Modern Times

Yesterday morning we had a slow start to the day after a late bedtime the night before.  In the early afternoon we drove into Brussels to attend a concert at the Flagey studio 4 concert hall.

The Brussels Philharmonic is a fabulous orchestra that also has developed a reputation as a top film music orchestra.  The silent film The Artist won five academy awards in 2011, and was nominated for ten; the Brussels Philharmonic was the orchestra that recorded that year's best original score.  Yesterday we saw them play the music for Charlie Chaplin's last silent film, Modern Times (1936), and it was really very beautiful.

goofing off in the lobby

Tel fils, tel père

I had seen the iconic bolt-tightening scene, which has been spoofed many times, very memorably by Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance in the famous chocolates scene from I Love Lucy.

What I hadn't realised was that Chaplin not only wrote, directed, acted in, and sang in the film, but he also composed the score.  Conductor Dirk Brossé made a very touching gesture at the end of the concert: after the orchestra with its featured solo instrumentalists had all taken their bows, a photograph of Chaplin himself was projected onto the screen, so he got the last bow.

When operas are staged, after the singers/actors have all taken their bows in turn, the chorus usually is next, and then the chorus master; then the musical director comes out and bows; then the staging director is the last one to come to the stage.  I have often felt that the composer and librettist should be the last ones to come out, or if they are no longer living, we should have their photographs shown.  I was made very happy that the Brussels Philharmonic did this.