Der Herr Der Ringe- Live in Munich!

Thursday, March 25, 2010:

Inside Munich's most famous concert hall, the Gasteig, the Munich Symphony, along with an addition choir and children's choir, performed the entire and complete score to Lord of the Rings: Return of the King live while showing the film on a big screen above the orchestra.

Neil is an Australian colleague of mine. In addition to teaching English, he also plays percussion with the Munich Symphony. On Thursday he was able to get me a free ticket to the dress rehearsal of the event. To see it in concert would have cost €41 - €78.

There were probably around 100 performers on stage in addition to a children's choir sitting above in the balcony. There was only a handful of people, mostly students, in the audience and I got to pretty much sit wherever I wanted.

After the lighting was adjusted and everything properly set up, the movie began and the orchestra played along...

The movie was in English with German subtitles. The dialogue and sound effects were still there, but of course, the music soundtrack was removed.

The conductor was a Swiss guy named Ludwig Wicki. Apparently he has done these concerts a few times over the years with different ensembles.

He had a small screen with a click track of the movie and the score in front of him. It was an enormous challenge to keep time with all of the cues of the movie, but they did really well especially considering it was only a rehearsal...

There aren't many movies where such a program would be possible, but with the Lord of the Rings movies there is almost constant music. Other than a 15 minute intermission, the orchestra had very few breaks for the 3 1/2 hour duration of the film.

It was interesting to hear new things in the score that I hadn't ever noticed with the original soundtrack recording. They had excellent soloists as well, particularly the solo soprano. Neil told me that some of the performers, like the pan piper, performed on the original soundtrack that you hear in the movie.


I actually couldn't stay for the entire thing, so I left after the ring was destroyed. Here's a higher-up view of the stage...

And a little crap-cam montage of some scenes...

So... another cool experience in Munich!

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