Max Steiner

Maximilian Raoul Steiner (10 May 1888 – 28 December 1971) was an Austrian composer and conductor who emigrated to America and became one of Hollywood's greatest musical composers.

Steiner was a child prodigy who conducted his first operetta when he was twelve and became a full-time professional, proficient at composing, arranging, and conducting, by the time he was fifteen. Threatened with internment in England during World War I, he fled to Broadway; and in 1929 he moved to Hollywood, where he became one of the first composers to write music scores for films. He is often referred to as "the father of film music", as Steiner played a major part in creating the tradition of writing music for films, along with composers Dimitri Tiomkin, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman, Alfred Newman, Bernard Herrmann, and Miklós Rózsa.

Steiner composed over 300 film scores with RKO Pictures and Warner Bros., and was nominated for 24 Academy Awards, winning three: The Informer (1935); Now, Voyager (1942); and Since You Went Away (1944). Besides his Oscar-winning scores, some of Steiner's popular works include King Kong (1933), Little Women (1933), Jezebel (1938), and Casablanca (1942), though he did not compose its love theme, "As Time Goes By". In addition, Steiner scored The Searchers (1956), A Summer Place (1959), and Gone with the Wind (1939), which ranked second on the AFI's list of best American film scores, and is the film score for which he is best known.

He was also the first recipient of the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, which he won for his score for Life with Father. Steiner was a frequent collaborator with some of the best known film directors in history, including Michael Curtiz, John Ford, and William Wyler, and scored many of the films with Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, and Fred Astaire. Many of his film scores are available as separate soundtrack recordings.

Biography

Early years (1888–1907)

thumb|[[Austria Classic Hotel Wien|Max Steiner's birthplace in Vienna today, Praterstraße 72]]

Max Steiner was born on 10 May 1888, in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, as the only child in a wealthy business and theatrical family of Jewish heritage. He was named after his paternal grandfather, Maximilian Steiner (1839–1880), who was credited with first persuading Johann Strauss II to write for the theater, and was the influential manager of Vienna's historic Theater an der Wien. His parents were Marie Josefine/Mirjam (Hasiba) and Hungarian-Jewish (1858–1944, born in Temesvár, Kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire), a Viennese impresario, carnival exposition manager, and inventor, responsible for building the Wiener Riesenrad. His father encouraged Steiner's musical talent, and allowed him to conduct an American operetta at the age of twelve, The Belle of New York, which allowed Steiner to gain early recognition by the operetta's author, Gustave Kerker. In his youth, he began his composing career through his work on marches for regimental bands and hit songs for a show put on by his father. where, due to his precocious musical talents and private tutoring by Robert Fuchs, and Gustav Mahler, he completed a four-year course in only one year, winning himself a gold medal from the academy at the age of fifteen. He studied various instruments including violin, double bass, organ, and trumpet. His preferred and best instrument was the piano, but he acknowledged the importance of being familiar with what the other instruments could do. He also had courses in harmony, counterpoint, and composition. As a result, when Steiner started writing pieces for the theater, he was interested in writing libretto as his teacher had, but had minimal success. However, many of his future film scores such as Dark Victory (1939), In This Our Life (1941), and Now, Voyager (1942) had frequent waltz melodies as influenced by Eysler.

In England, Steiner wrote and conducted theater productions and symphonies. But the beginning of World War I in 1914 led him to be interned as an enemy alien. Fortunately, he was befriended by the Duke of Westminster, who was a fan of his work, and was given exit papers to go to America, although his money was impounded. He arrived in New York City in December 1914, with only $32. At twenty-seven years old, Steiner became Fox Film's musical director in 1915. At the time, there was no specially written music for films and Steiner told studio founder William Fox his idea to write an original score for The Bondman (1916). Fox agreed and they put together a 110-piece orchestra to accompany the screenings. During his time working on Broadway, he married Audree van Lieu on 27 April 1927. They divorced on 14 December 1933. Steiner's first job was for the film Dixiana; however, after a while, RKO decided to let him go, feeling they were not using him. His agent found him a job as a musical director on an operetta in Atlantic City. Before he left RKO, they offered him a month to month contract as the head of the music department with promise of more work in the future and he agreed. Selznick was proud of the film, feeling it gave a realistic view of Jewish family life and tradition. He wrote the score in two weeks and the music recording cost around $50,000.

In 1939, Steiner was borrowed from Warner Bros. by Selznick to compose the score for Gone with the Wind (1939), which became one of Steiner's most notable successes. Steiner was the only composer Selznick considered for scoring the film. Selznick had asked Steiner to use only pre-existing classical music to help cut down on cost and time, but Steiner tried to convince him that filling the picture with swatches of classic concert music or popular works would not be as effective as an original score, which could be used to heighten the emotional content of scenes. Steiner ignored Selznick's wishes and composed an entirely new score. Selznick's opinion about using original scoring may have changed due to the overwhelming reaction to the film, nearly all of which contained Steiner's music. A year later, he even wrote a letter emphasizing the value of original film scores. The most well known of Steiner's themes for the score is the "Tara" theme for the O'Hara family plantation. Steiner explains Scarlett's deep-founded love for her home is why "the 'Tara' theme begins and ends with the picture and permeates the entire score". The film went on to win ten Academy Awards, although not for Best Original Score, which instead went to Herbert Stothart for The Wizard of Oz. The score of Gone with the Wind is ranked #2 by AFI as the second greatest American film score of all time.

