Terje Vigen / Silent Film with Live Music / Stummfilm mit Live-Musik: A Man There Was

During the Napoleonic Wars, the British blockaded the Norwegian coast. In 1809, fisherman Terje Vigen is caught rowing to Denmark to find food for his family and imprisoned in England. When he returns home many years later, he discovers that his family did not survive the naval blockade. When an English yacht gets into distress just off the coast, Vigen confronts a desire for revenge … This film version of the dramatic maritime tale taken from Henrik Ibsen’s poem is closely oriented to the illustrations that Norwegian artist Christian Krohg (1852–1925) did for the verse epic. Critic Eckart Jahncke said "The images of the landscape, the stormy seas and the steep cliffs, the bleak bluffs and the local fishing huts, the impenetrable fog and the endless horizon, are images of human emotions and passions”. 

Under the baton of Prof. Franz Danksagmüller, students from the Lübeck Academy of Music course programmes church music and instrumental organ improvisation and composition will accompany the classic film, which has been restored in color. Partially composed and partially improvised, the musical pieces showcase not only drums and vocals, but also unusual instruments: a 3D keyboard that allows for particularly expressive music, and a feedback organ, which produces notes primarily via feedback between the microphones and loudspeakers.