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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 for ever”. Many of these recordings are now being reissued in the Naxos Film Music Classics series.
William Stromberg Film composer, conductor and arranger, William Stromberg is widely viewed as a rising talent on Hollywood’s busy film music scene, especially for his work in the challenging realm of film music restoration. Along with colleague John Morgan, Stromberg has rescued many classic film scores from oblivion. This digital recording of Max Steiner’s scores for The Son of Kong and The Most Dangerous Game was originally released on Marco Polo and is now being reissued on Naxos. Busy as a conductor of studio orchestras in Los Angeles, Stromberg maintains an interest not only in film music but American music. He has recorded several much-praised albums for Naxos, including several suites by American colourist Ferde Grofé. In addition, he has conducted works by Korngold and Steiner in Europe. He most recently re-recorded the complete score to Max Steiner’s The Adventures of Mark Twain for Naxos. Stromberg has composed numerous film scores, including Trinity and Beyond (and its sequels, Atomic Journeys and Nukes in Space) as well as Killing Streets, Oddball Hall and Edge of Honor. He continues to conduct the Moscow Symphony Orchestra in his own film scores as well as those by Hollywood’s golden-age composers.
Hearty acknowledgments and thanks to those mighty souls who provided Kong-sized assistance in the production of this album ... James V. D’Arc and Brigham Young University’s Film Music Archives, Ray Faiola, Rudy Behlmer, George Turner, Howard Green, Anna Bonn, Valle Music Services, Albert K. Bender (founder, The Max Steiner Music Society), Danny Gould (Warner Bros. Music), Julie Graham and Gordon Theil (UCLA Arts Library, RKO Archives), Bill Littman, Tony Thomas, Richard Bush, Michael Haas, Robert Fiedel, William H. Rosar, Scott MacQueen, Bob Burns, Ann Whitaker, David Schecter & Kathleen Mayne, Ray Harryhausen and our all-time favourite harpist, Louise Steiner Elian.
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Max Steiner (1888–1971) these weren’t enough headaches, Bernhard Kaun I find it particularly gratifying to reconstruct music couldn’t do all the orchestrations in the allotted time – and for full symphony orchestra – from this early 1933 and some were farmed out to Emil Gerstenberger, who period of sound film. For one thing, the original music The Son of Kong occasionally orchestrated for Steiner. The composer tracks for The Son of Kong and The Most Dangerous The Most Dangerous Game 1932 found Gerstenberger’s orchestrations too florid, however, Game no longer exist; beyond that, owing to limited and made numerous changes before the copyists got to orchestra size and archaic sound recording of the Score reconstructions by John Morgan them. Because of this hectic schedule, Steiner wasn’t period, this music has never, until now, been heard with as specific in his sketches as he normally would have all the thrilling detail and rich dynamics Max Steiner Ray Harryhausen, Maker of Monsters, been, and since I was freshly orchestrating this music, originally envisioned. on Max Steiner, Maker of Music ... the two comments I dreaded most in Steiner’s written instructions to his orchestrators were: “Phone me and John Morgan, December 2000 What an exciting surprise it was when I first heard these I’ll explain” and that cryptic abbreviation “Etc.” new re-recordings of Max Steiner’s The Most Dangerous Game and The Son of Kong. For many years, I have wished for these scores in modern sound John Morgan minus all the villainous snarling and prehistoric roaring Without peer in the painstakingly meticulous art of film music reconstruction, John Morgan is fast gaining and sundry sound effects. How marvelous it is to at last attention for his own film scores, ranging from his music for the atomic bomb documentary Trinity and Beyond have it with a full symphonic orchestra under the very and, more recently, Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation, both composed with longtime colleague talented conductor and film composer Bill Stromberg. William Stromberg. Morgan also recently scored a documentary about his friend, special-effects pioneer Ray I really never thought I’d hear these scores on their own. John Morgan, Ray Harryhausen and William Stromberg Harryhausen. In the late 1970s, Morgan worked as an orchestrator for such film composers as Fred Steiner, Bruce Some years had passed since its initial release when Broughton and Alex North. It was during this period he began work in the realm of film music restoration. A I first came across that wonderful, compact film The am delighted to be re-introduced to this revelatory Steiner friend of Max Steiner during the latter’s final years in Hollywood, Morgan has made reconstructing and re- Most Dangerous Game. At the time, I had no idea what score. The tune Runaway Blues is especially delightful recording Steiner’s greatest film scores part of his mission for the Naxos and Marco Polo film music series. In the title even meant. I must have entered the theater as it weaves its way through the rest of this exciting, recent years, Morgan has overseen the reconstruction of numerous lost scores by such eminent Hollywood after the credits, and yet I instinctively knew, upon atmospheric score about life back on Skull Island. composers as Alfred Newman, Franz Waxman, Hugo Friedhofer, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Hans J. Salter, hearing the music, I was in the presence of Max Steiner. I am most grateful that veteran film composer John Frank Skinner and Bernard Herrmann. Among other scores by Max Steiner, Morgan and Stromberg have re- One would never believe such a film score was written Morgan has resurrected these scores, so important in recorded King Kong and The Adventures of Mark Twain. way back in 1932. That haunting waltz and what it both