Programme note
Hollywood calling
Drawing the 2010 Festival’s journey of discovery to a blockbuster finale, tonight’s selection of film scores from Hollywood in its 1940s, 50s and 60s heyday features composers whose own backgrounds involve a series of fascinating voyages of discovery. Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Franz Waxman both left Europe to seek new opportunities in the US, the former in exile following the Austrian Anschluss, and Waxman to escape the banking career that his father had planned for him back home. Like the more famous Leonard Bernstein, New York born Bernard Herrmann came from a Jewish family of Russian origin who had settled in the US. What they all have in common is a brilliant mastery of composition at the time of America’s Golden Age of film music.
Award winning
On the Waterfront is Bernstein’s only film score. Its Oscar nominated music is dark, menacing and reflective of the film’s themes of mob violence and corruption, with Marlon Brando as ex-prizefighter Terry Malloy playing his heart out to pick up a Best Actor Academy Award. Tonight, the orchestra performs the more tender section of the suite Bernstein made ‘to salvage some of the music that would otherwise have been left onthe floor of the dubbing-room.’ Taras Bulba, a magnificent film starring Yul Brynner and Tony Curtis, tells the 16th century tale of the Cossacks’ fight for freedom, intermingled with love, treachery and revenge. Waxman’s exhilarating score was nominated for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award for best motion picture score in 1963.
Child prodigy
Korngold wrote his first staged piece – The Snowman – at the age of only 11. On receiving the commission for Kings Row, he thought the film was about a king, so immediately started work on the majestic opening theme which bears a striking similarly to a much later well-known film score – Star Wars. Kings Row is a typical American small town, its story of provincial life at the turn of the century distinguishing Ronald Reagan’s Hollywood career. Some 40 years later, Reagan specially requested Korngold’s music at his Presidential inauguration.
Psycho
Herrmann is not a household name – it’s not even his own original name – but his film credits are legendary, none more so than Psycho. Marnie, starring Sean Connery, is a Hitchcock movie riddled with psychological tension, clearly heard in The Prelude. A relative failure when first released, Marnie is often regarded as Hitchcock’s final masterpiece.
