Forthcoming in the Archive: "On scoring Sir Arne", "Synchronising Sir Arne in Paris" and "An experiment in Live Silent Film Interpretation in Berlin"

From the Swedish film journal Chaplin, a conversation with Matti Bye.

"The Silent Film Pianist's Mecca: Wet shoes, a village idiot, a solo piano in a stream of images, the memories, Cecil B. De Milleís daughter, impassioned nostalgics, and grappa at the bar."

(It is the silent film festival in Pordenone, and Matti Bye is there with wide-open senses.)

It rains a lot in Pordenone, and my shoes leaked. I bought an umbrella and stuffed paper in my shoes. This is where you can come if you're a silent film pianist and want to meet colleagues from different parts of the world. All week long silent films are shown nonstop from nine in the morning till two at night. All the films are shown with live music, improvised or newly composed. First and foremost by piano, but occasionally with large orchestra, harp, synthesizers, vocal music or Hammond organ.

The silent film festival in Pordenone began in 1981 with eight in attendance. This week over 500 people from all over the world have come here. The festival's founder, Livio Jacob, explained one evening how the idea came about. After the large earthquake in Udine a film technician traveled around with a projector and showed silent films on the walls in the ruins. Livio was one of the viewers, and the atmosphere around these late-night film screenings was so special that he promised himself that he would found a film festival with only silent films in his hometown Pordenone. The festival week is in the middle of October, and you notice that you're in the north of Italy. Round the town lie snow-clad mountains, and it can be quite cold; it feels good to go into a café and drink something warm! The first person I met in Pordenone was Gianni, who sat down at my table and said he was very, very tired. Suddenly he bursts into a fit of rage and overturns the coffee table. The owner chases him out and apologizes, explaining that Gianni is the village idiot.

"Voglio una donna"

I play to two films: Ingeborg Holm and Les Enfants de Paris. It's a large movie theatre, and in the orchestra pit there is a grand piano on which a little TV screen sits where the pianist can see the film. I've played Ingeborg Holm before, but I know nothing about the other film. In this situation it's easy to be a bit nervous; you can't do anything to prepare yourself. It will be a surprise, and you have to be ready for it. In one stroke the whole scene can be transposed. Your eyes rest on the screen the whole time and all at once you're into a new musical track. Sometimes you're surprised yourself. Film is a melodrama with beautiful, lyrical images, something lovely to play music to. A scene on a hillside: he's fishing. She's barefoot in the water, furiously washing a white nightdress. By accident the fishhook snags in her skirt, and he unexpectedly reels her in. She's hopping mad. He offers her an apple, and they sit side by side, looking straightforward with thankful eyes eating the apple. Then they look slowly at each other, and you can see how their lips for an "I love you". The film and music get their bearings and find each other after a time.

"He work, you play"

In the lobby of the movie theatre there's a bar where you can find the film pianists standing and whispering secrets to each other. You slip away from the theatre for a time to lift a glass and swap tricks and compare notes. The older Irish pianist looks a little dizzy after his performance: "It was nervous I was for itís been a whole year since I played the piano. I injured my hand," he says and orders a grappa. Every night ends with a screening of the first sound tests on film. It can be someone telling an amusing story or imitating a quacking duck or rattling off words. The films are comic in their clumsiness. Sound became a sensation, and the images came second. The 80-year-old Wurlitzer-organist Bernard Drukker gave a guest performance one evening and later that night related his memories from the 1920s. How he, as a 15-year-old played at the cinema Tuchinski in Amsterdam and how he had an assistant who took care of the sound effects on an Allefax machine. It had everything: pistol shots, running water, the thudding of machines, traffic noise, hoof beats, the sound of flames. Bernard didn't like that you often played well-known melodies to the films. It distracted the audience and caused them to associate what they were seeing with other experiences. "The music should convey, not dominate." Bernard remembers film palaces with large organs that rose up from the cellar to a lightshow. "Every organist had his own theme so that the audience would know who it was who was playing that particular evening."

