Before American composers like Jerome Moross and Elmer Bernstein made the western distinctly their own, the task of scoring the genre fell largely to European émigrés. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll take a look at some outside perspectives on how the West was won.
Literally the godson of Richard Strauss, Max Steiner (born on this date in 1888) came from Vienna, where he studied with Johannes Brahms and Robert Fuchs. In Hollywood, he wound up scoring such classics as “King Kong,” “Gone with the Wind” and “Casablanca.”
Among his over 300 film projects were a number of westerns. One of these was “They Died with Their Boots On” (1941), which starred Errol Flynn as George Armstrong Custer and Olivia de Havilland as Libby, the woman who becomes his wife. Steiner’s score features familiar folk material, some old-fashioned faux “Indian” music, and one of his characteristically lush love themes.
Dimitri Tiomkin (born in Ukraine on this date in 1894) was a pupil of Alexander Glazunov. He came to revolutionize the sound of the American West, when he wrote the music for “High Noon,” the first of his “ballad” scores. Advance word, based on an early screening for the press, was that the picture would be a failure. However, Tiomkin had such faith in the theme song, sung in the film by Tex Ritter, that he hired Frankie Laine to record it, and the record became a world-wide hit. In fact, his score is largely credited with having saved the film.
Tiomkin was recognized with two Academy Awards: one for Best Original Song, and one for the score itself. It was the first time a composer won two Oscars for his work on the same movie. It also changed the way western scores were done. In the 1950s, Tiomkin became THE western composer of choice. He produced a number of subsequent ballad scores, including that for “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” (1957). Asked how it was that a composer from Ukraine could write so convincingly for the American West, Tiomkin quipped, “A steppe is a steppe is a steppe.”
Another unexpected source of classic western music, Franz Waxman was born in Upper Silesia. He arrived in the U.S. by way of Germany. Nonetheless, as part of the composer’s varied and prolific output, he did indeed score a number of films in the genre, including “The Furies” (1950), a peculiar noir-western hybrid. Walter Huston, in his final film, plays a cattle baron who remarries and throws his empire into jeopardy. Barbara Stanwyck is his strong-willed daughter.
Hungarian-born composer Miklós Rózsa scored many films with historical settings – “Quo Vadis,” “Ben-Hur,” and “King of Kings,” among them. However, to my knowledge, his only western was “Tribute to a Bad Man” (1956). James Cagney stars as a rancher who doles out some frontier justice.
Finally, we’ll hear music by Ennio Morricone, from arguably the most operatic of all spaghetti westerns, “Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968). As a reaction to Tiomkin’s ballad scores and the neo-Coplandisms of Elmer Bernstein and the rest, Morricone brings his own quirky sensibility to bear on the classic western iconography. Get ready for indelible motifs for harmonica and banjo, but also an unexpectedly moving elegiac arioso, underscoring the close of the American West with the arrival of the railroad.
Doublecheck your train tables and wind your pocket watches. Old World composers go west this week on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu
Tag: Max Steiner
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Valor and Sacrifice for Memorial Day Weekend on “Picture Perfect”
This week on “Picture Perfect,” it’s all about valor and sacrifice, as we anticipate Memorial Day.
Memorial Day has its roots in Decoration Day, established in 1868 to honor the Civil War dead. We’ll hear music from “Glory” (1989), inspired by the extraordinary courage of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw’s 54th Massachusetts Voluntary Regiment, an all African American outfit that distinguished itself in an impossible assault on Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina. The outstanding cast features Morgan Freeman, Matthew Broderick, and Cary Elwes, with an Oscar-winning performance by Denzel Washington. The poignant score is by James Horner.
Gary Cooper had one of his best roles as “Sergeant York” (1941), based on the true story of Alvin C. York, who went from backwoods hell-raiser to devout pacifist. After a period of soul-searching, York was able to reconcile his strong moral convictions with the unfortunate reality that sometimes it really is necessary to fight. He went on to distinguish himself on the battlefield and become one of the most-decorated soldiers of the First World War. The folksy score, evocative of York’s Tennessee roots, is by Max Steiner.
In director Michael Cimino’s “The Deer Hunter” (1978), three men from a small Pennsylvania steel town serve in Vietnam, then struggle to cope with the war’s psychological impact. The harrowing film, especially memorable for its scenes of Russian roulette in a P.O.W. camp, won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Christopher Walken was honored with the award for Best Supporting Actor. Stanley Myers wrote the music. We’ll hear his famous “Cavatina,” performed by guitarist John Williams, not to be confused with…
… composer John Williams, who provided one of his sparser scores for “Saving Private Ryan” (1998). Steven Spielberg’s war-is-hell narrative yet manages to honor the sacrifice of the fighting men of World War II. The opening – a sustained “you-are-there” battle sequence on Omaha Beach – is unforgettable. Remarkably, it is presented wholly without music, Williams preferring to allow the tension of the mise-en-scène to speak for itself. Spielberg picked up his second Academy Award for Best Director. The film, however, inexplicably, lost to “Shakespeare in Love.”
