The new piano work created at the direction of Turner Classic Movies ( TCM ) that will substitute for the score made under the supervision of Rick Schmidlin will not be a new score in the full sense of the word. According to Steve Sterner he created four unique new themes for the movie. In August he recorded the music for the 71 minute movie improvising and changing tone, keys, speed and mood as he went along and added bits and pieces from other works of his as well. He felt this kept it from being repetitive, which was the main critique of the music as supervised by Rick Schmidlin.
The actual sheet music can be seen on the Houdini Museum website. None of the themes are any more than about 10 to 32 bars so it is not a full score. Steve, being an accomplished silent film accompanist was able to weave these throughout as the film moves along. In 2013 The New York Times had a feature story about Steve Sterner calling him "Piano Man of a Silent Screen" "one of the last remaining silent-film accompanists" Other information about the showings on Turner Classic Movies on October 18 can be seen here;
http://houdini.org/houdinigrimgamemusicrickschmidlin.html
If anyone sees both showings please let us know here what you think of each.
Dorothy Dietrich and Dick Brookz
|