Directed by the Munich conductor Frank Strobel (who also oversaw the mixing), the re-recording of the Metropolis soundtrack took place on the occasion of the restoration of this Fritz Lang classic, 83 years after its release. In 1927, the composer Gottfried Huppertz (1887-1937) was already a recognised film composer. Most notably, he gave the world the music for Nibelungen by the same Fritz Lang, in 1924. With Metropolis, he helped to establish film music as a respected form, at a time when the "genre" was in its infancy. Beyond the precision with which the score is written in terms of its correspondence with the images of a futuristic city, we find several fundamentals which would shape the golden age of a certain aesthetic in film music, in Germany, but also in Hollywood. First of all, it is composed in a tonal mode, epic and neo-romantic; it takes in many leitmotifs which describe both the characters and the themes of the film (love, rebellion, etc.) and finally, in spite of the general classicism, the Huppertz score is also a music of its time, Huppertz not hesitating to call in jazz harmonies and syncopated rhythms. And so this music contains all the elements which will be present across many of the film productions that would follow, including the Star Wars saga! ©NM/Qobuz