# New Steiner Biography



## mbhaub

I've finished this new bio of film music legend Max Steiner. If you're at all interested in film music history you will need to read this book. The same author wrote the excellent Heart at Fire's Center about Bernard Herrman. Highly recommended.

Steiner's scores are wonderful; I've enjoyed collecting as many disks as I could find. This book is the icing on the cake.


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## Guest

mbhaub said:


> I've finished this new bio of film music legend Max Steiner. If you're at all interested in film music history you will need to read this book. The same author wrote the excellent Heart at Fire's Center about Bernard Herrman. Highly recommended.
> 
> Steiner's scores are wonderful; I've enjoyed collecting as many disks as I could find. This book is the icing on the cake.
> View attachment 141556


Thank you so much; I'll order it right away. I've read his excellent book on Bernard Herrmann a few years ago, and it was stunning.


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## mbhaub

Now we need to get people to urge the author to write one on Franz Waxman.


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## Guest

mbhaub said:


> Now we need to get people to urge the author to write one on Franz Waxman.


Absolutely. Is there a biography of Eric Wolfgang Korngold at all? His story would be a fascinating one, I'm sure.


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## Prodromides

I've been listening to TV and film music and collecting soundtracks since I was a teenager in the 1980s. Honestly, I admit that the _oeuvre_ of Max Steiner never attracted me because I acquired a couple of his LPs about 30 years ago [*Band of Angels* (1957) on RCA & *John Paul Jones* (1959) on Warner Bros. records], and disliked both so much that I summarily dismissed any other titles by Steiner as unworthy of acquisition. Even by watching some of the movies from the '40s & '50s scored by Max did not persuade me to re-consider his film music since I felt Steiner was too allusive (quoting pop tunes, anthems, traditonals, etc.) or else too sentimental - too Romantic - not modern enough for my tastes.

Then, last year, Screen Archives Entertainment produced a 3-CD set on vintage film noir recordings by Steiner:

http://www.chelsearialtostudios.com/caged/caged_cover.jpg










After decades of indifference towards Max, I finally relented and purchased this album. These are the 'dark' sides of Steiner that interest me; these are the soundtracks that _should_ have existed on LPs over 60 years ago.
At long last, my music collection has, since December 2019, this clamshell jewel box to represent Max Steiner!

Regarding the new publication on Steiner, I continue to be surprised that Steven C. Smith (the author of a Bernard Herrmann biography) focused attention on Max Steiner. Herrmann and Steiner are so different - and their music so stylistically apart - that my mind tends to think of these two as mutually exclusive. Herrmann continues to have a significant fan base for soundtracks but, if the Film Score Monthly message board forums are any indication, Herrmanniacs do not necessarily embrace Golden Age film music composers (Herrmann excepted). At this distance in time, I daresay most Max Steiner fans have since deceased.


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## Guest

Prodromides said:


> I've been listening to TV and film music and collecting soundtracks since I was a teenager in the 1980s. Honestly, I admit that the _oeuvre_ of Max Steiner never attracted me because I acquired a couple of his LPs about 30 years ago [*Band of Angels* (1957) on RCA & *John Paul Jones* (1959) on Warner Bros. records], and disliked both so much that I summarily dismissed any other titles by Steiner as unworthy of acquisition. Even by watching some of the movies from the '40s & '50s scored by Max did not persuade me to re-consider his film music since I felt Steiner was too allusive (quoting pop tunes, anthems, traditonals, etc.) or else too sentimental - too Romantic - not modern enough for my tastes.
> 
> Then, last year, Screen Archives Entertainment produced a 3-CD set on vintage film noir recordings by Steiner:
> 
> http://www.chelsearialtostudios.com/caged/caged_cover.jpg
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> After decades of indifference towards Max, I finally relented and purchased this album. These are the 'dark' sides of Steiner that interest me; these are the soundtracks that _should_ have existed on LPs over 60 years ago.
> At long last, my music collection has, since December 2019, this clamshell jewel box to represent Max Steiner!
> 
> Regarding the new publication on Steiner, I continue to be surprised that Steven C. Smith (the author of a Bernard Herrmann biography) focused attention on Max Steiner. Herrmann and Steiner are so different - and their music so stylistically apart - that my mind tends to think of these two as mutually exclusive. Herrmann continues to have a significant fan base for soundtracks but, if the Film Score Monthly message board forums are any indication, Herrmanniacs do not necessarily embrace Golden Age film music composers (Herrmann excepted). At this distance in time, I daresay most Max Steiner fans have since deceased.


I found a great many Herrmann enthusiasts about a decade ago when I contribute to Film Score Monthly Messageboard. I cannot say whether they embrace the Golden Age film music but there were certainly plenty of comments when I started a discussion on them.

Thanks for the heads up about the Steiner noir film scores; I love his GWTW score and also this is a particular favourite (and which I've posted before): as I said then, Steiner looks back at Herbert Stothart and, yes, he can be derivative. I love this film so much. The women were so overwhelming in their parts that the men became secondary. Again, magnificent _velvety_ B&W cinematography from Ernest (GWTW) Haller. They were all so heavily influenced by the very great Gregg Toland. (He was The King.)






A piece of trivia: Screenwriter Ranald MacDougall (from James M. Cain's novel) was married to Nanette Fabray ("The Bandwagon). Cain also wrote "The Postman Always Rings Twice", if you remember.

I'm pleased to meet people here on TC who share my love of film and music. The technical and historic sides also hugely interest me and have done since I was 15. A real tragic!!


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## mbhaub

Christabel said:


> Absolutely. Is there a biography of Eric Wolfgang Korngold at all? His story would be a fascinating one, I'm sure.