music history and film history, for new generations becomes embeds itself long in one’s memory. to hear, admire and appreciate. True, the subject matter I was especially surprised at how wonderful The may not be everyone’s cup of tea – giant apes and Moscow Symphony Orchestra Son of Kong sounded. Although I’ve always felt The rampaging dinosaurs and remote jungle islands and Established in 1989, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra includes prize-winners and laureates of Russian and Son of Kong, as a film, lacked some of the inspiration merciless hunters are probably an acquired taste – but international music competitions and graduates of conservatories in Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev who have that characterizes King Kong and The Most Dangerous it is hard to imagine these, even today, without the played under such conductors as Svetlanov, Rozhdestvensky, Mravinsky and Ozawa, in Russia and throughout Game, there is nothing at all lacking about the music. I power of Max Steiner’s music to back them up. 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 Ray Harryhausen has created visual effects for such enduring classics as Mighty Joe Young, The Beast From Guatemala, the complete symphonies of Charles Tournemire and Russian music by Scriabin, Glazunov, 20,000 Fathoms, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts, to name but a few. Harryhausen Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky and Nikolay Tcherepnin. The orchestra also stays busy recording music for received a special Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1992 for his contribution to the world of cinema. contemporary films. Critical accolades for the orchestra’s wide-ranging recordings are frequent, including its
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Arranger’s Notes Lost Worlds and Forgotten Music: Max Steiner’s Legendary RKO Scores With the success of our complete recording of Max section. Like King Kong, there was a great amount of Steiner’s King Kong and numerous requests for more doubling in the woodwinds, with some players asked to As much as Babe Ruth, Frank Buck or Will Rogers, than-usual studio orchestra to work with, later singled Steiner music from this rich period at RKO, we decided play several different instruments, including composer Max Steiner – or rather his music – fired the out King Kong as a picture that would challenge any to record both the sequel to Kong – namely, The Son of saxophones. In the early days of sound recording, imagination of an entire generation of Americans, and composer to furnish his very best. “It was made for Kong – and King Kong’s predecessor, The Most saxophones provided a fuller, rounder sound than some during some of the country’s most trying times. When music,” he said. “It was the kind of film that allowed Dangerous Game. This was no easy task as the music of the traditional woodwind family and were often used King Kong descended upon movie-goers in spring you to do anything and everything, from weird chords had to be reconstructed and completely orchestrated to provide clarity in counter-melodies. Since I wanted 1933, Americans found a fantastic, faraway refuge, if and dissonances to pretty melodies.” from Max Steiner’s original sketches. Bernhard Kaun this score to be presented the way Steiner had but for a few hours, from the winding soup lines of the When King Kong was felled at the end, another had originally orchestrated (and brilliantly) all of The envisioned it in an ideal world, I orchestrated the big cities and raging dust storms in the parched, rural daring foray into Hollywood film-making came to a Son of Kong and a substantial part of The Most complete score directly from Steiner’s original Midwest. They found refuge, too, from the hard fact triumphant close – and while the film’s huge success at Dangerous Game, but due to budget restraints sketches, incorporating the touches and detail he could that one-fourth of the nation’s workforce was out of the box office immediately brought demands by studio (resulting in far fewer players than even Papa Kong only imagine but had clearly indicated in his sketches. work (including 400,000 lost souls right on the streets executives for a sequel, The Son of Kong would had), much of the detail, timbre and soundscape Steiner Like The Son of Kong, The Most Dangerous Game of Los Angeles) while many others struggled just to experience the fate so many sequels do after magic has indicated in his sketches simply could not be realized ended up with a very tight schedule for completion of hang on. In the vast, darkened palaces that were the struck. Although again helmed by producer Merian C. at that long-ago time. the music, though for very different reasons. Because movie theaters of the era, viewers could sympathize Cooper and director Ernest B. Schoedsack, The Son of The Son of Kong was a rushed production from the of Steiner’s workload at RKO, he assigned W. Franke with the pretty, trembling, blonde damsel in distress Kong was given a mere six months for production – an get-go as RKO wanted to get this film out as soon as Harling to write the score for The Most Dangerous portrayed by Fay Wray, marvel at the amazing stop- outlandish expectation for a film involving the possible, owing to the enormous success of King Kong. Game. Harling composed a complete score and motion prehistoric creations of special-effects pioneer painstakingly slow, meticulous process of stop-motion Steiner composed substantially new music for this film, recorded it, but when producer Merian C. Cooper heard Willis O’Brien and revel in the strange chords and animation. In addition, the budget was roughly one- deftly reworking some of the motifs from King Kong it with the film, he thought it was too “Broadway-light” thundering climaxes of Max Steiner’s trend-setting, third that for King Kong and Steiner found himself back into the fabric where dramatically and thematically for the subject matter and went