Bringing a Little Munich Disco to Babelsberg: Giorgio Moroder’s Score for Metropolis

Abstract

From the 1910s to the late 1920s, producers and distributors sought several means of standardizing musical accompaniments for silent films.1 Trade press columns, cue sheets and original scores all provided guidance to the pianists and orchestras charged with supplying dramatically appropriate music to films. The circumstances of exhibition, however, encouraged a range of different responses to these efforts to unify silent film accompaniment practices. For example, some accompanists lacked the talent or technical facility required to play a composed score or perform the music suggested by a cue sheet. In other cases, exhibitors rejected the music supplied by producers and distributors because they preferred to cater to audience tastes or to promote locally popular performers. In still other situations, economic incentives dictated the exhibitor’s musical choices as he or she featured pieces ‘plugged’ by a publisher or retailer.