The music of silent cinema

In 1922, the year that Italy tragically saw the coup that would forever change the country's history, a small cinematic event took place in Weimar Republic Germany that was destined to influence a century of film and film music. It's the year that Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau released “Nosferatu”, one of the masterpieces of German Expressionism – one of the most important artistic movements in the history of world cinema – a film so influential that it spawned a string of imitators and remakes that, over a century later, still captivate audiences, directors and musicians alike.

The original score of the era was the work of German composer Hans Erdmann (1887-1942), sadly lost during the Second World War, but reconstructed (as far as possible) in the 1980s and 1990s by scholars Berndt Heller and Gillian Anderson. The first public screening of “Nosferatu” took place in Berlin on 4 March 1922 at the Marmorsaal cinema, as part of “Das Fest des Nosferatu” (“The Nosferatu Festival”), with the audience attending in costume.

Before the film began, the orchestra played the overture to “Der Vampyr”, composed in 1826 by German composer Heinrich Marschner – we might call it the first symphonic score ever to accompany the images of “Nosferatu“. While Heinrich Marschner's “Der Vampyr” is a typical work of nineteenth-century Romantic symphonism, the reconstruction of Hans Erdmann's original version brings out Wagnerian grandeur and the decadent atmospheres typical of German Expressionism. The version reconstructed by Berndt Heller and Gillian Anderson, meanwhile, was performed on 20 February 1984 at the Berlin Festival, and in subsequent years the score was expanded with pieces by other composers (Giuseppe Becce, George Bizet and Arrigo Boito).

This marked the start of a flood of live performances that, from the 1930s onward, saw musicians play different versions in cinemas across America and Europe, often drawing – between the 1930s and the 1950s – on various classical music themes of which, however, no trace remains. To find a new original recorded score for Murnau's film, we have to wait until 1965, when Atlas Film commissioned Peter Schirmann to write various soundtracks for silent films intended for television and cinema distribution.

Since then, there have been countless attempts to score Murnau's masterpiece, especially around its recent centenary anniversary. The genres involved are wildly varied, ranging from symphonic music to hip-hop, from doom to post-rock, all the way to the most radical avant-garde and even surf rock (!). The list below is just a selection of the countless versions available. The most fascinating thing is that Murnau's imagery has inspired musicians from every corner of the world, from the United States to Russia. Many other scores were surely performed live and have since been lost to obscurity. I'd guess there are at least a hundred of them, including a great many orchestral versions – not mentioned in the selection below – clearly inspired by Hans Erdmann's original: among these, we'll simply name the composers: Richard Marriott (1989), Richard O’Meara (2000), Hans Posegga (1989), Peter Schirmann (1969), Bernd Wilden (1998).

This is a selection of twenty-three soundtracks (plus a bonus theatrical version) that have helped make the film Nosferatu a benchmark for silent-film scoring. Enjoy the ride.

The five essential soundtracks

Art Zoyd (FR) – Nosferatu (1989) avant-prog, rock in opposition

The French avant-prog band, (non-founding) members of the rock in opposition movement, delivered their soundtrack for “Nosferatu” in 1989, radically shifting perspective compared to earlier attempts at scoring the film. Art Zoyd turn Murnau's images into a post-industrial nightmare, with avant-garde composition, noise (“Rumeurs”), convulsive electronics (“L’oeuf du serpent”), musique concrète (“La peste”), chants straight out of a satanic mass (“Nosferatu”), pioneering dark ambient (“Rumeurs II”) and church organs (“Marée”). One of the most radical and visionary soundtracks you could ever pair with Murnau's images. Rating 8

Shooting Guns are a Canadian doom band who took on the task of scoring “Nosferatu” in 2018. Their work could be split into two parts. In the first, they seem to pay homage to Popol Vuh, with acoustic guitars evoking the celebrated soundtrack to Herzog's “Nosferatu”. In the second part, the doom/post-rock influence starts to emerge, though less heavy-handed than on their usual albums, stretching the tracks out until they start to resemble Godspeed You! Black Emperor's symphonic sprawl, as in “Death Ship” and, above all, the gorgeous closer “Sacrifice”. Judged on that second half alone, this stands as one of the finest scores ever recorded for the film. Rating 7.5

