New Music for Old Films
In recent years, the restoration and widespread availability of film classics from the silent era has been accompanied by the creation of new scores for these films. Now, many aficionados insist that silent film should remain just that — silent — but they are no less misguided than art scholars who insist on the “white purity” of Greek marbles. Here is a sampling of some of today’s most interesting composers for silent film — and, should you get the chance, by all means watch them perform their music as live accompaniment:
Augsburger Tafelconfect & Boris D. Hegenbart-Matsui — Alice In Wonderland (1915, Dir. W.W. Young)
Syntax Orchestra — The Champion (1915, Dir. Charles Chaplin)
Ben Model — Bliss (1917, Dir. Alfred J. Goulding)
Club Foot Orchestra — The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, Dir. Robert Wiene)
Kelly Rossum — Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920, Dir. John Robertson)
Carl Davis — Flesh and the Devil (1926, Dir. Clarence Brown)
Gerhard Gruber — Cafe Elektric (1927, Dir. Gustav Ucicky)
Alloy Orchestra — Metropolis (1927, Dir. Fritz Lang)
Louis Gentile — Tabu (1931, Dir. F.W. Murnau)
