Composing the Shadows: Tom Roberts’ Music for Nosferatu

Composing the Shadows: Tom Roberts' Music for Nosferatu
When the Pittsburgh Silent Movie Society asked pianist and composer Tom Roberts to write a solo piano score for Nosferatu, he figured the job was simple: scary movie, scary music. Then he sat down and watched F. W. Murnau's 1922 classic all the way through.

It wasn't what he expected. Behind the creepy imagery was a beautiful-looking film with a story about love, vulnerability, and loss. That changed everything.

Tom Roberts recording Nosferatu on a Steinway Model D at Levy Hall, Rodef Shalom Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA. Photo (c) Rivermont Records/Bryan Wright

A 100th birthday gig
The invitation came from Chad Hunter and the Society for a centennial screening on March 4, 2022, a hundred years to the day after Nosferatu premiered in Berlin. Roberts played the score live at the piano that night.

Like most people, he'd mostly known the film through its famous scenes, usually set to harsh, clanging accompaniment. Watching the whole thing pointed him somewhere else entirely: toward his favorite film composer of all time, Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin wrote warm, romantic music for his own films and let it carry the feeling. Roberts saw the same possibility here. The music could bring out the film's heart and still leave its scariest moments plenty of bite.

"I want to create things that immerse the viewer within the situations," he says.

Melodies that show up on their own
Roberts doesn't start with a plan so much as a feeling. "When I watch one of these films, I try to imagine what I would like to hear accompanying it," he explains. As he thinks about a scene, or the arc of the whole film, melodies pop into his head. He writes them down, develops them, and once the whole thing is sketched out, he times every segment to the picture.

With Nosferatu, the process took over. "I was writing music for this thing in my sleep," he says.


Tom playing the ending for the first time at 2:30 AM. 

And though it's played on one piano, that's not how he heard it. "Even though it's solo piano, when I was imagining this, I imagined it as an orchestral piece."

Schubert, Romania, and a great compliment
The score borrows from the Romantic piano music of Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms, plus traditional Romanian music, a fitting touch for a story set in Transylvania.

That Romantic influence runs deep. Roberts' favorite compliment came from an opera singer who heard one of his pieces and asked which Schubert song it was. "And I went, 'Yes, I wrote it.'"

From early jazz to gothic horror
If you know Roberts' name, it's probably from early jazz. He spent years touring with Leon Redbone, and that partnership left a lasting mark. "Every cool thing that I know about music came from Leon Redbone," he says. "He provided lots of access to music that I never would have experienced." Years later, Redbone's influence hasn't faded: "He is always in my brain. He was a brilliant person."

Roberts has also played with Vince Giordano's Nighthawks and arranged some of the music for Martin Scorsese's The Aviator. Nosferatu shows off a different side: his classical training and a real gift for long-form storytelling at the keyboard.

Worth hearing on its own
You don't need the movie to enjoy the album. The melodies and shifting moods tell their own story, a tale of love and loss with a gothic shadow over it. And if you do know Murnau's film, this score might make you see it a little differently.

Tom Roberts' Nosferatu is out now on Rivermont Records on CD, 180-gram oxblood-red vinyl, and digital download.

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