570184bk Bette:570183bk Son of Kong 15/7/07 5:40 PM Page 12 Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky and Nikolay Tcherepnin. The orchestra also stays busy recording music for contemporary films. Critical accolades for the orchestra’s wide-ranging recordings are frequent, including its important film music re-recordings with conductor William Stromberg and reconstructionist John Morgan for Marco Polo. Fanfare critic Royal S. Brown, reviewing the complete recording of Hans J. Salter and Paul Dessau’s landmark House of Frankenstein score, saluted the CD as a “valuable document on the kind of craftsmanship and daring in film scoring that passed by all but unnoticed because of the nature of the films.” Film Score Monthly praised the orchestra’s recording of Korngold’s Another Dawn score, adding that “Stromberg, Morgan and company could show some classical concert conductors a thing or two on how Korngold should be played and recorded.” The same magazine described a recording of suites from Max Steiner’s music for Virginia City and The Beast With Five Fingers as “full-blooded and emphatic.” And Rad Bennett of The Absolute Sound found so much to praise in the orchestra’s film music series he voiced a fervent desire that Marco Polo stay put in Moscow and “record film music forever”. Many of these recordings are now being reissued in the Naxos Film Music Classics series. William Stromberg (behind) and John Morgan 8.570184 570184bk Bette:570183bk Son of Kong 15/7/07 5:40 PM Page 2 Max Steiner (1888–1971) passed away July 2002. She was always excited about memories for her. Although Louise didn’t live to see our re-recordings and added immeasurably to our the final product, she did hear our recording several Music for the Bette Davis films booklets with her memories of playing harp in the weeks before her death and was most pleased that this studio orchestras. She was particularly pleased that we music would live on through this release. All This, and Heaven Too 1940 recorded All This, and Heaven Too, which had special John Morgan A Stolen Life 1946 March, 2003 Score restorations by John Morgan John Morgan Conductor’s Foreword Widely regarded in film-music circles as a master colorist with a keen insight into orchestration and the power of music, Los Angeles-based composer John Morgan began his career working alongside such composers as When we started to record this Max Steiner CD, I felt elements make it interesting for the orchestra and me Alex North and Fred Steiner before embarking on his own. Among other projects, he co-composed the richly a sense of relief as the orchestra perked up with because the cues don’t sound like background music, dramatic score for the cult-documentary film Trinity and Beyond, described by one critic as “an atomic-age enthusiasm. Come to think of it, this happens every time but rather mini concert pieces strung together. Fantasia, thanks to its spectacular nuclear explosions and powerhouse music.” In addition, Morgan has won we start a Steiner score, which always makes conducting I love to see smiles of recognition come over the acclaim for efforts to rescue, restore and re-record lost film scores from the past. Recently, Morgan composed his music a rewarding experience. More than any other faces of the orchestra as we start a new score. Believe the score for the acclaimed documentary, Cinerama Adventure. composer in Hollywood, Steiner had a way of it or not, a lot of the musicians in Russia are familiar composing through scenes effortlessly with every note with Max’s music as more of our American movies are William Stromberg perfectly placed. The way in which he smoothly utilized showing up on their television. I often hear noodling on A native of Oceanside, California, who hails from a family of film-makers, William T. Stromberg balances his memorable themes throughout his scores was Steiner themes from other films when they recognize his career as a composer of strikingly vivid film scores with that of a busy conductor in the original Marco Polo unmatched. Steiner was easily the best composer who style. During rest periods for the orchestra, I heard Classic Film Score Series. Besides conducting his own scores—including his music for the thriller Other Voices could mimic the action on the screen, yet still keep it various players quote from Gone With the Wind, King and the documentary Trinity and Beyond—Stromberg serves as a conductor for other film composers. He is musical. Even in the 1930s and ’40s, this was hard to do Kong, and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, always especially noted for his passion in reconstructing and conducting film scores from Hollywood’s Golden Age, and not sound comical in some way. All of these with a wink and a smile. including several works recorded for RCA with the Brandenburg Philharmonic. For Marco