Nosferatu–eine Symphonie des Grauens (A Symphony of Horror)
Live musical accompaniment performed by Brendan Cooney (piano), Larry Goldfinger (clarinet), Shunjoo Cho (accordion), Carlos Santiago (violin) and Chris Coyle (bass).
Brendan Cooney (West Philadelphia Orchestra, City Wide Specials, Noggin Hill, Rhinoceri Trio) brings a new original live score for FW Murnau’s classic German expressionist film Nosferatu. Cooney’s original score is heavy in gypsy and klezmer motifs, giving the score a distinctive old-fashioned Eastern European sound. It also makes wide use of dramatic horror-camp effects, avant-garde improvisatory vocabulary, and classical idioms.
Nosferatu was based (without permission) on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. While the story remains essentially the same, Max Schreck’s portrayal of Orlok/Nosferatu set the bar for vampires to come. The film is ranked twenty-first in Empire magazine’s “The 100 Best Films of World Cinema”.
dir. FW Murnau, Germany, 1922, DVD, 94 mins, b/w, silent w /English intertitles
