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Home , Charles Previn, House of Dracula, Invisible Agent, Larry Talbot, Paul Dessau, Son of Frankenstein

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John Morgan Widely regarded in film-music circles as a master colourist 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 Alex North and Fred Steiner before embarking on his own. Among other projects, he co-composed the richly dramatic score for the cult-documentary film Trinity and Beyond, and has won acclaim for efforts to rescue, restore and re-record lost film scores from the past. William Stromberg A veteran film composer, conductor and film archivist, William Stromberg, working with famed film music reconstructionist and composer John Morgan, has conducted numerous albums of film music for RCA, Naxos, Marco Polo and, most recently, Tribute Film Classics. Upcoming albums include the complete scores to Bernard Herrmann’s Mysterious Island, Max Steiner’s She and Herrmann’s The Kentuckian. Moscow Symphony Orchestra Founded in 1989 as the first independent orchestra in modern Russia, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra maintains a busy schedule both in the concert hall and recording studio. For more than a decade, it has become noted for its pivotal role in a long-running series of recordings devoted to classic film scores conducted by Hollywood composer William Stromberg. Their most recent collaboration was the complete film score for Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s The Sea Hawk (Naxos 8.570110-11).

House of Frankenstein guests John Morgan, William Stromberg and Bill Whitaker Photo: Rick Baker

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Hans J. Salter (1896–1994) and lycanthrope Lawrence Talbot and Maleva the gypsy any pretense of upholding the grand tradition of travel to Vasaria); and, finally, the brooding passage Universal’s finest horror films had vanished. Only the Paul Dessau (1894–1979) underlining Dr Niemann’s return to his old, vine- music and photography helped prop the film up. Complete score for the film shrouded laboratory (adapted from The Ghost of Soon after World War II, Dessau settled in East Berlin Frankenstein score). For this recording, the more where his compositions, at last free of the confining 1944 extensive arrangement of ice cavern music from influences of the American cinema, eagerly celebrated House of Frankenstein Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man has been substituted communism through operas such as Puntila (1959), a Reconstructed by John Morgan for that in House of Frankenstein. In the case of the comic allegory on the ruling class and the common traveling music, both the high-spirited cue from people based on friend Bertolt Brecht’s play; Einstein 1 Universal Signature * The Ruins (Salter) 1:38 Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man as well as the more (1970), offering a Marxist perspective on the century’s (Jimmy McHugh) 0:17 ( The Monstrosities (Salter) 2:02 ambiguous one from House of Frankenstein have been most famous scientist; and orchestral suites such as Sea 2 Main Title* 2:17 ) Wolf Man Revived recorded. Finally, the brief bit of music for the early of Tempests, which commemorates a Russian moon 3 Lightning Strikes (Salter, Skinner & Charles Previn) 2:13 sequence when the storm destroys Neustadt Prison – probe landing. Till his death in 1979 at age 84, he also (Salter & Frank Skinner) 1:48 ¡ penned by Frank Skinner for Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller continued to display his mastery at reworking other Show Me the Records Saboteur (1942) and barely audible in that picture composers’ materials, such as his stately Bach Variations 4 Gruesome Twosome Escape* 1:50 (Salter, Skinner & Previn) 2:22 amidst the lightning bolts – practically represents a (1963) and playful symphonic adaptation of Mozart’s 5 Strangulation (Salter) 0:30 ™ Travels (Salter)*0:35première here since the music is also effectively String Quintet, K614 (1965). Whatever his thoughts on 6 Off to Vasaria (Salter)*1:18£ Hunchback’s Jealousy 1:51 drowned out in House of Frankenstein, thanks to Hollywood, it is interesting to note that, besides 7 Chamber of Horrors 0:40 ¢ Niemann’s Laboratory (Salter) 1:31 crashing thunder and collapsing walls. bogeyman-filled House of Frankenstein, Dessau could 8 Dracula Restored (Salter)*1:30∞ Liquefying Brains (Salter) 1:12 If an analysis of the House of Frankenstein score also claim to have scored cartoon films for Walt Disney sometimes suggests a crazy quilting of music from such as Alice’s Monkey Business (though it is unlikely he 9 Dracula’s Ring* 1:29 § Niemann’s Revenge* 1:07 different hands and even different films, it only reveals ever rushed to make such claims). 0 The Burgomaster Murdered 2:06 ¶ The Pentagram 1:37 standard practice at Universal at the time. Staff Salter remained in Hollywood, unwittingly comm- ! Rendezvous with Dracula 2:35 • Full Moon 1:16 composers (ranging from Skinner and Salter to, in the emorating the atomic age and the Cold War by co- @ The World Beyond* 1:29 ª Silver Bullet 3:33 1950s, Henry Mancini) routinely collaborated on films, scoring Universal sci-fi films such as This Island Earth # º Dr Niemann Successful 1:24 cultivating a style similar enough to allow what some (1955) and The Mole People (1956). Incidentally, the Dracula Pursued* 1:44 called “Salterizing” – the seamless patching together of strange irony of Hans Salter came full circle eighteen $ Dracula Destroyed* 1:08 ⁄ The Moon is Full 1:18 such cues into a score. Whatever the case, Randall D. years after House of Frankenstein when, near the end of % Gypsy Tantrums ¤ Larry at Peace 1:37 Larson, in his exhaustive survey Musique Fantastique his career as a film composer, he found himself scoring (Max Rapp & Milton Rosen)*1:47‹ Dr Niemann Attacked 1:37 (Scarecrow Press, 1985), suggests the only score of the Hitler (1962). However, the film was anything but ^ Ilonka Whipped 1:08 › Death of the Unholy Two 1:14 Frankenstein sequels entirely by Salter is that for The distinguished, and Salter’s score, for all its merits, never & ﬁ Ghost of Frankenstein. And in House of Dracula approached the rousing power, creepy atmosphere and Dan’s Love 3:23 End Cast 0:29 (1945), the utterly wretched sequel to follow House of raw inventiveness found in the composer’s undying All music composed by Hans J. Salter and Paul Dessau except where shown in brackets. Frankenstein, the music of no less than eight composers, horror scores for Universal. All music orchestrated by John Morgan except tracks indicated by an asterisk*, which were orchestrated by including Salter, Skinner and Dessau, was hastily William Stromberg. patched together by music director Edgar Fairchild. Bill Whitaker 1995, rev. 2007 However, by the time House of Dracula was produced,

