Music for Silent Film: A Guide to North American Resources by Kendra Preston Leonard (review)

Scholarship and interest in film music continues to permeate the music world, and recently attention to the treatment of music for silent film has resurfaced. As Kendra Preston Leonard states in her preface, "Silent-film festivals and screenings are popping up across the United States and Canada, drawing large and enthusiastic crowds" (p. vii). Countless dissertations, scholarly articles, and monographs on this subject have been published since the turn of the twenty-first century. For this research guide, Leonard performed the arduous, though much desired, task of culling the leading primary and secondary sources on music for silent film in North America. By grouping these sources together for the first time, she provides "enthusiasts, performers, and scholars—anyone with an interest in music for the silent screen" (p. vii) with a focal point from which to explore a plethora of archival collections, interviews, monographs, articles, and dissertations, all dedicated to this crucial point in film music history.

Following a practice similar to that epitomized by Vincent Duckles's Music Reference and Research Materials (5th ed. [New York: Schirmer Books, 1997]), Leonard organized this volume as an annotated bibliography that covers 1,862 items on the subject of music in film history from approximately 1912 to 1929. The entries vary in length from a couple of lines (as in chapter 7, "Articles" in primary source periodicals) to couple of pages (as in the listing for the University of California, Los Angeles, Performing Arts Special Collections, in chapter 1, "Archives" [item 5, pp. 5–6]). This is first and foremost a reference volume and not a book to be read from cover to cover, so it provides a detailed table of contents that leads researchers to primary and secondary sources organized in convenient categories (e.g., "Collections of Essays," "Interviews and Biographies," "Theses and Dissertations"). Moreover, the extensive indexes (for names, title, film titles, and subjects) serve readers looking for specific source(s) or source types.

Researchers on silent film music, or those interested in performance of the music, are acutely aware of (or will soon become well versed in) copyright guidelines. While most materials—films, cue sheets, advertisements—are within the public domain, as Leonard notes, "For works produced after 1923, you must research the work [to] determine its copyright status and, if it remains under copyright, obtain permission from the rights holder to use it" (p. xiii). Leonard advises readers to refer to Stanford University's Copyright and Public Domain site (http://fairuse.stanford.edu, accessed 14 August 2017). While this is an excellent resource, academic researchers should also refer to their own institution's copyright advisories in order to avoid unnecessary delays in publication or release of digital humanities projects.

The book's preface and introduction provide an overview of some of the larger constructs within discourse on music for silent film, including the use of cue sheets and the role of theater pianists and/or organists. However, readers knowledgeable about some of the nuances of silent-era film, such as distribution practices of film reels and their accompanying cue sheets and/or scores, will rely on their added level of expertise to fully benefit from the lists of primary sources contained in Part I. Novice researchers and enthusiasts in this area might benefit more from first accessing the secondary source materials contained in Part II—in particular, chapter 8, "Scholarly Books," which lists research and reference guides, source readings, collections of essays, monographs, theses, and dissertations—before delving into the primary sources.

Although Music for Silent Film is rooted in print source materials, Leonard provides URLs, DOIs, and other notable online resources when available. For example, in chapter 1 the author details "major North American English-language archives holding music for silent cinema" (p. 3). In addition to the usual suspects (e.g. the Academy of Motion Picture Arts...