The versatile and creative drummer Claude Bussard plays to selected songs by Peter Thomas and enriches them with his own fills and beats. Our drummer is embedded in a unique animation by the Brazilian animator Lucas Schwantes. He has managed to thematically illustrate and lovingly animate each song. The camera work is done by the wonderful Tina Schück, who brought a lot of patience and tact to the production of the clip.
We have illustrated a total of five titles from films for which Peter Thomas, wrote the music. Would you recognize these melodies?
Here Philip Thomas presents one of the winners of the competition with his prize in person in Berlin. Many thanks to Thomas M. for participating!
The EUROPEAN FILMPHILHARMONIC INSTITUTE inspires its audiences in Germany, Europe and all over the world with the contemporary art of symphonic film music.
Its services range from the research and provision of film and music material to its own creative overall productions of film concerts and film music concerts.
In this context, the EUROPEAN FILMPHILHARMONIC INSTITUTE will sift through, edit and digitally record the existing musical material of the composer Peter Thomas. This will make his musical legacy accessible to a wider audience of artists and art lovers. Many thanks to Beate Warkentien for making this possible.
The collaboration with the European FilmPhilharmonic Institute began 20 years ago. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the television series RAUMPATROUILLE – DIE PHANTASTISCHEN ABENTEUER DES RAUMSCHIFFES ORION, the feature film version of the cult series was made, which was released in 2003. This was the first German sound film to feature full-length live musical dubbing. The original music has been rearranged for big band and made available for the first time for a live concert. An absolute world premiere! Here are a few impressions from the performance with Peter Thomas live.
“Der Kongress Amüsiert Sich” is a colorful historical and costume film with an all-star cast (Curd Jürgens, Lili Palmer, Gustav Knuth). Filming took place in 1965, mainly in the Vienna Hofburg. The film music was composed by Peter Thomas.
Thanks to detective work in the archives of the late maestro, MuZikBeater has succeeded in making the entire soundtrack of this film available to the public for the first time.
My father has written the music to over 500 movies and among them there are many well known melodies. With this playlist I tried to reproduce the well known titles and at the same time to present less known but absolute bangers. Just listen to it here:
In November 2022 it was spooky in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. “The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism” was shown at the original filming location in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Directly after the screening of “Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel” (The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism) in the Filmpalast Ballhaus Forum Rothenburg, renowned experts (including Walter Potganski) gave interesting anecdotes about the making of the film. Also in the audience were former extras of the film. The music for this Edgar Allan Poe film adaptation was penned by the great master! Here is the original soundtrack, whose release was personally supervised by my father until shortly before his death:
Afterwards, Walter Potganski (MovieMax) and Ulrich Mannes (SGE- Siggi Götz Entertainement) and their team went out.
We are currently working on a special music project. It is important to us to present the music of the maestro in other forms. We will merge an interplay of music, drummer and animations into an animated clip. We are happy to give you an insight into the creation of the animations around the playing of the drummer Claude Bussard. Lucas Schwantes will show you how he prepares, inspires and lovingly animates his characters for this work. Turn up the volume and hear/see the fusion of music and animation.
In the spring of 2022, the soundtrack to ONKEL TOMS HÜTTE was released on the MuZikBeater label. The film UNCLE TOMS CABIN is one of the first major international productions of film composer Peter Thomas. It was the first time he had the opportunity to use the Munich Symphony Orchestra in addition to his standard cast.
It was a special performance for the symphony orchestra: on three afternoons in a row, they arrived at the recording session at 2 p.m. in their classic black tailcoats, since they then had to play at 7 p.m. on the three evenings in Munich at the Konzerthaus.
The large orchestra accompanied legendary blues singer Eartha Kitt on the song Mississippi Blues. Eartha Kitt was so enthusiastic about this piece that she applauded at the end of her recording. Another star in this production was French singer Juliette Gréco, who sang the title song Tant pis, Tant pis pour moi. The slave choir was made up of American soldiers stationed at the American McCraw barracks in Munich.
Peter Thomas and the music publisher Ring Musik have always had a special relationship characterized by trust and appreciation. So it was obvious that the publishing house supported Peter Thomas in the realization of his sounds that deviated from the mainstream. Thus, he often had the opportunity to produce music for “Sound Music” albums of the library music label Golden Ring Records under different pseudonyms. Klaus Weiss, Siggi Schwab, Pepe Solera are other names of this great collection. Peter Thomas has made 11 such albums for the label. These are special finds of the great master’s music, containing his lesser known works. The pieces contain something truly magical about them and show how diverse his artistic output was.
The following four albums were released in 2022:
During two days Lucas Schwantes, Philip Thomas and mascot Babou met in the Bernese Oberland to discuss audiovisual projects of the PTSO catalog. Here Lucas explains how he animates the cover for the release “SOUND MUSIC ALBUM 31”. It’s really exciting, but see for yourself.
https://www.peterthomas.tv/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/752015AC-B784-4BAD-B6CF-42081614B885.mov
Winnetou and his friend Old Firehand (aka: Thunder at the Border, Winnetou and Old Firehand) was the 1966 finale of the Karl May adaptations by Horst Wendlandt’s Rialto Film. Alfred Vohrer (Perrak, Das gelbe Haus am Pinnasberg), described as a genius by cult director Quentin Tarantino, directed the film – moving away from the contemplative German towards the far more violent Spaghetti Western. This triggered an ambivalent response from critics and fans, with judgements ranging from “explosive” to “the low point of the series”.
A new path was also taken with the film music: Peter Thomas replaced Martin Böttcher as “Winnetou composer”. It was to remain the only Karl May film with Peter Thomas’ music; not surprising, since he was in his productive heyday. Between Edgar Wallace thrillers and Jerry Cotton action thrillers, he was more than well occupied. It was not until 1980 that Thomas returned to the subject with the music for the TV series “My Friend Winnetou”.
The result was a soundtrack that can be heard as a link between Böttcher’s Karl May string melodies and the clearly more experimental Italo-Western film music of, for example, an Ennio Morricone.
This album is the premiere of this score on vinyl. Of course, all 42(!) tracks have been remastered for it. The CD version also features three previously unreleased tracks found in Peter Thomas’ estate, as well as a bonus track with the composer himself at the piano, presenting the first theme suggestions to the film producer along with his spoken notes (recorded in 1966 at Bavaria Tonstudios, Munich).
We’ll keep you up to date on exciting new projects and upcoming events from Peter Thomas Music.
For licencing or the MuZikBeater label related questions please visit https://muzikbeater.de
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