Anyone who had come in the courageous expectation that Hans Zimmer shows the Cologne once, as Hollywood powerfully filled an up to the high ranks filled Arena, which was not disappointed that evening. 70 musicians had gathered Hans Zimmer on stage, including long-time companions from the studios, with whom he worked out and recorded most of his blockbuster hits like Richard Harvey and Nick Glennie-Smith. Skeptics may have wondered before: The big action cinema, without Zimmer's music bomber, is only halfway convincing, but would Zimmer's music alone, without film images and heroes, last a whole evening? Oh yes, she can.
This proved in the first half of the concerto "Now We Are Free" from the "Gladiator". Here, Zimmer gently adds the colors of his palette: the yearning-melancholy vocals of Lisa Gerrard's onomatopoeic lyric, sung that evening by Czarina Russell, carried by a polyphonic choir. Followed by the sky-storming string and horn pathos of the "Chevaliers de Sangreal" from the "Da Vinci Code"; and countered by the friendly jubilant greeting from South Africa, the "Circle Of Life" from the "Lion King", sung by Lebo M., who also sang the original soundtrack. "When we met 25 years ago for the first time," says Hans Zimmer, "he was still washing cars there."
Hans Zimmer praises "the best in the world"
It is a concert of friends, studio musicians from Los Angeles, "the best in the world," praises Zimmer, who hosts the three-hour evening and at each number about his collaboration with famous directors such as Tony Scott ("Crimson Tide") or Gore Verbinski ( "Pirates of The Caribbean") before the orchestra tackles the mighty wave ride of Captain Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa. It is these first striding, then swiftly attacking rhythms that set off into a wild gallop, these orchestrally ammunitioned legions, with which Zimmer can enhance the action pathos to musical bombast.
In the second part, the fight of the "Man of Steel", of "Spider Man-2" and "The Thin Red Line" becomes a battle of material, in which the shells roar powerfully. Sure, the evening did not leave a moment of boredom, and yet there were times when the escalating, furious musical apocalyptic rooms came to a halt. The audience was greeted by a galactic storm of "Interstellar" and "Inception", the orchestra was working over the blaring of the subwoofers and the attempt to identify only one instrument in this hurricane failed. All of them were martial, with Indian-born studio musician Satnam Ramgotra, a gray-haired guru, who handled his drums confidently and produced a hell of a ride. When Ramgotra, with his peacefully folded hands, said good-bye with a smile, it was hard to believe that the man had just raged like a berserker. After all, leitmotif solo parts also saved from the harsh haze - in Hollywood, one survives even the most gruesome end of the world.
Article by Rüdiger Heimlich