Release Date: 31 December 1999
Label: Marco Polo
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 730099387026
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: Max Steiner
Description
The Max SteinerFactor (1888 - 1971) The Lost PatrolThe Beast withFive Fingers Virginia City (All music arranged and restored I reconstructedby John Morgan) The coming ofsound-on-film in 1927 drastically altered the views of producers on the use ofmusic in films. Silent films had of course never been really silent; indeed,they needed non-stop musical accompaniment to make up for the lack of dialogueand sound-effects, but now, except in the case of musicals, why would there bea need for music in the background? Why describe the emotions and actionspeople could now see? And would they not wonder where the music was comingfrom? It took quite some while to overcome these views and prove that originaldramatic scoring could be effective subliminally -and the composer who did morethan any other to pioneer this new avenue of background scoring was MaxSteiner. In doing so he opened up what would quickly become one of the mostinteresting venues for contemporary composers, provided they also had theskills and knacks demanded by the intricacies of film scoring. By the time of hisdeath in 1971, in his eighty-third year, Steiner had long been called "theman who invented movie music." He scoffed and said, "Nonsense. Theidea originated with Richard Wagner. Listen to the incidental scoring behindthe recitatives in his operas. If Wagner had lived in our times he would havebeen our top film composer." Steiner was well qualified to talk aboutopera. He was born in Vienna and his father was the manager of the Theater-an-der-Wien.As a boy he was exposed to every level of Viennese musical life and at the ageof fourteen he wrote and conducted an operetta. It was as a conductor thatSteiner first earned a living and in 1914 he arrived in New York to begin what would be permanent American residence.All through the 1920s he was active as an arranger and conductor of musicals onBroadway, and it was composer Harry Tierney who suggested Steiner be brought toHollywood as the conductor of the screen version of Tierney'sRio Rita for which Steiner had been the music director on Broadway. Thiswas late 1929, at the time of formation of RKO Radio Pictures. William Le Baronwas head of production and it was he who sensed that the adroit Steiner was theman to put in charge of the music department. Steiner's job,apart from overseeing musicals, was to write music for the main and end titlesof non-musical films. His ideas about underscoring fell on deaf ears untilyoung David O. Selznick joined the Studio. His first production was Symphonyof Six Mil/ion in 1932 and Steiner suggested that the emotional impact ofthe film could possibly be improved by the addition of some musical comment.Selznick agreed to experiment, with the results that Steiner had predicted.Then a year later, with his tremendously effective score for King Kong, noone ever again dared ask, "What's the use of music in movies?" In 1934 Steinersupplied music for no less than thirty-six RKO films, al
Tracklisting
.
Wong On-Yuen/Hk Po/Wing-Sie
Wexford Opera
Vlach Quartet Prague
Various Artists
Tokyo Po/Kek-Tijang
The red Lantern occompanied by
Ten Classics for Chinese Bowed
David Darling
Various
Trio con Brio Copenhagen
Tagliaferri/Sciddurlo
Swr So Baden Freiburg
Seung-Yeun Huh
Oxford Girls Choir/Skinner
Monks Of Solesmes
