Plenty of pop artists have written and performed soundtracks for silent films recently, but few are as fit for the job as Portishead's Adrian Utley and Goldfrapp's Will Gregory. Their groups have always made ambitious, cinematic music, and both men have classical clout – Gregory as a former saxophonist for the London Sinfonietta, and Utley as a composer for film and TV.

This is their first live score together, for a long-lost 1928 expressionist classic. It was found again in 1981, and an ensemble of electric guitars, voices, synthesisers, brass, harp and percussion, conducted by BBC presenter Charles Hazlewood, are here recreating and amplifying its menace and myths.

The eerie whirr of the hall's film projector leads us into the action, but the music begins monotonously. Bass trombones, tuba and drums plod out obvious hints of portent, while shrill sopranos and tenors arrive like godly shorthand. But as Joan's fate darkens, it becomes clear that this simple start gives weight to what follows. Ghostly guitar harmonics and pitch-bending synthesiser sounds chase the expressive eyes of Renée Maria Falconetti as Joan, while the harp's gentle passages remind us she is human.

As martyrdom approaches, the six guitarists (including Utley) strike heavy chords, while Gregory's saxophone expresses shades of melancholy, defiance and euphoria. The film ends with an extraordinary sequence that recalls the shower scene in Psycho, where we feel we are watching Joan's skin crackle and burn, and it deserves cinematic legend on its own terms. But the way the excellent ensemble take us to its finale, raising dynamics as well as the score's dissonance, ensures its horror continues in the mind long afterwards.