»DER SCHATZ« | »DAS GEHEIMNIS DER MARQUISE«

Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Fritz Lang's great antipode whose films plumbed the human and sexual depths, succeeded in creating a work of refined clarity with his film directorial debut. In expressionist settings reminiscent of Paul Wegener's »GOLEM« of 1920, medieval superstition meets new objectivity.

During the retreat of the Ottoman Turks from the Bal- kans in 1683, a treasure is said to have been buried in the old bell-founder's house. The youthful goldsmith Arno comes to the bellfounder's house and quickly wins the heart of the house's daughter. Much to the annoyance of the journeyman Svetelenz. The courtship of the daughter triggers a treasure hunt in which the divining rod succumbs to modern mathematics. A symbolic battle, at the end of which everything old is buried under rubble of the house.
For the world premiere of the flick in Dresden, composer and early Schoenberg student Max Deutsch composed an opulent and sophisticated score for cinema orchestra in consultation with the director. For the restoration of the film in 1999, Frank Strobel reconstructed the score, which the composer titled »Film Symphony in 5 Acts,« and which can be performed without the film.
The concert opens with a piece of advertising history: a Nivea commercial from 1921, staged on the anima- tion table by animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger. The orchestral music for this was written by the Weimar silent film musician Richard Siedhoff 2021.