ECM Records - ECM and Motion Picture

ECM and Motion Picture

The label has a special relation towards film and directors. Founder Manfred Eicher himself is a very passionate movie viewer and directed in 1990 an adaption of Franz Kafka’s Holozän together with Heinz Bütler. The label has also released some soundtracks e.g. for The Return (2003) by Andrey Zvyagintsev or Nouvelle Vague (ECM NewSeries 1600-01) and Histoire(s) du Cinéma (ECM NewSeries 1706) by French-Swiss director Jean-Luc Godard. This collaboration expanded over the years and led on the one hand into the contribution of several stills from Godard’s movies for covers like Morimur (ECM NewSeries 1765) by Christoph Poppen, Asturiana - Songs from Spain and Argentinia (ECM NewSeries 1975) by Kim Kashkashian or the 2011 Live at Birdland (ECM 2162) by Lee Konitz/Brad Mehldau/Charlie Haden/Paul Motian. On the other hand Eicher took over the musical direction of many of Godard’s films like Allemagne Neuf Zéro, Hélas Pour Moi, JLG or Forever Mozart. Besides these Eicher was also the head behind the music of Xavier Koller’s Reise der Hoffnung, Sandra Nettelbeck’s Mostly Martha and the Oscar-nominated documentary War Photographer by Christian Frei. Additionally Godard has released a collection of short films on the label with Anne-Marie Miéville called Four Short Films (ECM 5001).

Apart from her own work Greek composer Eleni Karaindrou wrote soundtracks for stage and for movies which includes Ulysses' Gaze (1995), Eternity and a Day (1998) and The Dust of Time (1999) among other by filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos released on ECM. The swiss actor Bruno Ganz who has also worked with Angelopuslos has recorded two spoken word-albums for the label: one in 1984 with poems by Friedrich Hölderlin (ECM NewSeries 1285) and one in 1999 called Wenn Wasser Wäre (ECM NewSeries 1723) with works of T.S. Eliot and Giorgos Seferis. Another nameable release is the record Scardanelli (ECM 1761) with texts and music from Harald Bergmann’s film of the same name from 2000 which reflects the work of Hölderlin in his last years. In the title role it features Austrian actor Walter Schmidinger who’s reading the poems and texts on this record taken from the movie. In fall 2012 ECM released a record called Turmgedichte (ECM NewSeries 2285) by actor/voice actor/vocalist Christian Reiner also with poems by Hölderlin.

Furthermore ECM has some projects and albums dedicated to people in the motion picture. For example Italian piano player Stefano Battaglia pays tribute to the work of director Pier Paolo Pasolini on his 2007 Re: Pasolini (ECM 1998-99). Its cover pictures a still from Pasolini’s 1964 The Gospel According to St. Matthew. Polish jazz trumpeter Tomasz Stańko recorded in 1994 Matka Joanna (ECM 1544) as an homage to Polish film director Jerzy Kawalerowicz's movie Matka Joanna od Aniołów (1961). Three years later on his 1997 Litania: Music of Krzysztof Komeda (ECM 1636) Stańko honors the work of another countryman and film composer Krzysztof Komeda who is widely known for the scores of several films by Roman Polanski but was also a jazz pianist. The album Dans la Nuit (ECM 1805) by French woodplayer Louis Sclavis who has also worked as a film composer is a new score for Charles Vanel’s 1930 silent movie Dans la nuit. The French pianist Francois Couturier has dedicated a couple of his works to the Soviet/Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. This includes pieces on his 2010 solo record Un jour si blanc (ECM 2103) and the albums Nostalghia - Song for Tarkovsky (ECM 1979) from 2006 as well as the Tarkovsky Quartet (ECM 2159) from 2011 - both with photographs and movie stills of Tarkovsky in the booklet. Other examples of works dedicated to the director are the piece Eight Hymns in memoriam Andrei Tarkovsky by composer Stevan Kovacs Tickmayer which can be found on Gidon Kremer’s 2010 Hymns and Prayers (ECM NewSeries 2161) or 3rd Piece by Jan Garbarek on his solo record All Those Born With Wings (ECM 1324).

The connection with motion picture spanned further and reached also the design of the booklet of Mnemosyne (ECM NewSeries 1700) by Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensamble – the successor of their highly achieved Officium (ECM 1525). It includes stills from The Seventh Seal (1957) by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman.

There is also a documentary by Peter Guyer and Norbert Wiedmer called Sounds and Silence (2010) which portraits exemplary the daily work of Manfred Eicher with various musicians including Arvo Pärt, Nik Bärtsch, Anouar Brahem, Dino Saluzzi and Anja Lechner, Jan Garbarek and Kim Kashkashian or Gianluigi Trovesi and Gianni Coscia. The soundtrack with tracks from the recording sessions seen in the movie was as well as the documentary also released on ECM called Music for the Film - Sounds and Silence (ECM 2250). Besides this one ECM has also released concert videos of Karaindrou, Keith Jarrett solo and with his Standard Trio.