Soundtracks: An International Dictionary of Composers for Film

Although we think of silent films being accompanied by a pianist improvising suitable music to accompany the mood of each scene, even at that time film companies would distribute band parts of specially composed scores to those picture palaces that supported a small group of players who might also have played in the orchestra pit of the local live theatre. Saint‐Saens seems to have been the first composer of repute to have composed specifically for a film. With the coming of sound it was possible to supplement the spoken dialogue with a musical score, and from the 1930s many composers,...