History of music in the Silent and Early Sound Movies (Part 1)

 

Long before the dawn of civilization, people had discovered the power and the necessity of the addition of sound in a performance. No magician-doctor would cure a patient simply by looking silently at the stars and no headman of tribe would bring the rain merely by looking at the sky. On the contrary, they were sounding rattles, they were dancing, shouting and singing. Because even those people knew, instinctively of course, that the sound, when it is combined with pictures, imposes a psychological state on the receiver which helps him deeper believe or better understand what is happening around him.

 

The combination of sound (music, speech, sound effects) and pictures has created throughout the centuries an amazing kaleidoscope of art forms, the major representative being - as far as live performances are concerned - the theatre.

 

Even sound effects are rooted in ancient times. Inscriptions of the ancient Greek period describe a method for the reproduction of the sound of thunder in tragedies. Similar methods have been used in the Elizabethan productions of Shakespeare’s plays and in the Japanese theatre Kabuki.

 

Music, on the other hand, has been established in the theatre since the ancient Greek period. Centuries later, the opera introduced new ways of expression, whilst giving the primary role to music and placing the speech and setting second.

 

From all the above, we can see that music and drama have always shared a close relationship. Thus, when the moving image was discovered and the silent movies were born, (with the discovery of the moving image and the birth of the silent movies) it would be only natural for music to be used to accompany the action and to add levels of expression to the visual part.

But, is it really so?

 

There are several theories concerning the reasons why music was chosen to accompany silent films. The first one belongs to the composer Hanns Eisler who, in his book Composing for the films, says:

 

Ever since they were born, films have been accompanied by music. The silent picture in itself would generate a sense of ghosts, similar to the game of shadows. Besides, the shadows and the ghosts have always been correlated.

              

The magical function of music was to smoothen this sense of fear. A need was created to blunt the displeasure that the spectator felt when he saw human simulacra acting, feeling, and even talking, while at the same time remaining silent.

 

The fact that the spectator would see “dead” simulacra - shadows of “living” people on the screen was creating the sense of ghosts; the music was introduced not to supply the characters with the life they were lacking (since this would only intensify this sense), but to exorcise the fear and to help viewers overcome the initial shock. After all, it is not accidental that silent films wouldn’t use hidden actors who, in the course of the screening, would provide the dialogues, whereas instead, there would always be music which, in effect, would very often have nothing to do with what was happening on the screen.

Leopoldo Fregoli

An exception to this rule is the Italian comedian Leopoldo Fregoli who, in 1898, shot a series of comedies and who, during the screening, would stand behind the screen and act as a prompter.

 

Also, in Japan, instead of dialogue flashcards, they would use a charismatic actor who would perform all the characters - men, women, children - would enact all the sound effects and sounds and would sing or play an instrument, thus providing the musical background. Those admirable people were called Bensi and they enjoyed such popularity, that, very often, the people would go to the cinema just for them, regardless of which film was on. Unfortunately, the discovery of speaking films led to a progressive disappearance of the Bensi art.

 

Another point view comes from Kurt London who, in his book Film Music, says that the use of music in the cinema does not derive from any artistic or psychological need, but from purely practical reasons and, more specifically, from the bad acoustic conditions of the screening. He specifically states that the projectors at the time were so noisy that a need was created for their noise to be covered by something pleasant; the owners of the theatres instinctively chose music as the most suitable solution.

 

The most interesting observation, however, comes from London who notes that:

“... aesthetically and psychologically, the most important reason for the existence of music in the cinema is, undoubtly, the film rhythm as a kinetic art.

We are not used to perceiving movement as an art form, unless it is accompanied by sounds or at least by acoustic rhythms.

Every film should dispose of a rhythm which would determine the form.

The role of music was to give sound depth and tone to the form and to the inner rhythm of the film.”

 

In my opinion, of all the above stated theories, the last one touches more the unique relationship between the silent movies and music.

                                                                                

 

The first known use of music on the cinema occurred on the 28th December 1895, when the Lumiere family tested the commercial value of their first films. The screening took place at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard de Capucines, in Paris, and was accompanied by a piano.

 

At this point, we must make a note, namely that, when we talk about music in silent films, we obviously talk about a live performance which occurs during the screening. What is more, most of the times, there wasn’t even a set music. For this reason, a pianist with a great capacity for improvisation was invaluable.

 

The first presentation of the Lumiere program in England took place on the 20th February1896. By April of the same year, orchestras would accompany films in several London theatres.