to Steiner and asked fully symphonic film score, which made entirely to the usual puny orchestral set-up, which really appropriate. Because of the above-mentioned budget him to compose a replacement score. Cooper was believable the mystery of uncharted Skull Island, the qualified more as a chamber ensemble, even though restrictions, The Son of Kong utilized an orchestra of no familiar with Steiner’s earlier Bird of Paradise (1932) anxiety of intrepid adventurers quite out of their depth the adventurers were once again returning to Skull more than 28 players (compared to the 46 in King score and knew Steiner could provide the drama and and, finally, the fury of a giant, jungle-stomping, Island and meeting up with other oversized prehistoric Kong). It is quite remarkable then that the original excitement the film needed. dinosaur-busting, native-eating, train-derailing, beasts, including Kong’s snowball-hued offspring. That recording sounds as full and grandioso as it does, The orchestra for The Most Dangerous Game was skyscraper-scaling ape, albeit one with an oversized Steiner rose to the challenge is further evidence of the despite the woefully undernourished string section – only slightly larger than that for The Son of Kong, with heart to match. If King Kong was truly the “Eighth resilience, energy and industriousness he displayed six violins, two violas, two cellos and two string basses, a total of eight violins this time! For the reasons given Wonder of the World,” to quote fictional, marketing- during his RKO years. His scores from this pivotal, one doubling the tuba! in respect to The Son of Kong, I orchestrated this score savvy adventurer Carl Denham (as well as RKO’s real- pioneering period, ranging from the lively Most Orchestrator Kaun used every trick in the book to directly from Steiner’s original sketches, which, like life promoters), then Max Steiner’s massive, dynamic Dangerous Game to the luminous She, showcase get more out of the orchestra: The string parts were full The Son of Kong’s, were more ambitious than the score certainly qualifies as a “Ninth” in the realm of imagination and inventiveness, easily eclipsing many of double-stops (a technique where the string player budget allowed. Almost one-half of the 63-minute film film music, starkly forward-minded in its highlighting of his better-known scores in later decades. plays more than one note at a time). Although a contains music. Because Steiner was supplying a of far-fetched happenings in unlikely places, yet With a cut-to-the-bone budget, frantic shooting legitimate device, the awkward finger positions replacement score, he had only two weeks to compose respectfully observant of operatic traditions extending schedule and less-than-inspiring story that drags till required often resulted in bad intonation and a the music, including the last 11 minutes which consist all the way back to Richard Wagner and, in some showman Carl Denham (ebullient Robert Armstrong) somewhat weak sound in RKO’s minuscule string of fast-paced chase music with thousands of notes! If respects, even further. Steiner, blessed with a larger- again arrives on Skull Island, The Son of Kong probably 8.570183 10 3 8.570183 570183bk Son of Kong 2/6/06 9:10 PM Page 4
should have been far less successful than it was. In It is little wonder Runaway Blues is so fitting as a of the dogs plunge into a waterfall. About a minute passage, almost a minute into the cue The Old truth, O’Brien’s meticulous stop-motion animation in motif, particularly since both Denham and later Hilda, and a half into this cue, the horns seem to revel in the Temple, to enhance Little Kong’s helpful tearing the sequel in many ways outshines that in King Kong. a young American woman he befriends in the Orient, almost orgasmic thrill Count Zaroff experiences at the down of a temple wall to reveal hidden treasure. But And while Steiner had just over two weeks to write are fleeing one thing or another. Space here doesn’t game’s outcome, his motif becoming more settled as there is also drollery in his aforementioned, upbeat nearly 45 minutes worth of new music (with the film permit a complete analysis of the entire score (though Eve’s own is given another chance to succumb to dread. take on the opening lyric of George M. Cohan’s tune itself being released Dec. 20, 1933 – just three weeks one is provided on an earlier deluxe edition of this The cue finally concludes with the horn calls signaling Over There that opens Steiner’s cue Johnny Get Your after the hurried soundtrack was recorded), the album, Marco Polo 8.225166). However, the blues tune hunt’s end, though subsequent cues indicate that, Gun, which airs when Little Kong innocently composer nevertheless furnished an imaginative, dominates The Son of Kong, including in the cue unbeknownst to the overly confident count, the game examines Denham’s shotgun. And when the orchestra thoroughly winning score that today remains one of his Runaway Blues, where the melody returns in a more is not over. is sounding its colorfully comic trills in the Finale of most attractive of all. Much of this comes from his intimate setting, suggesting an unfulfilled longing for Even when divorced from the breathlessly The Son of Kong, Steiner calls for the rubbing of crafting of an infectious blues tune – his own so-called home as it airs passionately on a cello, then bass clarinet enthralling film for which it was written, Steiner’s sandpaper by a percussionist, obviously to illustrate “Runaway Blues” – and setting it loose throughout the and finally the rest of the orchestra. It also figures in the score for The Most Dangerous Game retains every bit Little Kong scratching his head in utter bafflement score, thus endowing both the music and the film with subsequent cue Fire! When the tension explodes in this of its visceral, gripping power, suggesting the grand (though, with everything else going on in the orchestra an easy, all-American charm. The tune even resounds, cue, accompanying a