Abstract
‘Music for the silent film was an independent, ever-changing accompaniment’1: from theater to theater, many different musicians worked on the same single silent picture. As a result, each film could have many different ‘scores’. Even when original compositions started to spread around 1908,2 only the big theaters in the most important cities in Europe or in the US were likely to benefit from that music: the smaller towns (with lesser artistic resources) often preferred to continue with compilation/improvisation practices.3 The existence of multiple interpretations created a tradition based on the continuous renovation of film music: a tradition of novelty.
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Notes
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‘Im Stummfilm stand die Musik in zweierlei Beziehung zur visuellen Schicht … andererseits war sie ein Hilfsmittel, das mit dem Bild selbst nur rein äußerlich verbunden war’. Zofia Lissa, Ästhetik der Filmmusik (Berlin: Henschelverlag, 1965): 99–100.
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Marco Bellano, ‘Silent Strategies: Audiovisual Functions of the Music for Silent Cinema’, Kieler Beiträge zur Filmmusikforschung 9 (2013): 46–76, http://www.filmmusik.uni-kiel.de/KB9/KB9-Bellano.pdf:58–61.
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© 2014 Marco Bellano
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Bellano, M. (2014). The Tradition of Novelty — Comparative Studies of Silent Film Scores: Perspectives, Challenges, Proposals. In: Tieber, C., Windisch, A.K. (eds) The Sounds of Silent Films. Palgrave Studies in Audio-Visual Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137410726_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137410726_13
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