The Day of Russian cinema is celebrated on August 17. On this holiday, many cities organize cinema forums, meetings with actors and film-directors, a variety of workshops and themed exhibitions are held.

The first cinema show in the Russian Empire took place in St. Petersburg on May 4 (16), 1896. The first domestic film "Stenka Razin" was shown on October 2 (15), 1908. It was directed by Vladimir Romashkov (1862-1939) and based on the Russian folk song "From across the island to strezhen”. Narrative black-and-white film with actors caused a sensation not only in Russia, but also abroad.

The Day of Russian cinema dates back to October Revolution of 1917, when the Soviet republic leaders, realizing the importance of cinematography as a powerful advocacy tool for promotion of revolutionary ideas, decided to "take over the cinema". A Decree of Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on cinema production nationalization was issued on August 27, 1919. To commemorate this event, the date August 27 became Soviet Cinema Day and later Russian cinema Day.

A separate role cinematograph is played by music, since music in combination with other forms of art can convey implication deeper, to reveal the hidden meaning of the film, to unpack the mood and much more. Without music, the emotional effect of successive images is much weaker. This was felt most strongly in silent films, which without live music in the cinema theater were almost helpless. When sound appeared in the cinema and people on the screen began to speak, cars hummed and horses neighed - the function of music did not change. It was used to amplify the emotions that viewers were supposed to feel as they watched the film. And it was very successful in doing that.

The music in a film can be loud or soft, it can be dominant, and it can parallel the action on the screen, emphasize a story, or be inconspicuous. Music can immerse in the proper atmosphere and create the proper mood. Often just the melody at the beginning of a film can prompt the viewer the genre of the piece. Since the birth of sound motion pictures in the 1930s, the division of music appeared into source music - specific, motivated, justified by the sound of the instrument depicted in the single picture, a radio loud speaker, the singing of the characters, etc., and off-screen - "authorial", "imaginary". Off-screen music is somewhat detached from the action and at the same time characterizes the events in the film, expresses the underlying dynamic of the plot.

The lecture "Russian cinema score of the Classical period" narrates about the origins of Russian cinematography, about the unremembered inventors of the last century, the avant-garde experimentalists, and about the efficacy of the creative union between film director and composer, dictating the form of a film. The films produced during that period captured the hearts of millions of spectators that hit the cinemas theaters.

On Russian Cinema Day, it is pleasant to recollect the main stages of its development and listen to the music from the films that have become the  classics.