Photo: Ratko Radojcic

Dennis Scott, who plays the Music Box Theatre’s glorious pipe organ during silent-movie showings, says that the greatest compliment he can hope for is when patrons tell him his playing matched the movie so well that they forgot he was there. Well, apologies, Maestro Scott, but I cannot let the organ fall away when I watch and hear you. It’s too wonderful. The melodrama, the romance, and the lightheartedness of your music are at least as great as those of the 1920s-era actors onscreen. The sheer seat-shaking sonic richness of it takes me to a bygone age. After a couple of hours spent enrapt as you accompany the silent greats, I walk out of the theater telling friends that talkies are just a fad.