Fritz Lang's Metropolis screened and re-scored at Proms at St Jude's

Back in 1927, movies were accompanied by a score, and Gottfried Huppertz's lush, operatic treatment is among the best.

Finchley composer Ben Palmer conducts it regularly at Berlin's Babylon Cinema, which was built two years after the film came out.

The score will have its UK premiere on June 26 at St Jude on The Hill (Image: Courtesy of the Proms at St Jude's)

"It's our party piece," he says. "We do it three or four times a month, but we did it so often that I thought 'maybe we can make a better version, a new cut to fit the film better.'"

He's always been frustrated by the gap between Huppertz' original manuscript and the film. When the long running time was criticised at its German premiere, Metropolis was substantially cut, making it hard to match the score with the frames.

The score was also for a small orchestra where "everyone is playing all the time because some cinemas couldn't be sure that the oboe player would turn up," so Palmer wanted to "refine the orchestration to make something more subtle."

Ben Palmer is a Finchley-based composer and conductor who is personally authorised by John Williams to conduct his film scores. (Image: Arturs Kondrats)

His new version with Babylon Orchester Berlin's artistic director Hans Brandner, has its UK Premiere at Proms at St Jude's in Hampstead Garden Suburb.

It restores the two and a half hour run time of the film, which is set in a futuristic urban dystopia where capitalists rule over the city of Metropolis, and Freder, the wealthy son of the city's master, tries to connect with the oppressed workers who live in an underground inferno.

"There will be people who have seen a few stills but what is astonishing when you watch it all is how this German expressionist film has influenced every sci-fi film since 1927," says Palmer.

"Terminator, Blade Runner, couldn't exist without Metropolis. Its reach is incredible. Even C3PO in Star Wars is a geeky, gawky version of the beautiful female robot Maschinenmensch.

Fritz Lang's influential masterpiece was a huge budget movie with pioneering special effects. (Image: Courtesy of the Proms at St Jude's)

"And that's also true of the music. This thing we know of as the Hollywood sound had its origins in 1920s Germany."

Palmer, who is personally authorised by John Williams to conduct his film scores, is something of an expert with a repertoire of more than 35 films and huge performances at the Royal Albert Hall under his belt.

"Silent films were performed with live music; someone playing the piano, organ or an orchestra would have a book and a score which would say 'love music,' 'folk music' or 'fight music'. They would use famous melodies, like the theme from Romeo and Juliet to explain to the audience what was going on. When film-makers realised the influence this had, how music could change the meaning of their film, they wanted a score that was intended for their film."

Huppertz was the leading film composer of his day and Palmer says his work on Metropolis is "as good as Wagner, or Strauss."

"It's an astonishing through-composed lush Wagnerian orchestral score in three acts, like an opera. Sonically it's like being at the opera, without the voices."

Although he's seen it a hundred times, Palmer never tires of the film.

"It's hugely entertaining, I am still obsessed with it, and really excited to see it with this new version."

Weimar Germany saw a flowering of Modernist and Expressionist architecture, painting, literature, and film making, yet it segued into the atrocities of the Nazis.

"With its message to be nice to each other, Metropolis is an incredibly humane film that ends in a hopeful way," says the dad of two.

"There's none of that 1930s threat that we all know about. Maybe that's why Germans are so proud of the art and film from this time because it's unsullied by what happened in the next 15 years."

Ben Palmer conducts the Covent Garden Sinfonia at a screening of Metropolis at St Jude on The Hill on June 26 as part of the Proms at St Jude's festival.