UCLA silent animated films

The following is reproduced from this week's edition of The Scout Report (June 4, 2010; Volume 16, Number 22).

UCLA Preserved Silent Animation [Flash Player]

http://animation.library.ucla.edu/

UCLA's film and television archive of animated silent films from the pre-

1930s is relatively small, but considering the rarity of any silent films,

it is still an impressive collection. Some of the films offered up on this

website include "Felix the Cat", the "Inkwell Imps", and "Aesop's Film

Fables". Visitors are lucky enough to be able to view online or download 11

animated films from the library's collection. While watching the films,

visitors can listen to the preservation commentary, or listened to the music

for each film composed by Michael D. Mortilla, who has played music for

silent films for the Silent Society. Visitors can learn more about Michael

D. Mortilla by reading the "About the Music" link. There are also film

notes and an historical overview that visitors can read for each film.

Researchers or interested parties will find a 15-page study guide of films

and works about silent films available as a PDF. This helpful document is

conveniently located at the bottom of the homepage. [author: KMG = Max Grinnell]

From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2010.

http://scout.wisc.edu/

Music from the Edison Lab

While browsing through the IMSLP library for vocal scores of nineteenth-century French operas and operettas, I found this file. The original French title is "Le Coeur et la Main."

Although rarely performed nowadays, the operettas of Charles Lecocq were among the most successful French theater pieces in the generation after Offenbach and Gounod -- that is, in the fourth quarter of the century. As such, they form an important link to early twentieth-century French, Viennese, and American operetta. The traffic between stage, film, and reproduced-sound industry/culture is made concrete in the stamp on this cover page: "From Music Department, Edison Laboratory, Orange, N. J." This score eventually ended up in the Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY. Here is the IMSLP main page link.

Rapee's Encyclopedia

Excerpts from Erno Rapee's Encyclopedia of Music for Pictures (1925).

Rapee was one of the most influential music directors in the New York picture palaces in the 1920s. He published two practical books on the subject, one meant for pianists and organists (Motion Picture Moods (1924)) and one for theater music directors (orchestra leaders), the Encyclopedia. I have posted the text of his long introduction to the Encyclopedia, a complete list of the topic categories (types of music, such as "mysterious" or "Oriental"), scanned graphics of pages for the entry "Agitato," and a text file with the works listed under "Love Themes."