Arthur Kleiner

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Arthur Kleiner (born March 20, 1903 in Vienna ; † March 31, 1980 in Hopkins , Minnesota , United States ) was an Austrian theater, dance and film composer . He specialized in the dubbing of silent films according to original instructions as well as in the new dubbing of silent films without preserved original templates, thus gaining international recognition. He set a total of around 250 silent films to music, including many classics such as Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (D 1920), The Birth of a Nation (USA 1915) or Battleship Potemkin (SU 1925).

Life

After completing his piano and organ studies at the Vienna Academy for Music and Performing Arts , Arthur Kleiner composed initially for the theater and for modern dance. He worked with Max Reinhardt for a few years and was responsible for the compositions of some of his plays, such as A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Salzburg Festival in 1933. He was also active as a composer and pianist in close collaboration with the dancer and choreographer Rosalia Chladek.

After the connection of Austria to Germany in March 1938 Small fled to the United States . In New York he found a place to stay as a rehearsal pianist for the choreographer George Balanchine . He recommended him to the British film critic Iris Barry , the curator of the film library currently being built at the Museum of Modern Art . There he had to improvise the piano accompaniment to Thomas Edison's short film The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots (1895) at the audition . He received an engagement for three months, extended and finally stayed for 28 years.

He was promoted to music director in the film department and specialized in silent films. He began with an intensive search for original backgrounds of the studio composers, for manuals or original instructions for the film pianists in the cinemas. If original compositions were destroyed or could not be found, Kleiner wrote the music himself. He composed over 250 scores, cues, reworkings or instrumentations for silent films from different countries and genres: From Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's Faust (D 1926) to Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of the Maiden of Orléans (F 1928) and the Battleship Potemkin (SU 1925), Edmund Meisels' original version was lost in World War II, including comedies by Buster Keaton . In addition to his work for the film library, he also set two plays for Broadway , two short documentaries by James Agees and works by Agnes de Mille .

Kleiner gave lectures on film music and performed as a live pianist at film festivals in Europe and North America.

After retiring, he moved to Hopkins, Minnesota. There he continued to work with the local Walker Art Center , the Tyrone Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, and the University of Minnesota Film Society. Arthur Kleiner was considered "the greatest man in his field".

His collection, the Arthur Kleiner Collection , of around 700 silent films created by others and himself, was donated to the University of Minnesota by his wife after his death.

Settings

Some of the silent films set to music by Arthur Kleiner based on original templates or his own composition:

Awards

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rudolf Ulrich: Austrians in Hollywood. New edition, Verlag Filmarchiv Austria, Vienna 2004, p. 233
  2. ^ A b Arthur Kleiner Collection , University of Minnesota, 2007
  3. ↑ Pandora's Box , www.filmzentrale.com (page accessed on August 6, 2007)
  4. ↑ List of winners of the Medal of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria . Retrieved December 9, 2015.

5. Dance compositions by Arthur Kleiner in the Vienna Dance Archive at the MUK (Music and Art Private University of the City of Vienna)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Little one, Arthur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian-American film composer
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Austria
DATE OF DEATH March 31, 1980
Place of death Hopkins , Minnesota, United States