The Hands of Orlac (Orlac's Hände)

[silent film, Robert Wiene, 1924]

live-music: Prefarkt by IzP [2007]

duration: 99'

[first performed: dec 5th 2007, Essen / Germany]

FILM: 

A surgeon attempts to transplant two hands; the patient is the pianist Orlac, who is seriously injured. The operation should symbolize hope for him, however his new hands are the hands of an executed murderer.

MUSIC:

Orlac’s oppressed condition, which concentrates over the course of the entire film, and his body, which increasingly nears the brink of having a heart attack, form the emotional tissue of the film music. Compositional decisions were influenced by the idea of the ways in which a surgeon might work on a damaged body.

Music for amplified accordion, electric bass, keyboard, live electronics, acoustically “preserved” metal chimes, and prerecorded sound.

film music's review (in German)

[translated by Eric Flesher / USA]