Interview on the world premiere of *Berlin Symphony: A Metropolis* on 10 April 2002, Berlin, Staatsoper Unter den Linden
Lasse Ole Hempel in conversation with Iris ter Schiphorst, 17 July 2001, Berlin
QUESTION: How does the collaboration with Thomas Schadt work? Is it the case that, as composers, you base your work on the images you’re presented with, or do you instead propose musical themes yourselves?
SCHIPHORST: Both. Otherwise, we simply wouldn’t be able to complete the project on time. We have to be finished by September, as that’s the only way the whole musical logistics can work. Our composition will be published as a score and comprise almost seventy parts. Then the individual parts still need to be edited. The whole thing has to be with the orchestra by the end of the year. That means that even when we’ve finished our work, Thomas (Schadt) won’t be quite ready yet. So we can’t wait for his material; it’s up to us to set the parameters.
QUESTION: How does your working method differ from that of the film director Schadt?
SCHIPHORST: As musicians, we must adhere to a musical dramaturgy; it isn’t film music in the sense that we’re trying to write music that gives priority to the images as discreetly as possible. According to the original idea, the end product is intended to be a complex Gesamtkunstwerk, which only achieves a dramatic narrative through the power of the images and the music. In that respect, we cannot think on such a small scale as film sometimes has to … with cuts and so on, but must always try to think in terms of the grand symphonic arc.
QUESTION: So do you see yourselves as part of the tradition of the musical symphony?
SCHIPHORST: Yes, absolutely. The title is certainly binding for us. How this will be realised in detail is … if you think, for example, of the movements: in a classical symphony, these are strictly separated from one another … whether that can work for us as well remains to be seen. That, too, depends on the images and the form the film will ultimately take.
QUESTION: Do you think the music in this project can take on a similar significance to the images?
SCHIPHORST: It must. Otherwise, the project will fail. It’s designed in such a way that the music also has the strength and power to carry the film throughout its entire length. Viewers and listeners who expect to be presented with pure film music will be taken aback by this symphony. Because when the subject is Berlin, the music mustn’t merely support the images in a complacent way; it must set its own accents and make its own statement. And on the subject of Berlin – what is it today, what does it sound like today? What are the sounds of this city? That has to be included, of course; anything else would be rubbish.
That’s why, alongside the traditional line-up of a symphony orchestra, there’s an electric guitarist, an electric bassist and a drummer – so that we also have the opportunity to switch genres, which is important for this city, i.e. to incorporate a different musical culture. To achieve this, the entire orchestra is electrically amplified, meaning each instrument is picked up by a separate microphone. There’ll be Dolby Surround sound. This is easy to achieve in a cinema – but producing it live for an orchestra is a very difficult undertaking. On the one hand, the electrical amplification allows us to influence the sound as a whole, for example to vary the pitch. On the other hand, the traditional orchestral sound, as heard in a normal concert hall, is a sound that belongs to the 19th century and was created for that very purpose. But our listening habits are now completely different; we’ve been thoroughly spoilt, in part, by hi-fi and Dolby Surround. If we were simply to let these 69 musicians play without giving amplification a second thought, there would be disappointment, because everyone would have different expectations of how it should sound and would think: ‘What on earth is that?’ Today, we have to take into account that our ears have changed. Besides, electrical amplification naturally also has a very strong aesthetic component: it allows you to bring the sound to life much more vividly or to make elements that are normally barely audible come through very clearly … you can quite simply tell the story differently. Even delicate, subtle sounds have a whole new impact when they’re amplified.
QUESTION: What role does the SWR Symphony Orchestra play in this?
SCHIPHORST: This orchestra is a leading name in new music. It covers a large proportion of the funding and logistics for the entire project. We also have to cater to this orchestra. We can’t just write some slapdash film music for them … they’d be completely underchallenged and disappointed. Because that wouldn’t be their field. They are fantastic, highly qualified musicians who naturally expect us to write something that stands the test of time and isn’t merely there to accompany three or five scenes.
QUESTION: How do you go about reinterpreting the classical form of the symphony?
SCHIPHORST: Unlike a hundred years ago, there are now countless approaches within contemporary music. On the one hand, we’re fans of certain kinds of rock music and jazz; on the other, we’re fascinated by classical and contemporary music, by serial music, John Cage, Stockhausen and so on. For some, serial thinking is still very influential; others define themselves through literary postmodernism and say: “Anything is possible; you can use anything. It’s all just quotation anyway.” I think both Helmut and I are relatively traditional. We really do want to tell a story, and we’re dead serious about it.