 

During the first years of commercial cinema the music material used consisted of almost anything that was available at the time and, most of the times, it would bare very little - if any - relation to the on-screen action. The music pieces that were performed were selected by the owner of the theatre and the conductor of the orchestra.

 

While the cinema was discovering its potential, a desire was born on the part of the most sensitive producers to provide each film with its own music. This idea was materialized for the first time in 1908, when the French company Le Film d’Art encouraged famous actors to make into film some of the most known works in their repertoire. The Comedie Francaise and the Academie Francaise supported this idea and together they started the production of the film L’Assassinat du Dur de Guise. However, the most important incident was that the known composer Camille Saint Saens composed music especially for the film. This music was later converted into the Concerto Opus128 for strings, piano and harmonium. For various reasons, however, one of which was the additional cost, this idea was not generally widespread.

 

In 1909, a year after Saint Saens’ score, Edison’s Film Company started distributing “special suggestions on music” for the films that it produced. By 1913, orchestras and theatre pianists had the opportunity to be supplied with music for specific dramatically purposes, which could be found in special catalogues. The most known example is Giuseppe Becce’s Kinobibliotek (or Kinothek) which was first published in Berlin in 1919. The music pieces in Becce’s Kinotech were registered according to their style and the sentimental load that their hearing would presumably cause, while most of them were compositions of Becce himself.

              

Some of the categories under which the pieces were placed can be seen in the example below, which is taken from Becce’s book Handbook of Film Music.

 

DRAMATIC CLIMATE

1. CLIMAX

        a) destruction

        b) dramatic agitato

        c) serious atmosphere

        d) mysterious nature

 

2. TENSION MYSTERIOSO

        a) night: bad disposition

        b) night: threatening disposition

        c) innocent agitato

        d) magic - ghost

        e) something is about to happen

 

3. TENSION AGITATO

       a) pursuit

       b) flight

       c) heroic battle

       d) battle

       e) weariness, fear

       f) upset masses - agitation

       g) hostile nature - thunderstorm - fire

 

4. CLIMAX APPASSIONATO

       a) desperation - despair

       b) lament

       c) heat, upheaval

       d) panegyric

       e) triumphant

 

The above mentioned categories were subdivisions of the three main categories which were:

  •     Nature
  •     State and Society
  •     Church and State

 

Yet, the most crude form of the idea of musical categorization and music catalogues was materialized by Max Winkler. Winkler thought that within classical music there is such an abundance of pieces that, should they be divided in categories in proportion to the, by now famous, Becce’s Kinothek, there would practically be music ready for whichever scene of whatever film. This idea appealed to the director of Universal Film Company at the time, Paul Gulick, who hired Winkler. So, Winkler watched these films before they were distributed, provided the theatre with a catalogue of classical extracts and instructions about the scenes over which they would be played. Thus, works by Beethoven, Mozart, Grieg, J.S. Bach, Verdi, Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Wagner and, in general, anything that wasn’t protected by copyright were literally massacred.

Winkler himself reports that:

 

J.S. Bachs immortal chorales became Adagio Lamentoso for sad scenes. Parts of great symphonies were cut and appeared as Sinister Materioso by Beethoven, or Strange Moderato by Tchaikovsky. Wagner’s and Mendelssohn’s wedding marches were used for weddings, rows between husbands and wives and divorce scenes. If they were used for the ending, their tempo would become higher, so that they would give the sense of a happy end. Meyerbeer’s Coronation March was slowed down so much that it would provide a pompous musical background for the condemned to death prisoners.

 

Luckily, Winkler’s luck and his idea didn’t last long

 

To be continued.....                                                        

© 1997 George Wastor
revised 2020

 


To άρθρο δημοσιεύτηκε αρχικά το 1997 και βραβεύτηκε από το Γαλλικό περιοδικό Diapason ως ένα από τα 10 καλλίτερα άρθρα στον κόσμο αναφορικά με την μουσική του βωβού κινηματογράφου. Έχει μεταφραστεί στα Ελληνικά, Αγγλικά, Ιταλικά, Γαλλικά και Πορτογαλικά, έχει εκδοθεί από τον οίκο  Mc-Graw Hill New York, και χρησιμοποιείται ώς ύλη αναφοράς στo Film Music Department των University of Pennsylvania-PENN  (USA), University of Sao Paolo (Brazil), Laval University (Canada).
Μεταφράστηκε για πρώτη φορά στα Ελληνικά το 2020 για λογαριασμό του Music Accessories όπου και δημοσιεύεται κατ αποκλειστικότητα.