ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the use of music in Shakespeare films from the silent era (c. 1895–1927). As trade publications of the period confirm, music was an integral part of these films. Moreover, silent film coincides with the rise of the early music movement, and here I investigate the confluences of these two phenomena by examining music used for silent Shakespeare films or about the English ruling class that were derived from early modern English music and musical culture. I will also explore a genre of silent film music that emerged in the 1910s and 1920s that was used for Shakespeare in early film: new music that depicts early modern English culture through a variety of musical and poetic tropes. This includes pieces such as Gaston Borch's Songs from Shakespeare's Time (1916), Carrie Jacob-Bond's arrangement of ‘Robin Adair’ (1910), and Reginald de Koven's score for the stage musical Robin Hood (1899). By studying the use of music in early film, we can learn much about attitudes towards Shakespeare's plays; in addition, the use of such music in popular entertainment offers information on modes of transmission and connections with the early music revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
