{"title":"Theme Songs without Words","authors":"William H. Rosar","doi":"10.1558/jfm.21422","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.21422","url":null,"abstract":"When Max Steiner arrived at RKO Studios in late December 1929, he came as a seasoned Broadway conductor and arranger to work on musicals. Applying the art and craft of song arranging from musical comedies on the Broadway stage to so-called “theme songs” that were sung in dramatic films in the early talkies, he developed what came to be known as “the big theme” in Hollywood Golden Age film scoring parlance in which a song-like theme was featured instrumentally as background music rather than sung on screen. In conjunction with this practice, Steiner and his Hollywood cohorts continued and adapted the existing dramatic techniques of silent film accompaniment to “talking pictures,” which, because of music playing under dialog, was given the name “underscoring.”","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128029946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Max Steiner’s Jewish Identity and Score to Symphony of Six Million (1932)","authors":"Aaron Fruchtman","doi":"10.1558/jfm.20936","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.20936","url":null,"abstract":"Max Steiner was one of a significant group of Jewish composers who flourished during Hollywood’s Golden Age. Steiner’s Jewish heritage is rarely discussed in connection with his film music. However, his original underscore for Symphony of Six Million (1932) is revealing. In this essay, I consider how Steiner dealt with Jewish identity when presenting an “insider’s view” of the Lower East Side to a mainstream American audience. Steiner may have used Jewish musical materials for “local color” in a manner typical of evocations of musical exoticism in Hollywood. While aspects of this score border on melodramatic pastiche, a searching analysis reveals that Steiner drew from Jewish sacred and secular musical materials to create a trenchant, intertextual context. Steiner’s relationship to his Jewish identity is enigmatic. The Steiner family envisioned themselves as completely assimilated and thoroughly Viennese. Even so, one could not help but have a Jewish identity in fin de siècle Vienna. Steiner’s words, music, and philanthropy reveal a complex Jewish identity.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"340 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125701862","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Was Max Steiner a Jew?","authors":"Jonathan L. Friedmann","doi":"10.1558/jfm.20942","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.20942","url":null,"abstract":"Max Steiner is regularly identified as a “Jewish composer” despite his protests to the contrary. Others claim he had a crisis of Jewish identity: although he did not explicitly embrace his Jewish lineage, his allegiance was expressed through charitable giving and his score for A Symphony of Six Million (1932). Both assumptions deny Steiner the agency of self-definition. This paper seeks to differentiate between the passive category “Jew” and the active adjective “Jewish,” and between the social climates of Vienna and Hollywood, which informed Steiner’s self-understanding.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116216569","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fanning out from the Fanfare","authors":"Brent Yorgason, Jeffrey Lyon","doi":"10.1558/jfm.38103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.38103","url":null,"abstract":"In 1937, Max Steiner created a fanfare for Warner Bros. to accompany the appearance of the WB shield at the beginning of each film. The fanfare made its first appearance in Tovarich, using bits and pieces from the opening themes of A Star is Born and First Lady. The C major setting of the fanfare in Gold is Where You Find It (1938) became the “canonical” version to which Steiner most frequently referred. From 1937 to 1951 it was used by Steiner and other Warner Bros. composers to open nearly every film. After 1951, Steiner began using the fanfare much less frequently, with its final appearance occurring in Battle Cry (1955).","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"217 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116382676","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Max Steiner and Extended Tonality","authors":"Jordan Camalt Stokes","doi":"10.1558/jfm.20935","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.20935","url":null,"abstract":"Since the revitalization of film music studies in the 1980s, the field has been dominated by musicological approaches, with music theory and analysis taking a back seat. As a result, film music scholars lack a common set of techniques for grappling with the harmony, rhythm, form, and melody of film music cues. But this situation is beginning to change: recent research by Frank Lehman and Scott Murphy offers powerful new tools for thinking about film music harmony. The purpose of this essay is to test the systems developed by these theorists against the music of Max Steiner, hopefully contributing to the development of a share analytical vocabulary for film music, and deepening our understanding of Steiner’s compositional technique.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127355456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Music, Magic, and Humor","authors":"Stephen G. Butler","doi":"10.1558/jfm.38272","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.38272","url":null,"abstract":"If you are a student of film music researching the life and work of Max Steiner, there are some things you should know, especially if you are working from a country other than the United States. In 2006–2007, my wife Jane and I traveled to three of the cities with which Steiner is most closely associated (Vienna, London, and Los Angeles) and visited Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, where the composer’s personal papers have been stored since 1981. This article details those journeys, taken in a strange parallel to Steiner’s own. These include Steiner’s experiences as a child prodigy from an established theatrical family in Vienna; conducting in London and the United Kingdom’s theatrical circuit; a career on Broadway, working with Victor Herbert, George Gershwin, Fred Astaire, and many other theatrical legends; and his final, thirty-five-year career as one of the founding fathers of modern film composition in Hollywood. Furthermore, the internet has made many more materials available to the scholar, including BYU’s developing online thematic catalogue. The “net” result is that future students will have an incredible amount of material available to them, much more than those of just thirty years ago.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126313818","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Proceedings of “Max Steiner Man and Myth,” California State University, Long Beach, February 24–25, 2018","authors":"Nathan Platte","doi":"10.1558/jfm.22175","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.22175","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133337946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Composing, Casablanca, and the Film Music of the Golden Age","authors":"P. Wegele","doi":"10.1558/jfm.22179","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.22179","url":null,"abstract":"Max Steiner was one of the most productive composers in the history of film music. In 1939, for example, he composed twelve scores for feature films, including his magnum opus, Gone with the Wind. Steiner was under constant pressure to meet studio deadlines, yet he always managed to deliver his scores on time. Even during his busiest years, under an enormous workload, Steiner achieved remarkable consistency in the quality of his music. In order to explain the method behind Max Steiner’s ability to work quickly while maintaining high artistic standards, this article will discuss his working routine and will analyze a brief excerpt of his music for the classic film, Casablanca.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"182 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121410723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Janina Müller, Musik im klassischen Film noir","authors":"Roger Hickman","doi":"10.1558/JFM.19477","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.19477","url":null,"abstract":"Janina Müller, Musik im klassischen Film noirWürzburg, Germany. Königshausen & Neumann, 2019 [German language. 278pp. ISBN: 9783826065828.€39.80 (paperback)]. Klangfiguren: Studien zur Historischen Musikwissenschaft, Band 5.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124998953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nathan Platte, Making Music in Selznick’s Hollywood","authors":"Paul Merkley","doi":"10.1558/JFM.19491","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.19491","url":null,"abstract":"Nathan Platte, Making Music in Selznick’s HollywoodNew York. Oxford University Press, 2017 [x, 398pp. ISBN: 9780199371112. £32.99 (hardback)]. Oxford Music/Media. Line art, halftones, bibliography, index.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125711555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}