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Niemann (in Dr Niemann Attacked), the revived fact, Morgan later introduced Stromberg, a family friend If there’s one reigning irony about composer Hans J. imbued with an air of total abandon, it allowed Frankenstein Monster decides to break free, make short eighteen years his junior, to this old cinema music, Salter, it is that, after fleeing the nightmarish world of centuries-old menacing mummies to walk the globe, work of Daniel and then rescue the mad doctor. In the ultimately resulting in the latter’s decision also to pursue the Third Reich in 1937, he wound up in America heart-craving ghouls to raid local cemeteries and world- score, this is captured through a last, desperate variation a career in film music. scoring Universal’s classic Frankenstein films, all weary werewolves to erupt in fury whenever a full moon of Daniel’s motif and a grandly energized, thoroughly Once a decision had been made by Marco Polo to centered on mad scientists with names like Niemann rose. Over half a century later, Universal’s horror films unstoppable one for the Frankenstein Monster. House record the complete House of Frankenstein score (and and Frankenstein and Edelmann, and all revolving and their peerless scores retain much of their dark mood, of Frankenstein concludes with an unforgettable musical with Salter’s full blessing, just weeks before his death), around a superhuman brute whose demise lasted only till yet also evoke an air of seemingly simpler times – much climax in Death of the Unholy Two: The timpani’s the young composers’ passion reached the point that the next sequel. But if Salter ever truly pondered this the way gleeful, vintage cartoon scores and smooth, relentless pounding signifying doom, the woodwinds they even reassembled the delightful, forty-second irony, he seldom mentioned it. When, shortly before his upbeat Big Band renditions seem to do. (For the record, shrieking in full panic and the strings and brass capturing chamber of horrors prelude heard shortly before death in 1994, he was at last asked about it, he only Salter considered his horror scores distinctly American.) the utter chaos of the film’s bizarre, one-of-a-kind Dracula’s revival in the film. Other sections proved chuckled, thought a moment, then replied: “It must’ve Evidence of this nostalgic simplicity – however resolution in which, very oddly for a Hollywood more challenging, including the aforementioned climax. been written in the stars.” illusionary – was offered up in the 1993 film Mad Dog programmer of the early 1940s, everybody dies. After “My hand was about to fall off by the time I got finished, A mild-mannered Viennese gentleman whose exist- and Glory, in which the fifty-year-old soundtrack to the this, all that remains is the end cast music, a brief and there was so much going on,” Morgan said of ence in the Old World was spent conducting operettas Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man climax briefly served blunt tribute to the gypsy Ilonka, her sacrifice and the reassembling the final, bring-down-the-house section. and concerts and working on early films at Berlin’s as a sonic backdrop for an equally unlikely romance very little true love glimpsed in this horror film. Lasting Morgan was not surprised, either, when, during famed UFA studios, Salter spent most of his productive between a lonely, middle-aged police photographer and mere seconds, this final cue makes its point like an recording sessions with the Moscow Symphony life in the New World cranking out music for a variety a young, down-on-her-luck actress. epitaph, then all is done. Orchestra in early December 1994, instrumentalists of Universal films, mostly low-budget programmers, Of all the rousing scores Salter contributed for The decision by Marco Polo in the mid-1990s to wondered aloud if the House of Frankenstein score was, and always under oppressive deadlines. Some film Universal’s horror films, House of Frankenstein (1944) finally give Salter and Dessau their due by recording in fact, a contemporary one. Again, the combination of scores he later voiced great pride in, especially that for proved not only the most colourful but also the most one of Universal’s classic horror scores complete (a Dessau and Salter fifty years earlier seems to have Magnificent Doll (1946), which starred Ginger Rogers significant in terms of length. For that, we partially have much-abbreviated suite from House of Frankenstein provided an orchestral score as advanced as many film as grand socialite and first lady Dolley Madison. Salter the movie’s producer, director and screenwriter to thank. appeared on an earlier Marco Polo release) did not scores written decades later. revelled in the film’s Americana, which, he claimed, Because of the vast amount of work he faced and the become reality without major headaches. In what While Salter sometimes borrowed from other film “inspired me to greater dimensions” than even he had crushing deadlines under which he laboured, Salter appears to have been a reckless house-cleaning scores by himself and colleague Frank Skinner – hoped for in the music. Other scores rate hearings, too, tended to furnish music according to each film’s strength operation, Universal’s old horror scores were trashed common practice at Universal with its hectic deadlines including his many westerns (especially Bend of the or weakness. In a film he considered strong, such as by Universal. Those later