scene in which a two-bit circus evolution of those soaring, horn-filled, symphonic in the re-recording at hand, you either hear it or don’t albeit ominously, after the airing of Little Kong’s own succumbs to arson, Steiner unleashes a hot-footed depictions of hunts so fancied by composers of the hear it just as well as you do – or don’t – on the original leaping motif, which introduces the score’s Main Title. piccolo (undoubtedly manned by a player with large 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. Indeed, both it and 1933 soundtrack). “The boys loved Max,” Louise These two motifs are followed by a more familiar one lungs!) to scamper above it all in short, staccato bursts, Steiner’s score for The Son of Kong are able to vie on Steiner Elian said of fellow RKO studio musicians – that for the unfriendly island aborigines from the suggesting frenzied flames dancing to and fro. The their musical merits alone, particularly in their when toiling under their hard-working music head. original King Kong score – just to remind and reassure composer’s imaginative picture-painting also finds high complete forms, thanks to the composer’s readily “Max had a great sense of humor and he’d inject a bit us that we will soon be re-entering the realm of King clarinets flitting about briefly, representing the trained communicative narrative quality, his fanciful way of of that humor into whatever we were doing, which was Kong. After Runaway Blues finally erupts in more monkeys and seals that quick-thinking Hilda turns loose redressing and altering his engaging motifs and themes certainly nice when we were working frantically engaging form about a minute into the Main Title, it before the ramshackle tent becomes a blazing inferno. and, finally, his sheer eagerness to please. As for against the clock, and that was most of the time.” cleverly gives way to King Kong’s heavy, descending, Other highlights in the score show up once our Steiner’s supposedly shameless habit of “mickey- Perusing Steiner’s sketches reaffirms not only his keen three-note motif from the earlier film as the sequel’s intrepid adventurers land on Skull Island. They include mousing” – yes, there is ample evidence of that, though musical insights but his famous sense of humor. At action opens upon a poster of the giant ape – all that the cue Quicksand – Little Kong, which has us on those critics who endlessly harp about this forget that one point in the sketches for The Most Dangerous remains of Carl Denham’s dashed dreams for King largely new musical turf with a scurrying figure in the film composers ranging from Erich Wolfgang Game, Steiner scribbled one of his occasional, wry Kong and himself. Ironically, the four-note, so-called strings conveying the rush by guilt-ridden Denham and Korngold to Bernard Herrmann to John Williams have asides to his orchestrators, remarking wickedly on the “courage motif,” again from King Kong, and more animal-loving Hilda to aid Little Kong, mired in also engaged in the practice, and that many film clingy heroine portrayed by Fay Wray and the frantic often used to gauge the anxiety levels of the astonished quicksand. Runaway Blues sounds as they undertake composers who have strayed into this habit have failed manner in which she clutches a candlestick in manly adventurers while dealing with Kong and his their good-hearted mission, the last chords resplendent to acquit themselves with the utter musicality and Joel McCrea’s presence. “Max’s humor is always overgrown neighbors, also surfaces as King Kong’s in deep, rich orchestral garb with a very deliberate and sharp wit that Steiner displays. For instance, there’s a evident,” noted John Morgan, who has probably done motif first airs in the sequel. What’s more, in the cue’s proud harp glissando. A few moments later, we are sense of wonderfully disruptive alarm that, in The Most more than anyone to ignite serious interest in Steiner’s final seconds, the courage motif sets off on its own, greeted with an obviously comic treatment of Little Dangerous Game, actually heightens the musical music and knew the composer from his own youth. sounding in a humorously mocking way on one Kong’s motif on a muted trumpet, suggesting this well- suspense when, 37 seconds into The Chase “Here he’d been working on this score all night long, woodwind after another, signifying that showman Carl intentioned chip off the old block will prove far less Continues, Steiner acknowledges a hunting dog’s around the clock, and yet he’d still find time to stop Denham’s stealth and daring are now employed in trouble than his father. Although this motif can sound sudden misstep. Steiner’s wide-ranging playfulness and put these bons mots and jokes in!” avoiding process-servers around New York City in the properly brawny with the right orchestration and is evident throughout The Son of Kong, including such wake of King Kong’s brief but destructive reign. dynamics, the affectionate ape’s motif is often carried graphic mickey-mousing as the grandly descending Bill Whitaker, 2000 8.570183 4 9 8.570183 570183bk Son of Kong 2/6/06 9:10 PM Page 8
