A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF

MUSIC IN CINEMA

ROOTS

The root of music in film harks back to the Greek melodrams a cross between a play and fledgling opera in which spoken word is accompanied by music

Melodrams then developed into opera’s, then number opera’s (those composed of a collection of closed pieces) , continuous operas (those including nonstop music),

This resulted in the invention of leitmotifs or themes recurring throughout a work that were meant to evoke associations with an idea, character, or place ( Wagner)

Wagner pioneered the idea of pairing all of the arts together in an opera - for example, music (the score), poetry (libretto), and painting (scenery) - without giving precedence to any of them.

Named it ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, it was a revolutionary idea, but didn’t gain popularity

PROGRESSION (SILENT MOVIES)

First known pairing of music in film was December 28, 1895 when a Parisian family (the Lumieres) gave a screening with piano accompaniment to test public reaction to their films

The idea caught on quickly, and less than two months later entire orchestras were accompanying films in London theaters

Music at the time was surely not intended to affect the film's emotional import, the compositions played ranged from light popular music to traditional classical, with no relation to the subject of the film whatsoever

The exact reasoning behind using music in conjunction with the silent film is the subject of much speculation. Popular opinion among music theorists holds that its purpose was manifold: to cover up the sound of a noisy projector, and later, when technology quieted the latter, to alleviate uncomfortable silence.

THE FIRST FUNDAMENTAL STEP

Directors began to realize that unrelated music detracted from the movies in which they were used

Music handbooks, compendiums of musical themes meant to suit a particular action, style, scene, or mood, drawing on Wagner's leitmotif principle.

These themes were categorized by general names such as "Nature," "Nation and Society," and "Church and State," as well as more specific ones, like "Happy," "Climbing," "Night: threatening mood," and "Impending doom: 'something is going to happen.'“

This developed further when sound in film was created. Film scoring as we know it today