One question that crops up frequently is:

"This music I am hearing accompanying this silent film... Is it the original music? The stuff that was actually played when it was released?"

And the answer is... probably not but it's complicated.

The earliest known original film score was composed by Camille Saint-Saëns for the historical picture THE ASSASSINATION OF THE DUC DE GUISE.

Later in that same year of 1908, Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov composed a score for STENKA RAZIN.

So, 1908 is the marked year for film music.

(Some people try to pin "first" on The Fairylogue and Radio Plays but that was a multimedia musical presentation with brief film sequences, NOT a standalone picture.)

However, Georges Méliès was arranging scores for his films in the early 1900s. THE KINGDOM OF THE FAIRIES (1903) had a bespoke score but it was possibly made up of existing music and not specially-composed music.

Full scores were generally reserved for big pictures, special productions. They could be either original or made up of existing music.

Some films had cue sheets, lists of pieces suitable for the mood of the picture. Some had nothing at all.

Even if a film had a score, the theater running the picture might switch it out. Larger chains had musical directors.

The quality of instruments, the skill of the players and how much rehearsal time they were given varied wildly. Some music was just plain bad.

The pre-recorded synchronized score was adopted in earnest after DON JUAN in 1926 and that is the point where we start seeing original scores becoming the standard and all film music being homogenous between theaters.

Score sheet music can be lost. If the film was released as sound-on-disc, it can be divorced from its score. It's entirely possible that there was an original score but it's gone forever.

Sometimes, the cards provide clues, sometimes we're going in blind.

I would say there's about an 80% chance that the music on home media releases was composed or arranged in the modern era. There are some exciting talents in the world of accompaniment and I thoroughly enjoy the selection.

There are many options for accompaniment and I like them all:

Modern score in the modern style

Modern original score mimicking the silent era style

Arrangement of existing music

Arrangement of existing music documented for use in silent films

Rearrangement of original score

I don't have an issue with very modern scores and actually love quite a few of them.

When silent films were reissued during the silent era, the music would have been refreshed in theaters anyway. Quite a few silents were given brand new synchronized scores in the talkie era.

The magic words that make me so happy:

"Multiple scores included"

Yes, I do rewatch silent movies with every included score because why wouldn't I? I love to hear different interpretations!