Re-Evaluating the Silent-Film Music Holdings at the Library of Congress

The United States Library of Congress houses one of the largest collections of silent-film music in a single location. While many scholars have commented on the library’s silent-film scores and cue sheets, only a small portion of their silent-film holdings has been considered. Notably missing from the existing literature is any information about the library’s extensive collection of photoplay music—the incidental mood music used to accompany silent films. In most silent-film scoring pursuits, photoplay music served an instrumental role, but despite its importance in laying the groundwork for over a century of audiovisual media, we have yet to fully study the scope and legacy of this generic stock. With the aim of assessing this neglected repertory, this article examines two sizable classification series containing silent-film music at the library: M176 “Motion Picture Music,” containing over 1,800 items, and M1357 “Moving Picture Orchestra,” with over 1,300 items. The article surveys hundreds of diverse photoplay music volumes, which help to elucidate the long, yet tacit, history of using generic production music in the film industry. By cataloging and contextualizing M176 and M1357, this article supplements extant scholarship on the Library of Congress’s impressive film-music holdings, and ultimately encourages further exploration into the many untapped, yet worthy, areas of early film-music history.