Transcript Die Sonate vom Guten Menschen The Sonata

Bach
minuet
forte
flat
extract
bar
theory
Handel
major
fin.
The Lives of Others
Das Leben der Anderen
How does the music evoke emotions within
the audience of the film?
Gabriel Yared
Lebanese composer
• Born in 1949
• Composed the soundtrack
for The Lives of Others
• He originally wrote the
score for the movies Troy
and The Tourist but had
them rejected after poor
audience reception
6. Die Sonate vom Guten Menschen
The Sonata for a Good Man
“The film had a secondary title, ‘Sonata
for a Good Man’. This underlines what
a central theme music is to the film.”
- Quirin Berg
Producer
6. Die Sonate vom Guten Menschen
The Sonata for a Good Man
Sonata Form:
1. Exposition
2. Development
3. Recapitulation
6. Die Sonate vom Guten Menschen
The Sonata for a Good Man
• Semi-discordant
• Heavy-handed/unrestrained
• Atonal
Not a classically ‘beautiful’ piece, but takes on a different
definition of beauty
Absence of music
Almost as important as its presence?
• Every Stasi related scene is accompanied by a lack of
music (and colour, and every possible form of art)
• Same case for early scenes involving Wiesler
• Symbolic of lack of
brightness in East
German life
1. Die Unsichtbare Front
The Invisible Front
4. Der Verrat
The Betrayal
7. IM “Martha”
• Key signature of G Minor
First chord
• First chord = tonic third inversion / Ic
• Second chord = A Major
(tonic first inversion / Ia)
Second chord
• Theatre scene, when Wiesler begins to suspect Dreyman
is ‘not as clean as he appears’
• Stasi team bugs Dreyman’s apartment
• Wiesler starts to phone the border control to report
Dreyman, but stops himself
• Grubitz suspects
Wiesler of betrayal
Cadence
(Conflicting and eerie chord changes)
Ostinato
(Constant repetition of a rhythmic motif)
Timbre
Imitation
Suspension
= Musical tension
“Film music is no more than
wallpaper, filler material.”
- Igor Stravinsky
Influential 20th Century composer