chosen for re-recording had to –the House of Frankenstein score is largely original, River, 1952, and Man Without a Star, 1955) and even director Robert Siodmak’s film noir classic Phantom be painstakingly reconstructed by film composers John even though motifs from other films are used (such as an Errol Flynn swashbuckler (Against All Flags, 1952, Lady (1944), he sometimes recommended music be Morgan and William Stromberg from three-line piano the germ of an idea from The Wolf Man, wonderfully complete with shades of Ibert’s Escales). But film used sparingly, if only because he felt the film could reductions unearthed elsewhere, including at Salter’s woven into the main title of House of Frankenstein as music-lovers of today agree on only one thing regarding stand on its own merits. On the other hand, for Erle C. home. There was no doubting Morgan and Stromberg’s a motif for Daniel and reworked throughout the film). Hans J. Salter’s work: His lasting fame rests firmly on Kenton’s potboiler The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), zeal in the project. In his mid-forties when he began Several passages were adapted from earlier movies, his role as a maker of monster music. Salter wrote music for almost fifty of its 68 minutes, working on House of Frankenstein, Morgan proved to including the scene where Dr Niemann and Daniel Beginning with Franz Waxman’s brilliant 1935 score largely because he felt the film needed all the help it be like many of his generation who know and treasure explore the Frankenstein ruins and the ice cavern to The Bride of Frankenstein and crystallizing three could get. Salter’s horror music; he grew to love it as a youngster (borrowed from the crypt-defiling scene and a similar years later with Frank Skinner’s Son of Frankenstein Kenton’s subsequent Universal thriller, House of watching Universal’s horrors on TV in the late 1950s ice cavern episode in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf score (which Salter, still fresh to American shores, Frankenstein, is a rollicking if not very serious addition and early 1960s. Both the movies and their music, he Man); those sequences in which Dr Niemann’s circus of orchestrated), Universal’s busy staff composers served to the Frankenstein saga, complete with vibrant said, are “something cozy that we grew up with in our horrors is on the road (adapted from Frankenstein Meets up a style of horror film music others imitated but never performances by a memorable cast including Boris homes and I think they’re now part of our psyche.” In the Wolf Man, this time for a sequence in which matched. 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Naish. Even so, Salter apparently felt the seventy-minute woods.” If diehard fans of the Frankenstein series today the Wolf Man (1943). But fifty-year-old Paul Dessau, a Monster (heard among the lower instruments at the end programmer again needed help because he supplied decry the movie as a step down from the noble stature free-thinking German composer and communist who of the cue The Monstrosities). Especially exhilarating more than fifty minutes worth of music. The outlandish of Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein and Son of had likewise fled Europe, was of even greater assistance. is the music written for the Dracula chase scene, plot alone explains his decision. In an effort seemingly Frankenstein, at least the breakneck pacing, inventive Dessau had a major hand helping Salter, particularly beginning slowly and mysteriously in The World to outdo far more intelligent Val Lewton horror films by plotting, sturdy cast and lively score of House of with the electrifying main title, bewitching, out-of-kilter Beyond and then, with a quirky proclamation by the then emanating from RKO, Universal decided to pile Frankenstein ensure most fans will forget its relative chamber of horrors prelude, and haunting, transparent strings and woodwinds, launching into a mad gallop. as many monsters as possible into the plot of its latest silliness and relish its rich atmosphere and creepy night music composed for the Dracula segment – music Marred as heard in the film due to careless editing, this Frankenstein movie. The House of Frankenstein catalogue of Universal monsters, all served up by mirroring Dessau’s finest concert works. And while the romp of a cue, reflecting Paul Dessau’s prickly musical storyline concerns a mad scientist, Dr Gustav Niemann Universal’s makeup wizard Jack P. Pierce. unsettling, ever-present four-note motif symbolizing tendencies, is heard largely as intended here. (Karloff), freshly sprung from prison courtesy of a With so many Universal spooks in residence, Salter’s Dracula’s macabre presence ultimately comes from Infectious moments of tender melancholy occasion- thunderstorm, who, with his homicidal hunchback House of Frankenstein score was bound to be more Salter, who had used it previously in Son of Dracula ally surface when gypsy dancer Ilonka (Elena Verdugo) assistant Daniel (Naish), assumes the guise of a varied than, say, the lumbering Ghost of Frankenstein. (1943) and even earlier in Universal’s Nazi-bashing is present, such as in Dan’s Love, which begins with a travelling chamber of horrors proprietor, merrily Despite many wonderful works composed for the Invisible Agent (1942), Dessau made it very much his motif from the main title that conveys Daniel’s love for procuring (and within mere days) Dracula, the Wolf cinema (and despite this