somewhat over-the-top moment as the camera zooms dissonant tumbling of brass to convey a rock plunging by a solo instrument and sometimes in humorous his long-suffering, resourceful orchestrator, 34-year- in to show Zaroff looking particularly demented. into a ravine, plus a particularly menacing sounding of guises. When the somewhat naïve ape’s motif is given old Bernhard Kaun (who, ironically, had once arranged Agitato finds the castle deserted at night (with a lone the waltz to conclude the cue as Zaroff announces to his over to the aforementioned solo trumpet, Steiner’s Wagner’s music for the New York release of Fritz flute briefly sounding the waltz at the outset), only for weary prey he is setting the dogs loose on them as they sketches indicate the solo is to be played “screwy,” and Lang’s famous film Siegfried, complete with dragon). adventurer Bob Rainsford and another shipwrecked try to flee into the swamp. on the original soundtrack it definitely is. And Steiner “Orchestrate it the best you can! My work is silly guest, pretty Eve Trowbridge (Fay Wray), quickly And so begins one of the most exciting symphonic never lets us completely forget Little Kong’s famous enough!” Certainly, Kaun and Steiner succeeded in giving way to panic, mirrored in a frantic motif for sequences ever written, either for concert hall or movie parent. When Denham talks to a ship captain about their task, whatever reservations they may have had, strings that captures the nervous quality Eve displays in screen. With a sudden splash of the harp, an appropri- Little Kong (about two minutes into the cue Quicksand and when Little Kong at last drives the black bear off the face of danger. The cue ends with another airing of ately Russian-sounding passage erupts and the score’s – Little Kong), Steiner mournfully reminds us of Papa into the forest, they concoct a fierce whining and the count’s murky motif, this time on a clarinet and thrilling chase music begins, trumpeting similarly high- Kong (and, incidentally, Mahler) with repeated mention whimpering in the violins, high clarinets and piccolo to bass clarinet in spooky-sounding octaves, before the charged music to come in Kong Kong but here of King Kong’s three-note motif, including on a most convey the utter humiliation Little Kong heaps upon orchestra unleashes another howl of awful dissonance. sustaining the frenzied pace for much longer. All woeful-sounding trombone. the beaten beast. (Steiner specifically mentions the bear Eve’s motif panics again in The Iron Door as she motifs and themes that have gone before are swept up Although Steiner’s The Son of Kong score lacks “yipping” in his sketches.) And yet, such nonsense and Rainsford are turned out of the dank castle and in this headlong orchestral onslaught, the hunter’s horn anything as intoxicatingly primitive as the earlier remains resolutely musical and utterly engaging. invited to try eluding till dawn the count’s deadly skills calls dominating it all and the resolute motif for Count score’s sacrificial dance, it does provide its share of Despite the prehistoric trappings, this score often as a hunter, conjured up here by various renditions of Zaroff indicating his increasing advantage as he pursues vibrant action music. That includes a loud and defiant reflects tenderness and compassion, such as when the hunter’s waltz. A leaping figure in the strings, Rainsford and Eve through the fog-shrouded swamp cue originally titled The Stegosaurus which composer Denham and Hilda attempt to bandage the injured punctuated by horn calls, nicely captures Rainsford’s and across a deep chasm in The Chase and The Chase John Morgan, while reconstructing this violent scene finger of their new simian friend. Ironically, Little resolve to rise to Count Zaroff’s challenge, hunter to Continues. On the original soundtrack, one can sense from the remaining original sketches, quietly retitled Kong’s largely insignificant wound causes him initially hunter. Finally, we are treated to an especially creepy the nearly complete exhaustion of the players, The Styracosaur after noticing ever-busy Max Steiner to object to medical attention in the most infantile of airing of the count’s motif that sinks to the deepest particularly a drained trumpet player as Rainsford and had gotten his dinosaurs mixed up. (Incidentally, this ways, his howling captured among screaming brass and depths of the orchestra. Serving as an effective prelude Eve cross a log over the chasm. (When Louise Steiner sequence – scored for a scene in which a trio of winds almost a minute and a half into Finger Fixings. to the particularly anxious music ahead, Night begins Elian was reminded of Steiner’s sometimes massive adventurers is pursued and cornered in a rocky crevice Much of this cue is devoted to Little Kong’s motif (after with a rising bass clarinet line carrying Rainsford’s scoring and the trying workouts he often gave studio by a mammoth horned dinosaur – is original and does an introduction that includes the playing of the courage motif, answered by other winds and then strings (as musicians, the retired harpist declared: “I’d much rather not echo the like-titled but entirely different cue motif on the harp). Often Little Kong’s motif airs on well as a flute and harp that hint at the courage motif be playing than counting 198 measures of rest!” The Stegosaurus in the King Kong score.) The following a highly expressive solo violin line. At one point King of the still-to-come King Kong score). Mounting composer’s resourcefulness is evident even in this cue, The Black Bear, is also particularly exciting, as Kong’s legacy is again evoked. The following cue chords beginning in the orchestra’s lower regions reconstruction of the score for full-sized orchestra. Just well as being extraordinarily difficult to perform. Campfire at Night finds Runaway Blues and a lovely accompany Zaroff as he closes in on the pair in The over four minutes into The Chase, the composer – Based primarily on Runaway Blues and Little Kong’s theme first heard in An Offer of Help settling down Count Approaches. This sparks Eve’s jittery motif unable to add any more instruments to the intense rage motif (the latter first heard in this dramatic cue on two with Little Kong’s own motif for an idyllic nocturne as the evening’s quarry once again realize just how he is whipping up in his own minuscule studio orchestra clarinets in unison), this rousing, Wagnerian piece serenading Denham, Hilda and Little Kong into heavily the odds are stacked against them. The count’s – puts the chase music into minor-seconds, creating a pauses only when Little Kong takes a fall or commits peaceful dreams. The ominous, ascending motif from motif materializes nearby and the two-note hunter’s particularly disturbing bitonality that chillingly conveys a blunder, compelling the composer to bring dramatic the King Kong