Sound tracks of lost films. Printed film music until 1918

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Oliver Huck
• Subject Area: Musicology
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 520218258

Considering the (in light of the practice of musical accompaniment in early cinema) relatively small number of scores composed (or at least arranged and printed) for individual films up to 1918, which in absolute terms is well over 100, it is surprising that the majority of these compositions and compilations has not yet been included in comprehensive analytical studies of film music. Previous research concerning the period up to 1918 repeatedly focused on a minimal selection, that is not representative, on 'L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise' with music by Camille Saint-Saëns, 'Der Student von Prag' (1913) with music by Josef Weiss, 'The Birth of a Nation' (1915) with (partly compiled) music by Joseph Carl Breil and 'Rapsodia satanica' (1917) with music by Pietro Mascagni. The principal reason for this is that most of the films for which music was specially composed or compiled are no longer extant or only as fragments. The analysis of a corpus of film music, of which approx. 70% (this corresponds to the loss ratio that is assumed for 'silent films' in general) is preserved without the corresponding films and only approx. 25% with the complete films, is fraught with risk. The paradigm according to which film music is primarily to be viewed and analyzed as applied and functional music has to be overcome, because without the film one can only make limited statements about the concrete relationship between music and film. Thus, such an analysis takes into account that, even where both film and music are preserved, it is a matter of 'audio-visual palimpsests'. The project’s aim is to examine the formation and genesis of the composition (in the broadest sense) of film music up to the end of the First World War, considering for the first time all printed, mostly composed, partly also compiled music and thus to make a fundamental contribution to the musical aesthetics and the musical dispositifs of the pre-classical silent film. The time frame from the first so-called film crisis in 1908 to 1918 offers the opportunity to examine the production and reception of film music under different aesthetic, economic, and legal conditions in Germany, England, France, Italy, and the US (as well as, if possible, Russia). The working hypothesis is that in the early compositions there are heterogeneous approaches based on different musico-theatrical genres of the 19th century (melodrama, opera, pantomime, incidental music, symphonic poem, and varieties of picture-music). Only on this basis the formation of film music took place.

• DFG Programme: Reinhart Koselleck Projects