There are two fine Korngold biographies. The Carroll is getting rare and is getting expensive. The Jessica Duchen in paperback is quite good, too and is quite inexpensive.















I love Korngold's music. I've collected all the operas, all the orchestral and chamber music available. But per this thread, every soundtrack available. Then comes the DVD movie collection of all 17 films he scored. Amazing composer and what a life story! How sick is this: every year or so I go to Los Angeles on business and make a point of stopping at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and put a few flowers on Korngold's grave. And while I'm at it stop by gravesites for Waxman and Judy Garland.


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## Guest

mbhaub said:


> There are two fine Korngold biographies. The Carroll is getting rare and is getting expensive. The Jessica Duchen in paperback is quite good, too and is quite inexpensive.
> 
> View attachment 141572
> View attachment 141574
> 
> 
> I love Korngold's music. I've collected all the operas, all the orchestral and chamber music available. But per this thread, every soundtrack available. Then comes the DVD movie collection of all 17 films he scored. Amazing composer and what a life story! How sick is this: every year or so I go to Los Angeles on business and make a point of stopping at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and put a few flowers on Korngold's grave. And while I'm at it stop by gravesites for Waxman and Judy Garland.


I'm absolutely jealous!! I did regularly visit the grave of Beethoven in Zentralfriedhof, Wien, when we lived there. And all the other composers who died in that city.

Korngold felt rather trapped between the cinema and the concert hall with regard to his music; I do remember reading that. I just adore his score for "*Kings Row*": I don't need to tell you how influential this one is - you can hear it!!






In 1975 "Kings Row" screenwriter Casey Robinson came to Sydney for work and presented a lecture at Sydney University, which my uncle (a fanatical film enthusiast and a medical doctor) attended. He asked Robinson how he got around the thorny issue of incest in the novel for his adaptation. He thought for a minute and said, "I was out sailing as I was reading the book; then I closed it and threw it into the water". The rest, as they say, is history.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s my aforementioned uncle was in a solo medical practice in rural Queensland. The "Midday Movie" was at noon and when something special came on - say "*Pride and Prejudice*" (Hunt Stromberg/Robert Z. Leonard, 1939) he would put a sign on the front door of the surgery, "called away urgently" and then go inside and watch the film!!! A total film tragic, like myself, and excellent violinist!! His (somewhat annoying) surviving adult children are all film nuts too.

Joy of joys "*Pride and Prejudice*" is available on Dailymotion. Music by Herbert Stothart, Screenplay by Aldous Huxley, Cinematography by Karl Freund. That's quite a pedigree!!

https://ok.ru/video/261468981923

The clarinet leitmotif for Mr. Collins always amuses!! The costumes are all wrong, but what does it matter!!


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## mbhaub

Stothart is another one of those guys who has been swept aside. I'll have to check out Pride and Prejudice. Somewhere on this site someone was looking for music to recover from a stroke. Stothart wrote a tone poem about a Heart Attack - from personal experience. I've never been able to locate the score, if it is even extant. Like Korngold he died much, much too young.


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## Ich muss Caligari werden

Christabel said:


> I just adore his score for "*Kings Row*": I don't need to tell you how influential this one is - you can hear it!!


I too am a fervent _King's Row_ fan and we are not alone. Years ago, I heard a radio interview of a Rochester Philharmonic musician. At one point, she said, "You're not going to play that are you?" "I am," said the classical DJ, "it's your favorite." He cued _King's Row_ and she began to weep for joy.


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## Guest

mbhaub said:


> Stothart is another one of those guys who has been swept aside. I'll have to check out Pride and Prejudice. Somewhere on this site someone was looking for music to recover from a stroke. Stothart wrote a tone poem about a Heart Attack - from personal experience. I've never been able to locate the score, if it is even extant. Like Korngold he died much, much too young.


The Stothart score for "*Pride & Prejudice*" (1940) is somewhat derivative; it is also what I call 'atmospheric' in the way that a modern film score functions, reacting to characters and situations with little musical leitmotifs and 'gags'. Ergo, the clarinet motif whenever Mr. Collins appears - even in the opening credits, and his name!! In fact, I'd go out on limb and suggest this may have been one of the earliest 'atmospheric' scores, departing from the symphonic sweep of Korngold, Steiner and Friedhofer (et al). Stothart also sometimes used 'classical music' in his scores and referred directly to well known themes. The 'score' for *'A 'Midsummer Night's Dream*" - the Max Reinhardt production from 1935, also directed by William Dieterle (Hunchback) - used, from memory, very little completely original music. Stothart was involved, mostly arranging (but also adding to) the music of Mendelssohn. And notice all that portamento!!






"Theseus" is mis-spelt in that rather quaint trailer for the film in 1935!!


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## Guest

There is also this stunning Hugo Friedhofer score for my favourite film of all time, "*The Best Years of Our Lives*" - doubtless heavily influenced by Steiner and other illustrious film composers of the day. Again, it's rather symphonic in conception; I feel the music is looking backwards to other great scores:






I'll love every frame of this film until I take my last breath.


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## mbhaub

Christabel said:


> The 'score' for *'A 'Midsummer Night's Dream*" - the Max Reinhardt production from 1935, also directed by William Dieterle (Hunchback) - used, from memory, very little completely original music. Stothart was involved, mostly arranging (but also adding to) the music of Mendelssohn.


Gotta correct you here. It was Korngold who adapted Mendelssohn's music for MSND, not Stothart. In fact, this movie was the reason that Korngold came to Hollywood the first time.


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## Guest

mbhaub said:


> Gotta correct you here. It was Korngold who adapted Mendelssohn's music for MSND, not Stothart. In fact, this movie was the reason that Korngold came to Hollywood the first time.


Thanks for the correction; I've been under that misapprehension for some years, obviously.


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