score’s own cue The Island (complete call sounds eerily in the distance. The resumption of outright frenzy among the dogs as they bay at their action in the music to a halt to take notice of this dose with the courage motif on a wayward flute, nervously the waltz in the brass and the ticking of a harp prompt human prey from the base of a tree while fighting one of physical comedy with the aid of a soprano sax supported by clarinet and oboe) reminds us that dangers a particularly insistent announcement of Rainsford’s another. The broad musical gestures in The Waterfall playing Little Kong’s motif, again in a “screwy” still lurk on Skull Island. motif to finish out this cue, though motifs continue to seem to promise some relief, but the tension in the manner. “This fight is intended to be somewhat With the film’s short running time nearly out, the interact in Misterioso Dramatico, which includes a orchestra only gathers again before Rainsford and one humorous!” Steiner mockingly scribbled on sketches to time for nonsense on Kong’s island is nearly at an end. 8.570183 8 5 8.570183 570183bk Son of Kong 2/6/06 9:10 PM Page 6
Johnny Get Your Gun finds Steiner engaging in an Son of Kong, which not only boasts further orchestral Steiner wasn’t originally slated to compose the the reasons this cinematic version of the 1924 Richard inside joke as he makes an allusion to George M. savagery but revels in the home-grown blues Levant score for The Most Dangerous Game. He had assigned Connell short story remains the finest of a long line of Cohan’s famous tune Over There while Little Kong himself so eloquently championed as a pianist. the task to W. Franke Harling, a minor composer whose remakes. The story – today the only work remembered makes mischief with Denham’s weapon. (Steiner was Although the score for The Son of Kong has been opera A Light From St. Agnes nevertheless became the from a former newspaperman who also wrote novels firmly established as a Broadway maestro when the largely forgotten today (or undermined by ignorant first American opera produced in France in 1929 and and movie scripts – was fleshed out for the film, legendary, song-writing showman wrote Over There critics who harped that the picture was tracked almost who just two years later scored Schoedsack’s much- complete with a romantic interest, though both the film honoring the first Americans dispatched abroad and entirely from music in King Kong), its example at the praised though somewhat controversial jungle epic and the score give little evidence of any actual romance. into World War I.) The heartbreaking Finale finds Papa time reaffirmed the path blazed by King Kong. Rango, about an orangutan that lays down its life to What’s more, Steiner shows great resourcefulness in Kong’s formidable motif sounding in the strings and Steiner’s alternately rambunctious and atmospheric save a human companion. Harling composed a his tense reworking of the principal motif – a somewhat brass as saxophones and woodwinds swirl about music for King Kong and The Son of Kong touched complete score for The Most Dangerous Game, but melancholy waltz favored by the mad Russian count maddeningly in the tempest and earthquake that, in one many a movie-goer, both in 1933 and later, among when Cooper – then still new to the studio – heard the (and actually by Steiner) and representing the most of Hollywood’s most unlikely happenings ever, them Ray Harryhausen. The special-effects master music, he decided it was far too light, suggesting dangerous game. The count (Leslie Banks) even plays suddenly overtake Skull Island. In the ensuing fury, long lamented he never landed Steiner as a composer Broadway more than the remote jungle isle of Count the waltz on the piano at one point early in the film, Little Kong’s motif howls loudly and beseechingly in on one of his own celebrated animation epics. “Oh, Zaroff, whose pastime consists of hunting shipwrecked though the Main Title gives us a better idea of the the brass, defying the heavens and pleading with them but I wish we had,” the 80-year-old filmmaker “guests” for sport. Although Steiner was buried in sinister forces behind the count, the transfigured waltz at the same time. All of this overwhelms an equally ruminated decades later. “When we made The Beast other projects, Cooper pleaded with him to completely exploding in the orchestra after the persistent sounding desperate version of Runaway Blues as the amiable ape From 20,000 Fathoms (1953) as an independent film redo the score, partially because the producer had been of the hunter’s two-note motif, itself cleverly derived perishes along with his island, even as he saves Carl and it was sold to Warner Brothers, I was hoping Max so impressed with Steiner’s earlier RKO score for from the melody and used here to begin the score. The Denham before vanishing beneath the waves. In the Steiner would take on the score, but I don’t think he was director King Vidor’s Bird of Paradise. Cooper’s score’s only idyllic moments follow after this, film, the calamity that grips the island and swallows even approached. He was a first-class composer – and arguments concerning the Harling score are remarkable suggesting an unwary group of seagoing adventurers up Little Kong, the dinosaurs and the natives is I think they saw The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms as a for the time and display a rare insight into the potential steaming too close to the count’s island, only to crash accompanied by music tracked in from King Kong, second-class picture!” While Harryhausen admits of film music. In fact, only weeks later, when Steiner upon the rocks because of deliberately misplaced notably The Bronte. But Steiner’s new material – finding the comic antics of The Son of Kong a step had settled down to scoring King Kong, Cooper buoys. Thundering timpani and blaring ostinatos tossed highlighted in this massive reconstruction – shows that down from the stature of King Kong, studio harpist reportedly