Dutch lutenist Jozef Van Wissem, known for his many collaborations with director Jim Jarmusch, was commissioned in 2022 by La Cinémathèque Française in Paris to compose a score for “Nosferatu”. The slow pace of the lute and the sound of its plucked strings make this soundtrack particularly interesting and original, both stately and unhurried at once. Its underlying minimalism heightens the tension in the acoustic pieces (“Act 1”), enriched with recorded and processed birdsong (“Act 2”), before morphing, thanks to the distortion of “Act 3” and “Act 5”, into something close to gothic black metal (a sound that would probably appeal to Varg Vikernes), unsettling enough to sit perfectly alongside Murnau's images. Rating 7.5

Italy's Earthset had already dipped into film music with “L'uomo meccanico“, Italy's first science-fiction film, a nearly forgotten title that nonetheless marked an important moment for our country's cinema. The Bologna band now set out to weave post-rock textures into a silent film from 1922, and they succeed brilliantly in making the listener see its unforgettable images.

Built around a short melody that cycles through all eighteen tracks, “Nosferatu” captures the film's macabre atmosphere and iconic imagery remarkably well. After the brief intro “Sinfonia del terrore”, the album launches straight into the title track, its aggressive guitar notes dropping the listener straight into Transylvania. Among the most convincing tracks is “L'ombra del vampiro”, which suddenly kicks into gear around the two-minute mark with a decisive, almost stoner riff. The melodies return to close the circle with “La caccia” and “Nosferatu il vampiro”, an alternate version of the title track. A must for post-rock fans. Rating 7.5

The collaboration between Karim Qqru (Zen Circus), Xabier Iriondo (Afterhours, Buñuel) and Corrado Nuccini (I Giardini di Mirò) could be described as a supergroup bringing together the very best that Italian music has produced over the last twenty years. The trio is no stranger to scoring silent films (“Giovanna d’Arco” in 2019, “Metropolis” in 2025), and unfortunately the music for “Nosferatu” is not yet available. Still, the lucky few who got to see them play live during a screening of “Nosferatu” surely realized they weren’t just at the cinema for the evening, but witnessing an event destined to stay in the memory. Between post-rock, guitar distortion, bass solos and frantic rhythms, the trio’s music truly breathed new life into both the world’s most famous vampire and the fortunate audience in the room. Rating 8

Other soundtracks from around the world, in chronological order

James Bernard was the leading composer for Hammer's gothic horror films, author of the unforgettable score for the original “Dracula” (1958) with Christopher Lee, which has since become an icon of horror film music of that era. After a career full of triumphs, at the venerable age of 72 he was recruited by silent-film historian Kevin Brownlow to score Nosferatu, and Bernard accepted, sticking to his recognizable symphonic, cinematic style. His soundtrack is certainly a dive into the past, and the mastery of such a seasoned composer can only impress, even if it can no longer quite reach the heights of his early career. Rating 7

American singer, pianist and narrator Jill Tracy first began performing her “Nosferatu” score live in 1999 and released the CD for the first time in 2002. Her dark cabaret version, titled “Into The Land Of Phantoms”, is built around the piano, which is omnipresent across all thirty-eight tracks, reducing the string arrangements to brief interludes. It surely can't have been easy for Jill Tracy to hold the audience's attention for the entire length of the film using almost nothing but piano, but the composer seems to possess a natural gift for communicating through her instrument. Every melody lingers in the memory (“Nosferatu Main Title Theme”) without ever tipping into cloying sentimentality. Rating 7

Infra-Men (US) – Nosferatu (2011) surf-rock

It might seem impossible, perhaps even downright sacrilegious, that someone tried playing surf-rock guitars over a “Nosferatu” score, but that too happened somewhere within these hundred years of scoring the film. If the idea sounds like blasphemy, the music of Infra-Men, a Providence-based project devoted to scoring various silent films, actually seems able to stand on its own once separated from Murnau's images. Certainly, the '60s-style rhythms of “Morning In Bremen” can't help but raise a smile, but in the film's more frantic scenes the band manages to wield very aggressive distorted guitars (“Escape”, “Nina And The Vampyr”), better suited to the film's gothic atmosphere. Rating 6.5

