20102011 SEASON GUIDE - Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra

SOUNDBYTES
Chaplin’s Modern Times
THURSDAY, APRIL 14 I 8:00 PM
- 32 - 2010 I 2011 SEASON GUIDE
“I go to a lot of movies, and I can't
remember the last time I heard a
paying audience actually applaud
at the end of a film. But this one
did. And the talk afterward in the
aisles, the lobby and in line at the
parking garage was genuinely
excited; maybe a lot of these
people hadn't seen much Chaplin
before, or were simply very happy
to find that the passage of time
have not diminished the man's
special genius.”
– Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times
There is no other movie experience like sitting in front of a large screen in a theatre,
watching a silent film, listening to the movie score and then leaning forward in your
seat only to realize that a 65-piece orchestra is performing all the music and sound
effects! Charlie Chaplin’s classic film Modern Times (1936) is the pièce de résistance!
Sound had come to the movies in 1927 but Chaplin resisted it, instead using music
to express everything in the film. The only speaking in Modern Times comes through
electronic devices (phonograph record; PA system) so as not to humanize person-toperson
spoken contact, which is much of the story.
Chaplin spent many hours in the recording studio getting the music exactly right,
creating specific musical moments to fit the hundreds of physical motions on the
screen. This is evident when the WSO performs this demanding music score live with
the film!
Modern Times marked the last screen appearance of the Little Tramp – the character
which had brought Charlie Chaplin world fame, and who still remains the most
universally recognized fictional image of a human being in the history of art.
Charlie Chaplin: Modern Times (film with orchestra)
Richard Lee, conductor