CLoSer: The New Babylon

City of London Sinfonia's informal concert series, CLoSer, visits the movies with a live showing of the 1929 silent movie, The New Babylon, with the Orchestra performing Russian composer, Dimitri Shostakovich's original film score.

The film, set in the 1871 Paris Commune, tells the tale of the encounter and tragic fate of two lovers separated by the Commune barricades. Exploring the violence, revolution and class-conflict of the time, Shostakovich wrote this, his one and only silent film score, for a small screening in Moscow. Written before Stalin and his censors deemed jazz a ‘degenerate' music, it is filled with jazz and cabaret inspired music and shows Shostakovich at his most wild and satirical.