Between Practice and Theory: Silent Film Sound and the Music Archive

Abstract

Established in 1949 as the oldest film institute of Germany, the Deutsches Filminstitut — DIF — in Frankfurt am Main, headed by Claudia Dillmann, can look back on a long and eventful history. In 2006 the DIF integrated the former communal Deutsches Filmmuseum including its cinema and collections. Since the founding of the museum in 1984, music for silent films has very often been the centre of attention. Not only did the cinema own a Wurlitzer Theater Pipe Organ (1928), which was used to accompany silent films two to three times a month, but the museum also had organized an exhibition on the topic ‘Silent Film Music in Germany’ in 1988 as well as the festival ‘Silent Film and Music’ in cooperation with the Alte Oper Frankfurt and the International Musikzentrum Wien in 1988.