I hope you’ll join me for music from these cinematic meditations on the costs and consequences of war, as we honor the valor and sacrifice of soldiers who died while serving in America’s armed forces, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu -
Fantasy Film Music From Lost Worlds on KWAX
Summer arrives today at 10:42 p.m. EDT. But who’s keeping track? This week on “Picture Perfect,” time means nothing, as we’re bound for an hour of music from fantasy films set in lost worlds.
In “King Kong” (1933), filmmaker and entrepreneur Carl Denham hires a ship to an uncharted island, known only from a secret map in his possession. There the crew discovers the titular gorilla and other outsized, should-be-extinct creatures. Kong is abducted from his natural habitat – and you know the rest. The composer, Max Steiner, pulls out all the stops. “Kong” was one of the first films to demonstrate how truly powerful an orchestral soundtrack could be.
Then we travel to the earth’s core, courtesy of Jules Verne and “Journey to the Center of the Earth” (1959). James Mason plays the professor who leads the expedition. The film sports one of Bernard Herrmann’s most outlandish soundscapes, the orchestra consisting of winds, brass and percussion, but also cathedral organ, four electric organs, and an obsolete Renaissance instrument called the serpent. Watch out for that giant chameleon!
“One Million Years B.C.” (1966) is a guilty pleasure if ever there was one. Produced by Hammer, the studio that gave us all those repugnant yet somehow delicious Peter Cushing-Christopher Lee horror team-ups, the film features special effects by the legendary Ray Harryhausen and an equally legendary fur bikini, sported by Raquel Welch. The music is by Mario Nascimbene, who wrote one of my favorite scores for Kirk Douglas, for “The Vikings.” We’ll be listening to the film’s climactic volcano sequence.
As he did with the Indiana Jones films, director Steven Spielberg turned to B-movie source material as his visual inspiration for “Jurassic Park” (1993), based on the novel by Michael Crichton. The herky-jerky dinosaur effects of yore are replaced by state-of-the-art computer-generated imagery, in this story of a remote island safari park gone wrong.
Sure, we’ve come a long way from Raquel Welch being carried off by a Pteranodon, but admit it, we all still want to see people fight dinosaurs. Instead of fudging history, now we can feel superior by fudging science. “Jurassic Park” plays on modern scientific thinking, with DNA extracted from mosquitoes trapped in amber, cloning, and the theory that dinosaurs were not lizards, after all, but rather birds. The music is by long-time Spielberg collaborator, John Williams.If you happen to forget a compass, or a watch, don’t panic! In the words of Ian Malcolm, life finds a way. Join me for “Lands That Time Forgot,” on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
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Old World Composers Score the Wild West
Before American composers like Jerome Moross and Elmer Bernstein made the western distinctly their own, the task of scoring the genre fell largely to European émigrés. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll take a look at some outside perspectives on how the West was won.
Literally the godson of Richard Strauss, Max Steiner (born on this date in 1888) came from Vienna, where he studied with Johannes Brahms and Robert Fuchs. In Hollywood, he wound up scoring such classics as “King Kong,” “Gone with the Wind” and “Casablanca.”
Among his over 300 film projects were a number of westerns. One of these was “They Died with Their Boots On” (1941), which starred Errol Flynn as George Armstrong Custer and Olivia de Havilland as Libby, the woman who becomes his wife. Steiner’s score features familiar folk material, some old-fashioned faux “Indian” music, and one of his characteristically lush love themes.
Dimitri Tiomkin (born in Ukraine on this date in 1894) was a pupil of Alexander Glazunov. He came to revolutionize the sound of the American West, when he wrote the music for “High Noon,” the first of his “ballad” scores. Advance word, based on an early screening for the press, was that the picture would be a failure. However, Tiomkin had such faith in the theme song, sung in the film by Tex Ritter, that he hired Frankie Laine to record it, and the record became a world-wide hit. In fact, his score is largely credited with having saved the film.
Tiomkin was recognized with two Academy Awards: one for Best Original Song, and one for the score itself. It was the first time a composer won two Oscars for his work on the same movie. It also changed the way western scores were done. In the 1950s, Tiomkin became THE western composer of choice. He produced a number of subsequent ballad scores, including that for “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” (1957). Asked how it was that a composer from Ukraine could write so convincingly for the American West, Tiomkin quipped, “A steppe is a steppe is a steppe.”
Another unexpected source of classic western music, Franz Waxman was born in Upper Silesia. He arrived in the U.S. by way of Germany. Nonetheless, as part of the composer’s varied and prolific output, he did indeed score a number of films in the genre, including “The Furies” (1950), a peculiar noir-western hybrid. Walter Huston, in his final film, plays a cattle baron who remarries and throws his empire into jeopardy. Barbara Stanwyck is his strong-willed daughter.