particular film’s own B-movie own in his treatment. Certainly, the House of the girl – a bit that shows up in more disturbed form in Man and the Frankenstein Monster (portrayed, status), the House of Frankenstein score remains one Frankenstein score is more modern than Salter’s usual the aptly titled cue Hunchback’s Jealousy, when respectively, by Carradine, Chaney and a former of a small handful of golden age film scores that truly writing, though one is also reminded that, whatever else, Daniel realizes the gypsy girl’s affections are now lost. cowboy from Cross Cut, Texas, named Glenn Strange). rate being heard complete and often. (Korngold’s The Hans Salter was a student of Alban Berg. But then Paul Overall, though, moments of fury and madness arise far As this madcap plot continues, Niemann balances his Sea Hawk, Herrmann’s Citizen Kane, Max Steiner’s Dessau’s influences included Arnold Schoenberg and more often, such as in The Pentagram, when the thirst for revenge with his cranium-popping experiments King Kong, Waxman’s The Bride of Frankenstein and Otto Klemperer, both musically adventurous person- broken-hearted hunchback takes his frustrations out on in brain transplants. If all this seems utterly outrageous, Hugo Friedhofer’s The Best Years of Our Lives are alities in their heydays. the strapped-down, semi-conscious Frankenstein it at least appears more realistic alongside the over-the- others.) The fact the entire House of Frankenstein score A virtual Hollywood camp Symphonie Fantastique Monster by lashing him insanely – a passage marked by top plotting behind the film’s big-budgeted spiritual works so well, even when heard independently of the when heard in its entirety, and one that could have only demented runs in the strings and sinister harmonies in descendant, Universal’s Van Helsing (2004). film, is a credit to its chief composer, especially come from Universal’s busy music department in the the brass. Motifs for the Wolf Man and Frankenstein Today it’s hard to envision the film ever scaring considering the time he was given to produce it. “They 1940s, the House of Frankenstein score offers numerous Monster hover about during these moments of rage, anyone. Just the same, House of Frankenstein remains didn’t give you much time in those days,” Salter said of delights to accompany its cast of accursed characters, both reflecting and foretelling the film’s developments. one of the most lively, broadly enjoyable instalments the score during a 1994 interview, shortly after turning beginning with its vigorous main title. Within the first But the score’s final section serves up the real in the entire series. To quote film historian Gregory 98. “I don’t think I had more than, maybe, two weeks. fourteen seconds, the brass in the main title unleash a showstoppers, with most of the monstrous motifs that William Mank in his excellent book It’s Alive: The I didn’t get much sleep when I worked on it.” somersaulting version of the Wolf Man’s anxious, three- have gone before now exploding into a musical mael- Classic Cinema Saga of Frankenstein (1981) and House At least Salter had some help, both from the past and note motif, then Dracula’s ominous four-note motif, strom. This astonishing finale begins in Dr Niemann of Frankenstein: The Shooting Script (MagicImage present. Although definitely of the twentieth century, before the strings introduce a yearning, operatic- Successful with massive chords from the orchestra as 1994), the film “survives today as a slick, fun, horror with all the chordal progressions and motoric intensity sounding theme for Daniel, indicating he is very much the Frankenstein Monster is finally recharged, then mini-epic; it has action (including the exciting chase of of Arthur Honegger, the music includes a witty salute to the heart and soul of the film. The eerie scene in the continues as nervous winds denote the almost tragi- mounted gendarmes after Dracula’s coach through back Beethoven’s fateful Fifth Symphony in the main title glacial cavern, where the Frankenstein Monster and the comic overtones of Dr Niemann’s monster-filled lab. lot fields, stream and woods), some mood (particularly and joyful references to Carl Maria von Weber else- Wolf Man are found encased in ice, is mostly vintage Later it moves to a surging variation of the gypsy love in the very impressive ice cavern sequence) and some where. Then there’s the spirited dance Gypsy Tantrums, Salter, much of it ingeniously built around the Wolf theme in The Moon is Full as Ilonka contemplates with directorial style (e.g., Kenton’s treatment of Chaney’s a bit of uninhibited fun specially assembled by Max Man’s woeful motif (beginning at the end of The dread shooting her werewolf-lover with a silver bullet first transformation from man to beast, panning the Rapp and Milton Rosen and reflecting Universal’s Ruins) and evoking the gloomy Symphonic Nocturne of – and just as troubled Larry Talbot undergoes his final human footprints that change into paw prints just before penchant for original gypsy material – something seen Busoni. Only occasionally does another three-note motif lycanthropic transformation. By the time Daniel, grief- a long shot shows the Wolf Man loping madly into the also in The Wolf Man (1941) and Frankenstein Meets present itself, this a lumbering one for the Frankenstein stricken over Ilonka’s death, turns violently on Dr 8.570188 4 5 8.570188 570188bk Frankenstein:570183bk Son of Kong 15/7/07 8:23 PM Page 4