Polo, he has William Stromberg conducted albums of music devoted to Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alfred Newman, Philip Sainton, March, 2003 Adolph Deutsch, Hans J. Salter, Victor Young and Malcolm Arnold. He has also conducted several much- praised albums devoted to concert works by American composers, including two albums of music by Ferde Grofé. Moscow Symphony Orchestra Established in 1989, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra includes prize-winners and laureates of Russian and international music competitions and graduates of conservatories in Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev who have played under such conductors as Svetlanov, Rozhdestvensky, Mravinsky and Ozawa, in Russia and throughout the world. In addition to its extensive concert programmes, the orchestra has been recognized for its outstanding recordings for Marco Polo, including the first-ever survey of Malipiero’s symphonies, symphonic music of Guatemala, the complete symphonies of Charles Tournemire and Russian music by Scriabin, Glazunov, 8.570184 2 11 8.570184 570184bk Bette:570183bk Son of Kong 15/7/07 5:40 PM Page 10 Max’s work on the film and this theme was originally Barcarolle, a waltz theme associated with Kate, the All This and A Stolen Life Too: conceived for their son. “good” twin sister. Track 14 presents all the primary Bette Davis in Stride at Warner Bros. A scene at an opera house needed some “source” themes; the Stolen Life motif, the Barcarolle for Kate, music. The Overture to Armida by C.W. Gluck, which a descending figure representing the twins, and a rather By the time she was cast in Warner Bros.’ opulent ultimately brutal man whose lack of feeling for his was composed in 1777, is heard appropriately although slinky theme for Pat, the other sister. All these themes 1940 production of All This, and Heaven Too, Bette wife was attributed to a passion for his ambitious, it is truncated in the final release of the film. For this are very distinctive in themselves, but are clearly Davis was the queen of the Warner lot. In 1939 she social-climbing governess. In others, such as Field’s CD, we have recorded the full version as originally interrelated and are used contrapuntally when made her initial appearance in Motion Picture Herald’s All This, and Heaven Too, sympathy lies with the prepared for All This, and Heaven Too. dramatically appropriate. There is also a rather “oily” top ten box-office stars, placing sixth. She was also governess, who, like the Duc, is subject to the Another interesting musical sequence is the All theme with descending bassoons and clarinets for frequently referred to at that time as The First Lady vicissitudes of a paranoid Duchesse who had no use for Hallows Eve (Track 8) where eerie voices are com- Karnock, the Dane Clark character. of the Screen. anyone but her husband. The Warner Bros. adaptation bined with the orchestra during a Halloween night As previously stated, this score looks ahead to the Davis had been under contract to the studio since of the novel reinforces this interpretation of the Praslin filled with witches and goblins. This sequence ends style Steiner would adopt for most of the scores he December 1931 and although she appeared in some affair even more strongly, casting Bette Davis and with the delightful orchestral tour de force depicting a composed during the fifties and beyond. The composer good films such as Of Human Bondage (1934 – on Charles Boyer in the rôles of governess and Duc. Davis carousel, with Steiner’s uncanny ability to create a also looks back nostalgically to his RKO period in the loan to R.K.O. Radio), Fog Over Frisco (1934), gives an unusually restrained, even demure, dazzling cacophony of sound with his music. early thirties. Besides the piano source piece which Bordertown (1935), The Petrified Forest (1936), performance as Henriette and Boyer plays a romantic The orchestra for All This, and Heaven Too was Rudy Behlmer mentions in his notes, Steiner reprises Marked Woman (1937), it was Jezebel in 1938 and sympathetic Duc with his usual understated large, consisting of three flutes (doubling piccolo and his moody fog music from King Kong as well as the followed by Dark Victory in 1939 that made her a power.” It should be emphasized that Rachel Field’s alto flute), two oboes (doubling English horn), three Shopping Tour music, originally composed for the major star. work is a novel, not a biography. So it is indeed a clarinets (doubling bass clarinet), and two bassoons RKO 1933 production Sweepings, which dealt with The book All This, and Heaven Too was number sympathetic interpretation with, of course, invented making up the woodwinds. The brass includes four the building of a department store empire. Steiner must six on the Best Seller list of 1938 and number two in scenes and dialogue.