Andrew Earle Simpson
Maudite Soit la Guerre [A Curse on War] (silent film music)
| Instrumentation |
piano |
| Duration |
45' |
| Film Date/Studio |
1914, Belge Cinéma Film |
| Director/Actors |
Alfred Machin, dir. |
| Movements |
N/A |
| Premiere |
4/2/06, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
| Performers |
Andrew Simpson, pno |
| Commissioned by |
National Gallery of Art |
| Recording |
N/A |
| Publication |
Composer |
| Performance History |
|
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mp3 sample |
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Film synopsis and musical notes
A film made in Belgium in 1914 (a country which would feel the ravages of war completely during the German army's advance through its territory in that year), the story depicts the love of a Belgian girl and a foreign officer. The foreign officer, stationed in the country before war started, suddenly finds himself an enemy. He leaves to join his own army: during the bitter fighting which ensues, he is unknowingly killed in battle by his friend from pre-war times.
The Belgian girl, in the meanwhile, has been approached by various suitors, including a young officer-candidate. Her father approves the match, but she still loves her foreign soldier. At the film's climax, she learns of her beloved's death in a cruel and ironic manner. The officer-candidate, during one of his ardent meetings with the girl, presents her with a trophy from the war, which he retrieved from an enemy corpse: it is the locket which she had given her beloved as he left for war!
The distraught girl wanders through the forest and finds a convent, where she promptly petitions for, and gains, acceptance into the cloistered order, thus closing the door to earthly love.
The high romantic, melodramatic nature of this film naturally suggested an equally high-flown, Romantic rhetoric, which appears in the piano writing.