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House of Frankenstein guests John Morgan, William Stromberg and Bill Whitaker Photo: Rick Baker

8.570188 8 Playing Time

8.570188 FILM MUSIC CLASSICS 55:29 8.570188 DDD SALTER & DESSAU: House of Frankenstein HANS J. SALTER (1896–1994) • PAUL DESSAU (1894–1979) www.naxos.com Made in Canada ൿ 1995 & House of Frankenstein Complete Score, 1944 Score reconstructed by John Morgan Ꭿ

2007 Naxos Rights International Ltd. 2007 Naxos Rights International Moscow Symphony Orchestra conducted by William Stromberg

1 Universal Signature 0:17 ( The Monstrosities 2:02 2 Main Title 2:17 ) Wolf Man Revived 2:13 3 Lightning Strikes 1:48 ¡ Show Me the Records 2:22 4 Gruesome Twosome Escape 1:50 ™ Travels 0:35 5 Strangulation 0:30 £ Hunchback’s Jealousy 1:51 6 Off to Vasaria 1:18 ¢ Niemann’s Laboratory 1:31 7 Chamber of Horrors 0:40 ∞ Liquefying Brains 1:12 8 Dracula Restored 1:30 § Niemann’s Revenge 1:07 9 Dracula’s Ring 1:29 ¶ The Pentagram 1:37 0 The Burgomaster Murdered 2:06 • Full Moon 1:16 ! Rendezvous with Dracula 2:35 ª Silver Bullet 3:33 @ The World Beyond 1:29 º Dr Niemann Successful 1:24 # Dracula Pursued 1:44 ⁄ The Moon is Full 1:18 $ Dracula Destroyed 1:08 ¤ Larry at Peace 1:37 % Gypsy Tantrums 1:47 ‹ Dr Niemann Attacked 1:37 ^ Ilonka Whipped 1:08 › Death of the Unholy Two 1:14

SALTER & DESSAU: House of Frankenstein & DESSAU: SALTER & Dan’s Love 3:23 ﬁ End Cast 0:29 * The Ruins 1:38

Full composing and orchestrating credits will be found on page 2 of the enclosed booklet 8.570188 Recorded at Mosfilm Studio, Moscow, Russia, in December 1994 • Producer: Betta International Recording Engineers: Edvard Shakhnazarian, Vitaly Ivanov • Music Notes: Bill Whitaker • Design: Ron Hoares Cover image: Sky with lightning (Digital Stock) and Bran Castle, Romania (Jozsef Szasz-fabian / Dreamstime.com) Previously released on Marco Polo 8.223748