Perry Frank (IT) – Nosferatu (2014) ambient

The soundtrack by Sardinian musician Perry Frank is one of the few scores with a distinctly ambient sound that doesn't stray too far from the artist's usual discography. Stasis dominates, with very long drones that shift intensity slowly, but Perry Frank knows when to change things up to build tension (“Orlok”), find interesting unusual timbres (“Death And Sorrow”), or rise into magnificent sonic depictions of Transylvania (“The Land Of Ghost”). Anyone familiar with Perry Frank's discography knows his score would sound different today, given his evolution from his early Brian Eno influences to his current Irisarri-esque distortions, probably better suited to Murnau's film. Rating 6

Can you dance at the cinema while watching “Nosferatu”? I'd say definitely not, but this EDM version by David Kanaga, composed using Ableton, still manages to get inside Murnau's images. Certainly a bizarre mix of synths, keyboards, vintage melodies and recordings, Californian David Kanaga's experiment deserves a mention because it shows just how far-reaching the influence of silent cinema has been, not only Murnau's, and how many unlikely combinations are possible between seemingly incompatible worlds. Rating 6

The British trio made up of Sam McLoughlin, Bridget Hayden and Jake Blanchard first scored Murnau's film live in 2014 at the church in Todmorden, the hometown of Keith Emerson. From Emerson, though, they've taken nothing at all, and their soundtrack is a genuine challenge to the listener, being about as dark and uncompromising as it gets. Background noise, musique concrète, synths that flicker into being only to vanish instantly into nothing: a dark-ambient score stripped down to the bare essentials, worth noting as a particularly radical take on film music. Rating 6

Invincible Czars (Us) – Nosferatu (2015) prog

Veterans of silent-film scoring (this “Nosferatu” is their seventh such release), the Texan band Invincible Czars deliver a (prog)rock take on Murnau's film, bringing in a range of instruments beyond the standard rock line-up, including flute, violin, glockenspiel and clarinet. The stylistic range is wide, but it's the progressive sounds, blended with folk influences, that carry the most weight on tracks like “Hutter And Ellen” or “Hutter’s Leaving”. In some ways their music eases the tension of the film's imagery, focusing less on fear and more on musicianship, though a handful of tracks such as “Overture”, “Hutter Wakes Bulwer” or “Castle” do real justice to Bram Stoker's gothic novel — perhaps less so to Murnau's film version. Rating 6.5

Canadian musician Richard Feren released his version of “Nosferatu” in 2015, playing synth, violin, theremin and percussion. His score sounds suitably dark (“Opening Titles”), at times romantic though laced with the tolling of funeral bells (“Nina’s Theme”), and overall it fits among the works most indebted to the electronic music of John Carpenter. Originality is in short supply, but that's a venial sin here and there (“Vampires On Board”, “Nina’s Sacrifice”). Rating 6

The experimental electronic music of Simone Lanari, also known for his folk project Ask The White, stands apart from other entries on this list for hewing more closely to the film's scenes and for its more overtly descriptive sound. Never as extreme or abstract as some avant-garde electroacoustic projects, Lanari — on tracks like “Wisborg” and “Nosferatu”, which shifts from ambient into Carpenter-esque tones, or in musique concrète experiments like “Quiet Beasts” — truly conjures the landscapes of Transylvania, enriching the film's imagery. Rating 6.5

Moloq (Us) – Nosferatu Suite (2020) electronic, synth

Performed entirely on synths, the music of Moloq, an American duo from Atlanta, may bring to mind the film scores of Wendy Carlos, allowing for the due distance from Carlos's unmatched talent.

