Silent film music to be researched
Silent films were once accompanied by music that was specially arranged or composed. Musicologist Oliver Huck now wants to research the origins and forms of this music before 1918.
For the project, scores and films in libraries and film archives in Germany, Italy, France and the USA will be examined from April 2024. The main focus will be on music that was newly and specially composed to increase the prestige of individual films.
The researchers led by Oliver Huck from the Institute for Historical Musicology at the University of Hamburg assume that music represents a separate, partially complementary level of storytelling in dramaturgical terms. With their research, they want to gain fundamental insights into the musical aesthetics and musical framework of silent film. They assume that conventions of musical dramaturgy and audiovisual perception were already established before the sound film and continue to have an effect on today's music.
Huck's project is being funded with 750,000 euros as part of the Reinhart Koselleck Program of the German Research Foundation.
