Five hundred years on from Martin Luther’s attack on papal corruption that sparked the Reformation, Germany is celebrating the events that changed the course of history.
And it’s doing it in style, with two special screenings of Luther, the 2003 blockbuster starring Joseph Fiennes, Alfred Molina and Peter Ustinov, accompanied by unique live performances of Richard Harvey’s moving and magnificent score.
The film will be shown on two huge screens in Trier’s vast Constantine Basilica, the world’s largest surviving Roman hall, on 1 and 2 September.
It will be the first time the Basilica, built in AD310 under the Emperor Constantine, has been pressed into service as a cinema.
Below the screens will be a full symphony orchestra and chorus and a specialist early music ensemble, all under the baton of Martin Bambauer, the Basilica’s director of music.
Harvey, who is travelling to Germany to attend the performances in person, is a multi-award-winning classical and film composer. He recently wrote the music for The Little Prince, working with his old friend and colleague Hans Zimmer, which won the 2017 Annie (the animation world’s equivalent of an Oscar) for Outstanding Achievement in Music in an Animated Feature Production.
His Luther score – poignant and unforgettably powerful – captures the drama and torment of Martin Luther’s revolt against the established church, which eventually led to his excommunication and unleashed a wave of Protestantism that swept across the whole of Europe.
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