The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays contains the earliest documented original score in all of cinema; The Assassination of the Duke of Guise debuted in the United States around four months later. Calmettes is credited with the idea of scoring the film, and Saint-Saëns was a logical choice for such a prestigious venture. At age 73, he was probably France's most celebrated composer, and he had extensive experience in theater music. The score integrates small-scale dramatic details within a large-scale musical form to a degree rarely equaled during the rest of the silent period. Information about how he approached the project is scarce and ambiguous. Bonnerot, his biographer, tells us that he worked out the music "scene by scene before the screen"; and that because of the approach of winter he left Paris before the film's première, leaving Fernand LeBorne to conduct the orchestra. Saint-Saëns had a piano reduction of the score, dedicated to LeBorne, published by Durand that year.
