By Hugo Riesenfeld (1925)
Motion picture music has developed in an almost miraculous way during the last decade. Its history has been so brief that almost everyone can remember the days when the single pianist drummed in a bored fashion on a second-hand instrument. Little thought was given to what was played. The whole idea was to have some musical accompaniment; it mattered not what the quality. And during the pianist's dinner hour the audience has to get along without even an attempt at music.
It is not quite possible to say that those days are gone forever. Such a condition still exists in many a small town. But in the larger cities every first-class theatre has a good sized orchestra. The best of them frequently employ as many as sixty or seventy musicians of a calibre that a symphony orchestra might be proud of. These theatres have music libraries numbering sometimes as many as twenty thousand compositions. Their annual budgets just for music run up to six figures. In fact, the cost of music often approaches a third of the total running expenses.
Two
kinds of music are used in connection with motion picture programs. There
is the concert music which constitutes the overture. It consists of parts
of symphonies, operas, arias and songs. Then there is the score which forms
the background to the film.
Regarding the first of these- that is, the music which is played for its own sake- it is possible to say that public taste has developed remarkably since classical music was first introduced into motion picture theatres as an experiment. It seems but a short time ago that no conductor of a motion picture orchestra dared try anything but the most innocuous of music qualifying as classical. The public would tolerate nothing more highbrow than the overture to "William Tell," "Rienzi" or "Poet and Peasant." These were played over and over again until one or two conductors got up courage enough to introduce gradually the compositions of Dukas, Debussy, Tschaikowsky, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Wagner, Strauss, Brahms. And with these gradual additions, the public taste has grown until now motion picture audiences appreciate many compositions that are played in concert halls by the finest symphony orchestras.
Classical music has established itself firmly in the motion picture theatre. The indifference with which the average American once listened to it has changed to warm appreciation. He likes his jazz still, but he wants it tempered now and then with a Beethoven overture or Chopin nocturne.
Now as to the music of the scores. As indicated before, originally this was a crude running together of the popular tunes of the day. It made no difference whether a funeral or a wedding were being shown. The pianist went on banging the keys in the same tempo.
Nowadays, for the more ambitious pictures a special score is written by a trained musician before the first public showing. Sometimes as long as three to six months is spent in arranging these scores. The greatest care is exercised in finding music that exactly reproduces the emotion of each scene as it appears on the screen. Should it be impossible to find this music it is composed.
The library at the Rialto Theatre has twenty thousand pieces of music, all catalogued under the mood they represent. Among the headings one finds "Spanish dances," "romances," "religious ecstasy," "cowboys," "running horses," "joy" and so forth. This greatly facilitates the arranging of a score. The musician simply has to note what kind of emotion or situation is registered in each scene and then turn to his files for its musical counterpart.
Naturally the smaller houses cannot afford the equipment and expert assistance that is necessary for creating an intelligent score. However, this difficulty is rapidly being solved. More and more the producing companies are syndicating the original score, sending copies of it out with the picture when it is released. In this way, just as the smallest house can get just as good films as the most prosperous, so they can get the finest musical scores. Whether a house has a large orchestra or a single instrument, it is what is played and how it is played that counts.
Dr. Hugo Riesenfeld: Who, as the Director of Three of New York's Leading Motion Picture Theatres, Has Popularized Classical Music Without Encroaching Too Ruthlessly Upon Popular Airs of Intrinsic Worth.
Original article by Hugo Riesenfeld, 1925.
Hugo Riesenfeld, "The Advancement in Motion Picture Music," The American Hebrew, April 3, 1925, page 632.
© 1997, David Pierce, on editing and revisions (if any)
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