The festival has a group of loyal pianists who come back every year: Carlo Moser, Neil Brand (London), Philip Carli (U.S.A.), Antonio Coppolo (Italy), Fernard Shirren (Brussels), and Gabriel Thibaudeau (Montreal). Some of these pianists improvise in an impressionist/romantic style, particularly to the melodramas. Others have a more playful style, a blend of Mozart and ragtime that works well with the comedies. The grand piano begins to get warm. The festival is of course also a cineast's dream. Pallid men, secretly in love with the film stars, sit there in the darkness. Impassioned nostalgics with film eyes. I meet an oddball from London who tells me where they play music continuously to silent film. "In Hollywood, New York, London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Rome, Montreal and Stockholm." Then he says, "Have to go, it's time for the afternoon ice cream." And he stalks off. We wave a recognition to each other. The Swedish cineast has completely bloodshot eyes by the end of the week. "I haven't missed a single film," he says proudly. "I can believe that," I think. You don't need to see all the films. You can go to Venice for a day and get lost if you want to or eat chestnuts with someone.

It's the final night and the whole orchestra is in place. Carl Davis conducts the Ljubljana Symphony Orchestra. We're not far from Sarajevo and the hotel is full of NATO troops. The residents of Pordenone are all dressed up and perfumed with program in hand. The whole family goes to the movie theatre. The film that will be shown is a comedy, The strong man with Harry Langdon. The movie theatre is full and the atmosphere is full of expectation. People go in and out to buy something at the bar. Cecil B. De Milleís daughter delivers a certificate: "From my little town, Hollywood, to your little town, Pordenone." The eight old men who were the audience at the first festival are called up and come bashfully onto the stage and each receives his certificate. They totter down to the floor and titter a little embarrassedly. The film is about to being and before Carl Davis raises his baton there is an almost ghostly mood: the sound of the projector, churchbells outside, and the black-and-white pictures on the screen. Someone shouts "Silenzio!" and the orchestra begins to play. Then the film suddenly comes back to life. It is a fantastic experience; the music is the link between the screen and us, who sit there in that exact moment. All drama and passion happen here almost wholly without words, only by means of music and pictures

"Keep your hands off that piano"

Suddenly the door opens and in comes the village idiot, Gianni, with a determined step. He spits and snorts and throws his money menacingly. Then he notices the film and begins to watch the screen with wide eyes while he saunters in the direction of the orchestra pit. Wait a minute, hello, stop! Too late. He tumbles down with a crash among the tympani, and the guard runs up and throws him out. After the film several of us gather in the bar on the other side of the theatre. The journalists write so that their pens burn and the musicians roar. It's the last night of the festival, and tomorrow we go home and Pordenone returns to normal.

Original music for silent film has become an art form in itself, and Matti Bye is a veteran in this field. For eleven years he has played piano to silent films at the film institute. Pretty soon he began to avoid seeing the films in advance but improvised directly from the screen. There he developed a dramaturgical fingertip sensibility. Sometimes he follows the film's action and mood faithfully, sometimes he strokes the moods against the grain and makes his own commentaries when he let the rough-riding Ku Klux Klan members in The Birth of a Nation be accompanied by quiet funeral music instead of a hoofed tramp. The music Matti Bye composed for Mauritz Stiller's masterwork Herr Arnes Penningar has a large dramaturgical intelligence and an independent bearing that enriches and deepens. The music feels as though it were composed in several layers, one for keynotes, one for commentary, a small and witty layer for pure Mickey Mousing, one of a leitmotif character where not a musical motif but a special instrument characterizes a person. The six musicians play thirteen different instruments and their combinations include among other a string trio and a solo for musical saw.

Calle Pauli - From Dagens Nyheter Stockholm 03.12 (On Sir Arne's Treasure)

The film was accompanied by six musicians who played newly written music by Matti Bye. Sometimes a harmonium dominated, to be replaced in the next sequence by a cello and harpsichord. Besides acoustic instruments the ensemble used electronic, which they brought together in a neat alliance. Very beautiful and functional. The final result premiered before a full theatre at Filmhuset (The Film House) in Stockholm. The well-pleased audience applauded wildly and whistled. I heard one cry after another of "Bravo" after the screening.

Jan Göransson, World Online (On Sir Arne's Treasure)

Matti Bye's music is just there, from the first second to the last. The music follows the film, or is it the film that follows the music? They are as if made for each other. Matti Bye shuffles and deals. Sometimes the music is frightening and threatening, sometimes in love and playing lightly.

Louise Florin, Gotlands Tidningar (The Newspapers of Gotland) (On Metropolis)