PSB Potemkin news...
Posted: Thu 15 Sep 2005, 6:49 pm
BBC news website
Pet Shop Boys bid for Battleship tour
The Trafalgar Square screening tied in to anti-war protests last year
British duo the Pet Shop Boys have expressed their hopes of touring with their soundtrack to the classic Sergei Eisenstein film Battleship Potemkin.
Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe first gave a public performance of the soundtrack at a free concert in London's Trafalgar Square in September last year, alongside a screening of the 1925 film .
At the time, the concert was linked to anti-war sentiment in the UK capital.
Tennant told BBC World Service's The Music Biz programme he was hopeful of taking the performance on tour - specifically to places where the film's message could be highly sensitive.
"We would love to do it in other, specifically political places - I think to do this in Tiananmen Square would be incredible; to play the Odessa staircase sequence where that terrible massacre happened," he said.
"I don't think they'd ever let us do it - which is interesting, because it's a Communist regime, and it's a supposedly Communist film.
"We have actually approached Iran, to perform in Tehran with this. Of course Tehran is nominally a revolutionary society - but they're not having it."
Music and images
The duo, who first achieved success in the 1980s with hits such as West End Girls and It's A Sin, recorded the soundtrack with the Dresden Sinfoniker orchestra.
Battleship Potemkin, which details the brutal suppression of the Russian Revolution of 1905, was originally a silent film - but it was the wish of director Eisenstein that it have a new soundtrack every 10 years.
Some critics were unimpressed by the new soundtrack
Most existing copies of the film are either silent or feature a version of Dmitry Shostakovich's 5th Symphony spliced to fit the scenes.
Tennant also told The Music Biz why the duo originally took on the job.
"We don't really ever have the opportunity to write a long piece of music - 70-odd minutes long," he said.
"Originally we were asked to do it and perform it as a free concert in Trafalgar Square. It seemed an amazing thing to be asked to do... there's something about the epic scale of it that appealed to us."
Lowe explained that the soundtrack was crafted on keyboards, working to fit the music to the images.
"The screen was totally in sync with the music that we were creating.
"The images suggested certain types of music, for instance Full Steam Ahead, where the ships were going at full speed... we used that as a starting point using all sorts of industrial sounds.
"The images kind of suggested the musical style that we would be doing."
Pet Shop Boys bid for Battleship tour
The Trafalgar Square screening tied in to anti-war protests last year
British duo the Pet Shop Boys have expressed their hopes of touring with their soundtrack to the classic Sergei Eisenstein film Battleship Potemkin.
Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe first gave a public performance of the soundtrack at a free concert in London's Trafalgar Square in September last year, alongside a screening of the 1925 film .
At the time, the concert was linked to anti-war sentiment in the UK capital.
Tennant told BBC World Service's The Music Biz programme he was hopeful of taking the performance on tour - specifically to places where the film's message could be highly sensitive.
"We would love to do it in other, specifically political places - I think to do this in Tiananmen Square would be incredible; to play the Odessa staircase sequence where that terrible massacre happened," he said.
"I don't think they'd ever let us do it - which is interesting, because it's a Communist regime, and it's a supposedly Communist film.
"We have actually approached Iran, to perform in Tehran with this. Of course Tehran is nominally a revolutionary society - but they're not having it."
Music and images
The duo, who first achieved success in the 1980s with hits such as West End Girls and It's A Sin, recorded the soundtrack with the Dresden Sinfoniker orchestra.
Battleship Potemkin, which details the brutal suppression of the Russian Revolution of 1905, was originally a silent film - but it was the wish of director Eisenstein that it have a new soundtrack every 10 years.
Some critics were unimpressed by the new soundtrack
Most existing copies of the film are either silent or feature a version of Dmitry Shostakovich's 5th Symphony spliced to fit the scenes.
Tennant also told The Music Biz why the duo originally took on the job.
"We don't really ever have the opportunity to write a long piece of music - 70-odd minutes long," he said.
"Originally we were asked to do it and perform it as a free concert in Trafalgar Square. It seemed an amazing thing to be asked to do... there's something about the epic scale of it that appealed to us."
Lowe explained that the soundtrack was crafted on keyboards, working to fit the music to the images.
"The screen was totally in sync with the music that we were creating.
"The images suggested certain types of music, for instance Full Steam Ahead, where the ships were going at full speed... we used that as a starting point using all sorts of industrial sounds.
"The images kind of suggested the musical style that we would be doing."
