Symphonie Diagonale [1924] by Viking Eggeling with music by Erwin Schulhoff [1920-1924]

Viking Eggeling and Erwin Schulhoff compared. Viking Eggeling (1880-1925) was a Swedish avant-garde artist and filmmaker connected to dadaism, Constructivism, and abstract art and was one of the pioneers in absolute film and visual music. His 1924 film Diagonal-Symphonie is one of the seminal abstract films in the history of experimental cinema. A tilted figure, consisting largely of right angles at the beginning, grows by accretion, with the addition of short straight lines and curves which sprout from the existing design. The figure vanishes and the process begins again with a new pattern, each cycle lasting one or two seconds. The complete figures are drawn in a vaguely Art Deco style and could be said to resemble any number of things, an ear, a harp, panpipes, a grand piano with trombones, and so on, only highly stylized. The tone is playful and hypnotic. Eggeling began work on Symphonie diagonale in 1921. Paper cut-outs and tin foil figures were photographed a frame at a time. The final version of the film was shown in 1925 at the first international avant-garde film show at UFA's theatre Kurfürstendamm in Berlin. 16 days later, Eggeling died of blood poisoning. Erwin Schlhoff (1894-1942) was one of the figures in the generation of European musicians whose successful careers were prematurely terminated by the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany and whose works have been rarely noted or performed. He was one of the first generation of classical composers to find inspiration in the rhythms of jazz music; he Schulhoff also embraced the avant-garde influence of Dadaism in his performances and compositions. The premiere of the String Sextet was given by the Zika Quartet on the 19th of July 1924 at the Donaueschingen Festival of Contemporary Music - none other than Paul Hindemith played the second viola part while his brother, Rudolf Hindemith was the second cellist. The Sextet is dedicated to Francis Poulenc. This recording by Ensemble Alraune is included in the album "Musica e Regime 2" → https://www.novantiqua.net/prodotto/M... "Musica & Regime” is a long-term project to rediscover music banned during the Nazi regime. We hope you like this "dadaist" combination we have chosen between Viking Eggeling's images and Erwin Schulhoff's String Sextet, 2nd movement "Tranquillo (Andante)".