Does anyone know the names of some of the most famous classical music that was played in old, slient films?

Question

Some of my friends and I are putting on a short, silent film for a school project and we need fast, slow, happy, sad ect classical music. I have seen old silent films before (and have loved the music), but I can't remember any of the song names...
Help?

Answer 1

One that I do know of but I don't know the name of the piece is the one that is often played during pastoral or peaceful springtime scenes. The music is usually accompanied by chirping birds. I have heard that song so many times in old movies and cartoons and I don't know what it's called

Answer 2

First, I think the responder Rovale is thinking of the first part of the William Tell Overture, which has traditionally been used for pastoral or bucolic scenes in both silent movies and cartoons. LooneyTunes used it, along with the bird chirping noises, a lot.

I loved your question, because I just happen to have a large collection of original silent movie music scores and have accompanied silent movies for many years.

Although snippets of the classics are occasionally heard in silent soundtracks, the fact is that most of the music originally used was either composed and scored by a small cadre of composers - M.L. Lake, Joseph Carl Breill (Birth of a Nation and others) J.S. Zamecnik, and a few others. A lot of it is reminiscent of classical music, and famous themes are constantly borrowed. But most of it was original.

Almost all silent movie music of the period is themed, and is captioned "fight or duel" "slow, romantic" "foreign or gypsy" and "chase" etc.

If you will contact me at [e-mail], and tell me what especially you are looking for, I will snail-mail you some copies, if you're intending to have a live piano at the performance.

If you want recorded music, you can hardly find it anymore, but a group called the Mont Alto Orchestra has a couple of CD's of original silent movie music.

Other than that, when I played the movies, most of the time I just improvised. I did Buster Keaton's "The General" once and used Tchaikovsky, Scott Joplin, a little Chopin, but most of it was just me emoting to what was happening on screen.

Good luck with your project! It sounds like fun.

Answer 3

While major films (like the ones mentioned before) had composed accompaniment - sometimes even a fully orchestrated score. Shostakovitch wrote scores for early Soviet silents. Minor films - the majority - only came with suggestions for the pianist what to play. Often the poor chap would have to improvise on these suggestions.
I have another suggestion to the tune that has been mentioned: Albert Ketelby "In a Monastery Garden" (check it at youtube).
You would also have encountered pieces like Elgar's "Salut d'amour" and Christian Sinding's "Waldweben". You would probably meet many items of this kind of easy listening music, which then was recognized by almost everybody and now has fallen in oblivion.
It should also be mentioned that the music of many films no longer is available. Carl Davis (has he been mentioned already) has written (IMHO) brilliant modern scores to silent films.

Answer 4

Your first responder may be thinking of a section of Ottorino Respighi's orchestral tone poem, "The Pines of Rome": 3rd of 4 secions I think: maybe the 2nd, can't remember exactly.

I'm not really that familiar with silent films, but to my recollection, they were accompanied by a pianist(who played live)in their original presentations. So if you're looking for the piano music, can't help you.

A lot of the first sound films, used an awful lot of Wagner's more robust and love sequences from his operas. You might especially want to check out "The Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla", from "Das Rheingold"; and other operas from his "The Ring of the Nibelung".

Good luck with your project,

Wotan

Answer 5

one really famous piece that is in old films is by scott joplin,
THE ENTERTAINER there are also many other of his pieces that are in movies.