Hungarian-born composer Miklós Rózsa scored many films with historical settings – “Quo Vadis,” “Ben-Hur,” and “King of Kings,” among them. However, to my knowledge, his only western was “Tribute to a Bad Man” (1956). James Cagney stars as a rancher who doles out some frontier justice.
Finally, we’ll hear music by Ennio Morricone, from arguably the most operatic of all spaghetti westerns, “Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968). As a reaction to Tiomkin’s ballad scores and the neo-Coplandisms of Elmer Bernstein and the rest, Morricone brings his own quirky sensibility to bear on the classic western iconography. Get ready for indelible motifs for harmonica and banjo, but also an unexpectedly moving elegiac arioso, underscoring the close of the American West with the arrival of the railroad.
Doublecheck your train tables and wind your pocket watches. Old World composers go west this week on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for those of you listening in the East. Here are the respective air-times for all three of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EASTERN)
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday on KWAX at 8:00 AM PACIFIC TIME (11:00 AM EASTERN)
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EASTERN)
Stream all three, at the times indicated, by following the link!
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Max Steiner & Dimitri Tiomkin Birthday Film Scores
May 10th is bursting with birthday energy! Turn down the lights for a celebration of those two silverbacks of the silver screen, Max Steiner and Dimitri Tiomkin.
Steiner (1888-1971), the literal godson of Richard Strauss, was instrumental in transplanting the sound of fin de siècle Vienna to the realm of cinematic dreams. He composed over 300 film scores for RKO and Warner Brothers, earning 24 Academy Award nominations and winning three – for “The Informer,” “Now, Voyager” and “Since You Went Away” – though he is unquestionably better remembered today for his work on “King Kong,” “Gone with the Wind” and “Casablanca.”
Tiomkin (1894-1979), a pupil of Alexander Glazunov, was born in Ukraine. He settled in the United States, where he composed music for films in all genres, though in the 1950s he enjoyed particular success writing for Westerns, including the Academy Award-winning “High Noon.” When asked why this would be the case, that a composer born halfway around the world would have such a command of this distinctly American idiom, Tiomkin replied, “A steppe is a steppe is a steppe.”
Tiomkin was honored with four Academy Awards – three for Best Original Score (for “High Noon,” “The High and the Mighty” and “The Old Man and the Sea”) and one for Best Original Song (“The Ballad of High Noon”).
Here’s a transcript of his acceptance speech, delivered after being handed the Oscar for “The High and the Mighty” in 1955:
“Lady and gentlemen, because I working in this town for twenty-five years, I like to make some kind of appreciation to very important factor what make me successful to lots of my colleagues in this town. I’d like to thank Johannes Brahms, Johann Strauss, Richard Strauss, Beethoven, Mozart, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov. Thank you.”
You can watch it here:
Though Steiner and Tiomkin were both very well-connected in the wider musical world, comparatively speaking, neither left very much in the way of classical concert music. In 2019, Intrada Records put out a diverting 2-CD set of Tiomkin’s brightly-scored ballet music, dances composed in Paris for his wife, Albertina Rasch, in 1927-1932, prior to his work in film. It would be wonderful for afternoon drive-time – if only I had a live air shift! You can sample some of it by following the link. Already detectable is Tiomkin’s trademark snarling brass, in a number titled “Mars” (the second track in this YouTube playlist):
In 2020, Oxford University Press published a book by Steven C. Smith, “Music by Max Steiner: The Epic Life of Hollywood’s Most Influential Composer.” Read my impressions of this authoritative biography, unbelievably the first full-length treatment of Steiner’s life and achievements, here. Then get yourself a copy!
Also in 2020, while I was twiddling my thumbs, waiting to get back to work, I put together a Steiner-Tiomkin crossword puzzle. The clues not only allude to specifics of their respective lives and careers, but they should also be of ample interest, I hope, to classic movie buffs. So even if you’re convinced you don’t know a lot about music, do check it out if, like me, you happen to watch a lot of movies from the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s.
To fill out the puzzle, follow the link and select “solve online” at the bottom of the page. You’ll then be able to type directly into the squares. Once you feel you’ve exhausted the puzzle, you’ll find the solutions by clicking on “Answer Key PDF.”
Happy birthday to Max Steiner and Dimitri Tiomkin, two composers who enriched generations of movie lovers by keeping it “reel!”
Steiner’s “Now, Voyager”
Tiomkin’s “Land of the Pharaohs”
A great, two-part interview with Steiner:
Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQuNnzH6_g8
Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmJLTn_6UOYThe official Dimitri Tiomkin website:
PHOTOS (counter-clockwise from top): Screen credits for their work on “Lost Horizon” (1937); Steiner conducting; Frank Capra (in coat) with Steiner and Tiomkin on the podium; Tiomkin composing
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