One hundred and three years later, F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Terror still haunts audiences into unconsciousness. Newcomers feel a thrill of recognition as they see Murnau's indelible memories of the prowling Transylvanian vampire: the reverse-negative image of Nosferatu's carriage thundering through the forest; majestically disturbing scenes where a plague ship glides across the frame; a vampire carrying his coffin through the deserted streets of a German city; his shadow seeped along the wall of the stairwell, bony fingers stretched out. Film societies, symphony orchestras and alternative venues regularly screen Nosferatu, especially around Halloween. Remakes by Werner Herzog in 1979 and Robert Eggers in 2024 further increased the original's fame, although neither can match its sinister lyricism. The appearance of the word “symphony” in the title emphasizes the revolutionary musicality of Murnau’s style, his way of turning images into silent song.
But what about the music itself? Although Nosferatu was released five years before sound was introduced, composer Hans Erdmann provided a score that ensembles could play in larger theaters. Much of Erdmann's music later disappeared, and the surviving fragments, executed in the late Romantic style, do not suggest a lost masterpiece. In the absence of a fixed soundtrack, hundreds of alternatives have been conceived by classical composers, film composers, rock bands, doom metal bands, jazz ensembles and noise bands. Just before Halloween, vocalist and composer Hayley Faure of the band Circuit des Yeux provided a darkly atmospheric backing for a screening of Nosferatu at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles—a mix of guitar drones, ghostly vocals, and seething minimalist figures.
However, in my experience, Nosferatu is most compelling when accompanied by an organ. Battles against wickedness flourish in ecclesiastical tones. In late October, I went to San Diego to see a movie at the Balboa Theater, a century-old vaudeville and movie theater. His prized possession is a 1929 Wonder Morton organ, a four-manual instrument that was once in a movie theater in Queens. The performer was David Marsh, a thirty-year-old musician from Mission Viejo, California. March, an enthusiast of French organ improvisation, did not bring any written music to the concert, although he had a plan of action. He told me early on, “'Nosferatu' allows me to use everything I have. There are romantic, sentimental moments, like when the young hero leaves his wife and goes to Transylvania, and they demand the sound of Old Hollywood. But it's also horror, and it allows me to be absolutely crazy – dissonance, chromaticism, cluster chords.”
In the idyllic early scenes, Marsh used the Korngold theme with increasing intervals of fifths and sixths, and then moved it to a minor mode as the Transylvanian cold set in. As Nosferatu revealed his corpse face, Wonder Morton's Vox Humana and the concert flute trumpets buzzed together into a piercing sound. Relentless ostinato figures emphasized Nosferatu's boat journey. The Dawn finale had an MGM Messiaen feel to it. The crowd erupted in applause before March had even finished, and rightly so.
During the silent film era, thousands of movie theater organs raised their whimsical, quavering voices, with the most popular model being the Mighty Wurlitzer. According to the American Theater Organ Society, there are only a few hundred instruments left in theaters and they are experiencing a modest renaissance. Resident organists accompany silent film screenings, including at the Stanford Theater in Palo Alto; Ohio Theater in Columbus; Circle Cinema in Tulsa; and the Fox Theater in Atlanta. The rowdy Mighty Wurlitzer at the Castro Hotel in San Francisco had a long-standing cult following; the theater is being renovated and will open early next year with the world's largest digital organ.
In Los Angeles, the best place to see silent organ music is the Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo. This two-hundred-seat establishment, a bit like a Wild West opera house, first opened in 1921 to provide entertainment for Standard Oil workers. In 1968, two theater organ enthusiasts, Bill Coffman and Bill Field, rented the building and installed a huge twenty-six hundred pipe Wurlitzer organ that they salvaged from the Fox West Coast Theater in Long Beach. Coffman and Field died in 2001 and 2020, respectively, but Old Town continues to operate on a nonprofit basis under the auspices of dedicated volunteers.
