With the release of Robert Egger’s remake of Nosferatu, it hit me on the number of different soundtracks for this film title there are. And of course, being a crazy horror film soundtrack collector, I already had quite a few of them! But it amazed me how many different scores there are for this series.
Hans Erdmann (pictured to the right) had composed the music for the original 1922 film. This is when the music was played live during the screenings, which for some theaters, due to their size, made it difficult. Many times, completely different music, often classical pieces, was played on either an organ or a much smaller orchestra, depending on the size of the theater. Unfortunately, much of Erdmann’s original music is now lost so we’re never going to know what that score would have sounded like.
In 1997, composer James Bernard, most known for his work with Hammer Studios on films like Horror of Dracula, wrote a completely new score for the Murnau film, which was released by Silva Screen Records.
When director Werner Herzog made his version of Nosferatu, he hired the West German group Popol Vuh to score the film. He had worked with them on some of his previous films. I remember being at a Fangoria convention in New York in the mid-90s and found a copy of this on CD at a record store, which I immediately purchased. Though some of the music was in the actual film, it had 10 tracks with a running time close to 42 minutes. I later found out that a couple of the tracks used in the film were previous released on Popol Vuh’s album, Brüder des Schattens – Söhne des Lichts” (Brothers of the Shadow – Sons of the Light).
Then SPV Recordings released the score again, this time with 14 tracks and a running time of 65:28 minutes. This version is still available on Amazon in both CD and MP3 format. Then Waxworks Records even put out a 2-LP release in 2015. It had a total of 14 tracks but I’m not sure of the running time.
And now, one of my favorite composers, Christopher Young, just composed an entirely new score for Murnau’s original film, which has been released on CD by Warner Classics, in a 2-disc release, that runs 93 minutes. According to Young, “If you make yourself available to the ‘Invisible World’, the dark, mysterious world that lives with us and has lived with all of us humans since the beginning of time, and you try to capture that in the music, it’s so rewarding. I’ve done so many horror films, but Nosferatu is probably my biggest thing I will ever do.”
Of course, this brings us to the Eggers film, which has a score from Robin Carolan, that was released by Sacred Bones in a 2-disc set with a running time of 96 minutes.
It just amazed me that the original has had 2 completely new scores composed for it, which obviously goes to show how powerful a film that it is. But then having multiple releases of the Herzog version over the years, and now a completely new film with a new score. I know I’ve said it many times before, but what an incredible and wonderful time to be a film fan, and especially a soundtrack fan!
