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Behind the Screen Clippings 47/93

Motion Picture News, New York, November 18, 1916.

Behind the Screen Scenes

„Bach fugues and Chaplin comedies were

never intended to meet“

Editorial content. „Music and the Picture

      The Organ as a Proper Aid in Correct Showing of Picture

      J. Van Cleft Cooper, Organist of Broadway Theatre,

      Writes Instructively and Entertainingly on the Value and

      Relationship of the Organ and the Picture – The

      Offensiveness of Being ,Churchy‘ and the Proper Viewpoint

      of the Organist Clearly Set Forth and Explained

      ,WHAT shall I play for the picture? This is the question

which confronts every organist who sits down at a

console in a theatre. And the motto, ,Fit the music to the

picture,‘ is no great help. It is like saying to a man

who wants to acquire strength, ,Be strong.‘ In fact each organist

must rely largely upon his own sense of the dramatic

rather than upon instructions from others, be they never

so competent.

      The music may be either descriptive or merely

an accompaniment to the action. If it be

descriptive then it should reflect the atmosphere of the action

– serious or gay, sombre or cheerful, humorous

or tragic. These various moods must be determined by the

organist and he must be quick to appreciate a change

of mood and to adapt his music to it. If he can classify his

repertoire according to the atmosphere it can suggest

or the mood each piece can typify he will find it a great help.

      Certain portions of most pictures call for definite,

positive characterization and in these spots it is often the case

that the action is so rapid and the moods so varying

that it is almost impossible to find any set piece of music that

will do it justice. Here is where the peculiar value

of the organ to the motion picture theatre is plainly manifest,

for the organist can at points like these improvise

music that will follow the action very closely.

      Also at points like these the organist must depend on his

own dramatic sense and woe be the organist who

has none. Such an organist will play – as one I heard did

play – Schumann‘s Träumerei and Romanze

on a slapstick comedy and he may even follow it up, as this

one did, with portions of Mendelssohn‘s Wedding

March! Bach fugues and Chaplin comedies were never

intended to meet.“ (...)

     

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