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THE WIND, also by Carl Davis, is one of the very best. Once listened to a live performance under Davis himself. Tremendous score, unforgettable film.
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Davis is a very fine practitioner of this. He did quite a few, including Abel Gance's 'Napoleon' along with a bloke called Beethoven. He also scored the TV documentary series 'Hollywood' re the silent era.
Many of the Mickey-Mouser comedy-short later re-scores for the era detract from the comedy on screen by wah-wah etc., where pomposity would be a better fit.
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Most silent scores you would have to rip from the DVDs. A few that I think are worthy of a listen are:
NOSFERATU (original 1922 score by Hans Erdmann [reconstructed] on KINO DVD)
BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925 score by Edmund Meisel on KINO DVD)
DIE NIBELUNGEN (1924 score by Gottfried Huppertz on KINO DVD)
[This is both SIEGFRIED and KRIEMHILD'S REVENGE]
THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (Mont Alto Orchestra from original 1924 cue sheets on KINO [I think])
Also, if you can find it the Carl Davis score based on Rimsky-Korsakov (I got it from a PBS
airing I video taped back in the '90s)
BEN-HUR by Carl Davis (available in the 4 disc version of the Heston flim)
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA by Carl Davis on the Image "Ultimage Edition" 2 DVD set
Of course, you should give the 2010 restoration of the (virtually) complete METROPOLIS a listen.
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And I forgot THE GENERAL by Carl Davis on the KINO DVD.
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Also, while I haven't heard it, didn't Philipp Glass re-score an old DRACULA?
Glass' score to the 1931 Bela Lugosi Dracula appears on one of the DVD releases, and was released on CD.
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THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (Mont Alto Orchestra from original 1924 cue sheets on KINO [I think])
Also, if you can find it the Carl Davis score based on Rimsky-Korsakov (I got it from a PBS
airing I video taped back in the '90s)
Really? Is it based on Sheherazade, or something else?
Very much Sheherazade. I don't recall if anything else sneaks in there.
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My interest is in the music composed for silent films in the age of silent films. The score commissioned for a specific film was a rarity, with the standard practice to compile a score from the vast library of generic cues that were available from publishers. In contemporary articles theater music directors (who often also managed the entire theater) such as Rapee write of having a library of 20,000+ cues in their library. Such a library would include popular music, music originally written for circus and vaudeville, adapted classics, and original generic pieces. The sound films of the early thirties often used such pieces, until original scoring came into favor in the mid-thirties.
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Posted: |
Mar 7, 2011 - 9:34 AM
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By: |
Hermit
(Member)
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I just got wind a new recording of a silent film score on the Naxos label:
Ernesto Halffter's score for the 1926 silent film, Carmen.
http://www.classicsonline.com/catalogue/product.aspx?pid=1140965&utm_source=COL_News&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Halffter-CarmenFilmScoreTXT&utm_campaign=KHRecommends030711
"Ernesto Halffter, one of Manuel de Falla’s most admired disciples and a student of Stravinsky and Ravel, was a close associate of iconic figures such as Dalí, García Lorca, and Buñuel on the 20th century Iberian cultural scene. His magnificent score for Jacques Feyder’s 1926 silent film, Carmen, is one of the great impressionistic Spanish masterpieces of its era. More sombre and tragic than the music for Bizet’s opera, Halffter’s vivid panorama depicts the range and depth of the powerful emotions encompassed within the Carmen story, a tale of thwarted love, passion, jealousy, and violence set in the heart of Andalusia in southern Spain. This is not only the work’s world première recording but the first performance to realise the composer’s musical intentions in full."
Sounds promising! I love Bizet's music for Carmen and I'll definitely be getting this one to hear another composer's take on the story.
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