Romania by Dmitri Vole.
tracklist -
Murnau's Vision
Nina & Jonathon
Renfield's Scheme
"Don't Worry Nina"
Foreboding Journey
Jonathon Awakes
The Land of Phantoms
"You are Late"
Blood
Letter to Nina
"What a Lovely Throat"
Fear & Premonition
Sense of Menace
The Crypt
Dracula Packs
Rats
Venus Flytraps & Other Vampires
Nina Among the Dunes
Fatal Breath
Renfield's Master
Dracula Unpacks
Nosferatu
The Ship of Horrors
Drum Alarm
The Book of Vampires
Plague
Renfield's Revenge
Nina's Trance
Sacrificing Nina
The Morning Sun
Enjoy,
NØ
