Few characters have enjoyed as much reinvention as Arthur Conan Doyle’s sleuth Sherlock Holmes, an enduring icon who is as much bound up with the history of cinema (and indeed stage, TV and radio) as he is with literature. Indeed, adaptations of Holmes stories stretch right the way back to the earliest days of film at the start of the 20th century. Fittingly enough given Holmes’ penchant for a violin serenade, the musical scores to his adventures are as richly varied as the outcomes to his mysteries are unexpected.

Here are Holmes’ musical highlights, from Buster Keaton through to Benedict Cumberbatch.

Sherlock Jr. (1924)

Not, strictly speaking, a Sherlock movie but as the title implies, the legacy of the character casts a long shadow over Buster Keaton’s silent classic. In the film, he plays a projectionist and aspiring detective kept apart from the girl of his dreams. In his dreams he subsequently escapes into the world of celluloid, a scenario that allows Keaton to indulge his ageless, jaw-droppingly brilliant physical comedy (including a water spigot stunt that led to a broken neck).

There have been many musical interpretations of Sherlock Jr. over the years but the irrepressibly snappy sound of the Club Foot Orchestra (formed in 1983) is now synonymous with Keaton’s classic pratfalling, beautifully accentuating every physical movement with balletic grace.