MAX R. STEINER, THE FATHER OF HOLLYWOOD FILM MUSIC

Today, The Grandma has been listening to some soundtracks composed by Max Steiner, the Austrian composer and conductor, who died on a day like today in 1971.

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.

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.

The music of Edmund Eysler was an early influence in the pieces of Max Steiner;however, one of his first introductions to operettas was by Franz Lehár who worked for a time as a military bandmaster for Steiner's father's theatre.

Between 1907 and 1914, Steiner traveled between Britain and Europe to work on theatrical productions. Steiner first entered the world of professional music when he was fifteen.

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. Unable to find work, he resorted to menial jobs such as a copyist for Harms Music Publishing, which quickly led him to jobs orchestrating stage musicals.

In New York, Max Steiner quickly acquired employment and worked for fifteen years as a musical director, arranger, orchestrator, and conductor of Broadway productions. These productions include operettas and musicals written by Victor Herbert, Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans, and George Gershwin, among others.

When adding a music score to a picture, Steiner used a spotting process in which he and the director of the film would watch the film in its entirety and discuss where underscoring of diegetic music would begin and end.  Another technique Steiner used was the mixing of realistic and background music.

More information: Max Steiner

Sometimes I wake up at three 

in the morning and begin tossing.
My wife will say, 

'Daddy, why don't you write it down?'
So I get up, put it on a paper, and go back to sleep.

Max Steiner