Music

Live music generally accompanied a silent film. Not all screenings of a film necessarily had the same accompaniment - it might depend on the size of the venue and on how much the cinema owner was prepared to pay for musicians. Accompanying musicians ranged from a lone pianist or organist to a small ensemble. Most accompanists would have had a store of stock musical movements for the different types of dramatic scenes and their generic variations. By the 1920s prestige films often had specially composed scores to accompany them. For other films distributors would recommend suitable music, like popular songs available in sheet music.

Very rarely have original scores used with silent films survived, so there is no evidence of what kind of music accompanied Hindle Wakes at the time and different screenings would have enjoyed a variety of accompaniments. It was screened at the 1997 Giornate del Cinema Muto (the premier festival for silent film) accompanied by a solo piano. A new score to accompany the film was commissioned by the bfi, composed and performed by In the Nursery, first at the Leeds International Festival and subsequently on this video.

In the Nursery are a small ensemble who specialise in the accompaniment of silent film. Their other work in this field includes the Expressionist classic The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari and the Soviet masterwork Man with a Movie Camera. The musicians wanted to produce a score appropriate for modern audiences. They utilised 'strings, harmonium, piano, oboe and double bass as the key set of sounds'. And for the live performance at the Festival they used synthesiser equipment link to a computer to augment sounds made on traditional acoustic instruments. Along with music for character and mood, the score includes sound effects such as the factory hooter.