Now, Voyager would be the film score for which Steiner would win his second Academy Award. Kate Daubney attributes the success of this score to Steiner's ability to "[balance] the scheme of thematic meaning with the sound of the music." After finishing Now, Voyager (1942), Steiner was hired to score the music for Casablanca (1942). Steiner would typically wait until the film was edited before scoring it, and after watching Casablanca, he decided the song "As Time Goes By" by Herman Hupfeld wasn't an appropriate addition to the movie and he wanted to replace it with a song of his own composition; however, Ingrid Bergman had just cut her hair short in preparation for filming For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), so she couldn't re-film the section with Steiner's song. Stuck with "As Time Goes By", Steiner embraced the song and made it the center theme of his score. Steiner's score for Casablanca was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, losing to The Song of Bernadette (1943). In the score for The Big Sleep, Steiner uses musical thematic characterization for the characters in the film. The theme for Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) is beguiling and ironic, with a playful grace note at the end of the motif, portrayed mixed between major and minor. At the end of the film, his theme is played fully in major chords and finishes by abruptly ending the chord as the film terminates (this was an unusual film music practice in Hollywood at the time).

Later works (1953–1965)

Although his contract ended in 1953, Steiner returned to Warner Bros. in 1958 and scored several films such as Band of Angels, Marjorie Morningstar, and John Paul Jones, and later ventured into television. Steiner still preferred large orchestras and leitmotif techniques during this part of his career. There are numerous soundtrack recordings of Steiner's music as soundtracks, collections, and recordings by others. Steiner wrote into his seventies, ailing and near blind, but his compositions "revealed a freshness and fertility of invention." Steiner continued to score films produced by Warner until the mid-sixties. Tony Thomas cited Steiner's last score as, "a weak coda to a mighty career." He is entombed in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Methods of composing

Music as background to dialogue

In the early days of sound, producers avoided underscoring music behind dialogue, feeling the audience would wonder where the music was coming from. As a result, Steiner noted, "They began to add a little music here and there to support love scenes or silent sequences." But in scenes where music might be expected, such as a nightclub, ballroom, or theater, the orchestra fit in more naturally and was used often. Carl W. Stalling and Scott Bradley used the technique first in cartoon music. The click-track allows the composer to sync music and film together more precisely. The technique involves punching holes into the soundtrack film based on the mathematics of metronome speed. As the holes pass through a projector, the orchestra and conductor can hear the clicking sound through headphones, allowing them to record the music along the exact timing of the film.

Leitmotifs

With Steiner's background in his European musical training largely consisting of operas and operettas and his experience with stage music, he brought with him a slew of old-fashioned techniques he contributed to the development of the Hollywood film score. Although Steiner has been called, "the man who invented modern film music", he himself claimed that, "the idea originated with Richard Wagner ... If Wagner had lived in this century, he would have been the No. 1 film composer." Wagner was the inventor of the leitmotif, and this influenced Steiner's composition. To accomplish this, Steiner synchronized the music, the narrative action, and the leitmotif as a structural framework for his compositions. Steiner was known for writing using atmospheric music without melodic content for certain neutral scenes in music. Steiner designed a melodic motion to create normal-sounding music without taking too much attention away from the film.

The United States Postal Service issued its "American Music Series" stamps on 16 September 1999, to pay tribute to renowned Hollywood composers, including Steiner. After Steiner's death, Charles Gerhardt conducted the National Philharmonic Orchestra in an RCA Victor album of highlights from Steiner's career, titled Now Voyager. He also won a Golden Globe for Best Original Score for Life with Father (1947). In 1995, Steiner was inducted posthumously into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In commemoration of Steiner's 100th birthday, a memorial plaque was unveiled in 1988 at Steiner's birthplace, the Hotel Nordbahn (now Austria Classic Hotel Wien) on Praterstraße 72. In 1990, Steiner was one of the first to be recognized for Lifetime Achievement by an online awards site.

Legacy among composers

In Kurt London's Film Music, London expressed the opinion that American film music was inferior to European film music because it lacked originality of composition; he cited the music of Steiner as an exception to the rule. Steiner, along with contemporaries Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Alfred Newman, set the style and forms of film music of the time period and for film scores to come. Known for their similar music styles, Roy Webb was also Steiner's contemporary and they were friends until Steiner's death. Webb's score for Mighty Joe Young was reminiscent of Steiner. James Newton Howard, who composed the score for the 2005 remake of King Kong, stated that he was influenced by Steiner's score; his descending theme when Kong first appears is reminiscent of Steiner's score. In fact, during the tribal sacrifice scene of the 2005 version, the music playing is from Steiner's score of the same scene in the 1933 version. Composer of the Star Wars film score, John Williams cited Steiner as well as other European emigrant composers in the 1930s and 1940s "Golden Age" of film music as influences of his work. In fact, George Lucas wanted Williams to use the scores of Steiner and Korngold as influences for the music for Star Wars, despite the rarity of grandiose film music and the lack of use of leitmotifs and full orchestrations during the 1970s.

Filmography

The American Film Institute respectively ranked Steiner's scores for Gone with the Wind (1939) and King Kong (1933) #2 and #13 on their list of the 25 greatest film scores. His scores for the following films were also nominated for the list:

The Informer (1935)
Jezebel (1938)
Dark Victory (1939)
Casablanca (1942)
Now, Voyager (1942)
Adventures of Don Juan (1948)
Johnny Belinda (1948)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
A Summer Place (1959)

Notes

References

External links

The Max Steiner Pages
Max Steiner Digital Thematic Catalog
Max Steiner Remembered by David Raksin at AmericanComposers
Register of the Max Steiner Collection, Papers and Collection 1903–1947 at Brigham Young University