There are no truly unforgettable moments, but the atmospheres of “Dæmonic Nightmare” or “Vampyre” have that vintage sound which suits Murnau's black and white perfectly. Score 6.5

The Texan band Brown Whörnet recorded two soundtracks for “Nosferatu”. The first, from 2000, documents their 1999 live shows and features the instrumental rock of “The Ship Of Death”, the noise aggression of tracks like “Knock Escapes”, “Dock II” and “Attack I”, and the grotesque sound of “The Jail”. In 2020 they released a definitive version enriched with live material from later years, filling in whatever gaps the first edition may have had. The raw rock of “Nosferatu Overdrive” or the deranged guitar lines of “Carriage Ride” give Murnau's German Expressionism an American reading unlike anything heard elsewhere, even if the film's variety demands shifts in tone that the band pulls off with electronic intrusions and even electroacoustic walls of sound (“Overture”). Score 7

Chris Green (Uk) – Nosferatu (2021) electronic, rock, folk

Commissioned by English Heritage for a live screening at Whitby Abbey, the quintessential Gothic English town that inspired Bram Stoker, Chris Green's soundtrack opens with an explicit nod to John Carpenter (“Overture & Main Titles”, practically identical to the melody of “Halloween”). Beyond that, Green plays around with a range of instruments from moog to mandolin, guitar to psaltery, delivering sounds typical of Carpenter-style soundtrack rock, electronica, and various acoustic folk pieces. Probably too derivative, Green's work feels too far removed from Murnau to be genuinely compelling. Score 5.5

TIR (It)- Nosferatu (2022) avantgarde, dark ambient

The duo from Romagna, made up of Marco Pandolfini and Giulio Galeno Giorgetti, recorded a thoroughly avant-garde version, particularly hypnotic and claustrophobic. Music that would be perfect for a sound installation, but which nonetheless manages, in its own way, to tell the story of Murnau's vampire across five long acts (each between fifteen and twenty-two minutes) plus an overture, with coherence and rigor. Certainly the most experimental version available, a hopeless darkness in the soul of a lost being. Score 6

Made for the centenary of Murnau's film, the soundtrack by London's Hands Of Ruin uses typical martial electronic sounds, with steady rhythms and rapid, compulsive string lines alternating with dark-ambient textures. There's a general attempt here to imitate classic Hollywood-style scores, especially in their quasi-symphonic feel, which makes Hands Of Ruin's effort less original than other soundtracks. Score 6

The Old Sanctum project comes from Oregon and offers a totally alternative take on the music of Nosferatu, mixing dark electronica with dungeon music. Organ sounds abound, as do funereal atmospheres and possible nods to other horror film soundtracks. It doesn't feel especially memorable, but watching Murnau's full film with this music performed live must be quite an experience. Score 6.5

American composer Christopher Young is famous for his horror film scores, the best known of which is probably “Hellraiser”. For the centenary of Murnau's film, he was commissioned to write a new score, which premiered in February 2023 with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, though the vinyl and CD weren't released until 2024. What we get is a return to symphonic writing with clear echoes of classic modern film scoring, one that in some way tries to pay homage to Hans Erdmann. There are moments where Young's debt to Edgard Varese is obvious, with sudden, powerful percussion that injects abrupt tension (“The Crypt”, “Escape From The Castle”), alongside other, more predictable passages where strings dominate unopposed. Score 7

Swedish musician Tomas Bodin is the keyboardist of prog band The Flower Kings. In 2023 he released a new score for keyboard alone, one that revives the vintage sounds of 1970s progressive rock, drawing mainly on Rick Wakeman's solo albums, though there's often no shortage of the kind of irony typical of Keith Emerson either. Between prog quotations and echoes of classical pianism, Tomas Bodin's album certainly doesn't rank among the high points of progressive rock's discography, but it remains an experiment worth remembering, showing how artistic ideas born in distant and vastly different historical periods can coexist and enrich one another. Score 6.5

A bonus from another world

Even Russia isn't immune to the allure of Nosferatu, although the work by Dmitri Kourliandski and Dimitris Yalamas isn't a score for Murnau's film, but rather the music for a particularly ambitious and forward-looking piece of contemporary Russian theater. Commissioned by the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre, this thoroughly avant-garde stage work was performed live for the first time in Perm on June 13, 2014, before being restaged in numerous other Russian cities. The music seems to be a compendium of the most radical musical movements of the 20th century, marked by a rigorous atonality that brings it close to the most uncompromising works of Alban Berg. Rating: 7

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