reminded Steiner not to lean too heavily on madly between the brass and woodwinds effectively the composer’s powers for chronicling the horrifying Louise Steiner Elian, who played under Steiner in both his own Broadway experience (though, indeed, with convey shark attacks on survivors in The Wreck, and the catastrophic in music stand unrivaled. In what of these scores and also married the composer, insists their thumping saxophones and tubby tuba section, the obviously reminding Steiner of a similar episode in little time remains in the film, Steiner revives the mood Steiner found good-natured amusement in the light- scores for both King Kong and The Son of Kong do Bird of Paradise and prompting him to scribble of romance and hope for those lucky enough to survive, hearted sequel. “He really thought it was a cute idea, sound at points as if some massive Broadway orchestra sarcastically to orchestrator Bernhard Kaun: “We’ve though not before paying homage to the title character’s and certainly the effects behind this cute albino ape were attempting its very own The Rite of Spring, thus got a shark in every picture, by Jesus!” noble sacrifice. In the end, an upbeat rendition of were wonderful,” the once-busy musician recalled at lending these scores a certain unique sound in terms of Again, space here precludes a detailed analysis of Runaway Blues for full orchestra concludes this age 94. In any case, the charming score for The Son of orchestration and texture). In the end, overworked, 44- the score, but highlights revolve around the hunter’s unlikely fantasy adventure story on a high note. Kong, when set apart from the film, arguably makes year-old Max Steiner put aside Harling’s music, theme, shown in both civilized garb in the cue Russian If George Gershwin crony and famed American for a far more cohesive and pleasurable listening endured more sleepless nights and anxiety-filled days, Waltz (when one of Zaroff’s guests asks the piano- wit Oscar Levant was correct in his estimation – that experience than even that for King Kong, for all its and completed scoring The Most Dangerous Game just playing count for “just a good tune … not highbrow”) Steiner’s rambunctious music for King Kong was, for titanic, ground-shaking verve. The music for King two weeks before the film’s Sept. 9, 1932 release date. and in evil guise in the cue labeled Incidental Music. its time, “one of the most enthusiastically written scores Kong demands our respect, and without question; the For all the pressure Steiner labored under, his score This latter cue finds the tune giving way to the count’s ever composed in Hollywood” – he might well have music for The Son of Kong wins our affection, and for The Most Dangerous Game ranks as one of the true own dark influences – Steiner’s way of conveying the found even more to praise in Steiner’s music for The effortlessly. milestones of film music in the 1930s. It is also one of horrible truth, even before the orchestra explodes in a 8.570183 6 7 8.570183 570183bk Son of Kong 2/6/06 9:10 PM Page 6
Johnny Get Your Gun finds Steiner engaging in an Son of Kong, which not only boasts further orchestral Steiner wasn’t originally slated to compose the the reasons this cinematic version of the 1924 Richard inside joke as he makes an allusion to George M. savagery but revels in the home-grown blues Levant score for The Most Dangerous Game. He had assigned Connell short story remains the finest of a long line of Cohan’s famous tune Over There while Little Kong himself so eloquently championed as a pianist. the task to W. Franke Harling, a minor composer whose remakes. The story – today the only work remembered makes mischief with Denham’s weapon. (Steiner was Although the score for The Son of Kong has been opera A Light From St. Agnes nevertheless became the from a former newspaperman who also wrote novels firmly established as a Broadway maestro when the largely forgotten today (or undermined by ignorant first American opera produced in France in 1929 and and movie scripts – was fleshed out for the film, legendary, song-writing showman wrote Over There critics who harped that the picture was tracked almost who just two years later scored Schoedsack’s much- complete with a romantic interest, though both the film honoring the first Americans dispatched abroad and entirely from music in King Kong), its example at the praised though somewhat controversial jungle epic and the score give little evidence of any actual romance. into World War I.) The heartbreaking Finale finds Papa time reaffirmed the path blazed by King Kong. Rango, about an orangutan that lays down its life to What’s more, Steiner shows great resourcefulness in Kong’s formidable motif sounding in the strings and Steiner’s alternately rambunctious and atmospheric save a human companion. Harling composed a his tense reworking of the principal motif – a somewhat brass as saxophones and woodwinds swirl about music for King Kong and The Son of Kong touched complete score for The Most Dangerous Game, but melancholy waltz favored by the mad Russian count maddeningly in the tempest and earthquake that, in one many a movie-goer, both in 1933 and later, among when Cooper – then still new to the studio – heard the (and actually by Steiner) and representing the most of Hollywood’s most unlikely happenings ever, them Ray Harryhausen. The special-effects master music, he decided it was far too light, suggesting dangerous game. The count (Leslie Banks) even plays suddenly overtake Skull Island. In the ensuing fury, long lamented he never landed Steiner as a composer Broadway more than the remote jungle isle of Count the waltz on the piano at one point early in the film, Little Kong’s motif howls loudly and beseechingly in on one of his own celebrated animation epics. “Oh, Zaroff, whose pastime consists of hunting shipwrecked though the Main Title gives us a better idea of the the brass, defying the heavens and pleading with them but I wish we had,” the 80-year-old filmmaker “guests” for sport. Although Steiner was buried in sinister forces behind the count, the transfigured waltz at the same time. All of this overwhelms an equally ruminated decades later. “When we made The Beast other projects, Cooper pleaded with him to completely exploding in the orchestra after the persistent sounding desperate version of Runaway Blues as the amiable ape From 20,000 Fathoms (1953) as an independent film redo the score, partially because the producer had been of the hunter’s two-note motif, itself cleverly derived perishes along with his island, even as he saves Carl and it was sold to Warner Brothers, I was hoping Max so impressed with Steiner’s earlier RKO score for from the melody and used here to begin the score. The Denham before vanishing beneath the waves. In the Steiner would take on the score, but I don’t think he was director King Vidor’s Bird of Paradise. Cooper’s score’s only idyllic moments follow after this, film, the calamity that grips the island and swallows even approached. He was a first-class composer – and arguments concerning the Harling score are remarkable suggesting an unwary group of seagoing adventurers up Little Kong, the dinosaurs and the natives is I think they saw The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms as a for the time and display a rare insight into the potential steaming too close to the count’s island, only to crash accompanied by music tracked in from King Kong, second-class picture!” While Harryhausen admits of film music. In fact, only weeks later, when Steiner upon the rocks because of deliberately misplaced notably The Bronte. But Steiner’s new material – finding the comic antics of The Son of Kong a step had settled down to scoring King Kong, Cooper buoys. Thundering timpani and blaring ostinatos tossed highlighted in this massive reconstruction – shows that down from the stature of King Kong, studio harpist reportedly reminded Steiner not to lean too heavily on madly between the brass and woodwinds effectively the composer’s powers for chronicling the horrifying Louise Steiner Elian, who played under Steiner in both his own Broadway experience (though, indeed, with convey shark attacks on survivors in The Wreck, and the catastrophic in music stand unrivaled. In what of these scores and also married the composer, insists their thumping saxophones and tubby tuba section, the obviously reminding Steiner of a similar episode in little time remains in the film, Steiner revives the mood Steiner found good-natured amusement in the light- scores for both King Kong and The Son of Kong do Bird of Paradise and prompting him to scribble of romance and hope for those lucky enough to survive, hearted sequel. “He really thought it was a cute idea, sound at points as if some massive Broadway orchestra sarcastically to orchestrator Bernhard Kaun: “We’ve though not before paying homage to the title character’s and certainly the effects behind this cute albino ape were attempting its very own The Rite of Spring, thus got a shark in every picture, by Jesus!” noble sacrifice. In the end, an upbeat rendition of were wonderful,” the once-busy musician recalled at lending these scores a certain unique sound in terms of Again, space here precludes a detailed analysis of Runaway Blues for full orchestra concludes this age 94. In any case, the charming score for The Son of orchestration and texture). In the end, overworked, 44- the score, but highlights revolve around the hunter’s unlikely fantasy adventure story on a high note. Kong, when set apart from the film, arguably makes year-old Max Steiner put aside Harling’s music, theme, shown in both civilized garb in the cue Russian If George Gershwin crony and famed American for a far more cohesive and pleasurable listening endured more sleepless nights and anxiety-filled days, Waltz (when one of Zaroff’s guests asks the piano- wit Oscar Levant was correct in his estimation – that experience than even that for King Kong, for all its and completed scoring The Most Dangerous Game just playing count for “just a good tune … not highbrow”) Steiner’s rambunctious music for King Kong was, for titanic, ground-shaking verve. The music for King two weeks before the film’s Sept. 9, 1932 release date. and in evil guise in the cue labeled Incidental Music. its time, “one of the most enthusiastically written scores Kong demands our respect, and without question; the For all the pressure Steiner labored under, his score This latter cue finds the tune giving way to the count’s ever composed in Hollywood” – he might well have music for The Son of Kong wins our affection, and for The Most Dangerous Game ranks as one of the true own dark influences – Steiner’s way of conveying the found even more to praise in Steiner’s music for The effortlessly. milestones of film music in the 1930s. It is also one of horrible truth, even before the orchestra explodes in a 8.570183 6 7 8.570183 570183bk Son of Kong 2/6/06 9:10 PM Page 8
somewhat over-the-top moment as the camera zooms dissonant tumbling of brass to convey a rock plunging by a solo instrument and sometimes in humorous his long-suffering, resourceful orchestrator, 34-year- in to show Zaroff looking particularly demented. into a ravine, plus a particularly menacing sounding of guises. When the somewhat naïve ape’s motif is given old Bernhard Kaun (who, ironically, had once arranged Agitato finds the castle deserted at night (with a lone the waltz to conclude the cue as Zaroff announces to his over to the aforementioned solo trumpet, Steiner’s Wagner’s music for the New York release of Fritz flute briefly sounding the waltz at the outset), only for weary prey he is setting the dogs loose on them as they sketches indicate the solo is to be played “screwy,” and Lang’s famous film Siegfried, complete with dragon). adventurer Bob Rainsford and another shipwrecked try to flee into the swamp. on the original soundtrack it definitely is. And Steiner “Orchestrate it the best you can! My work is silly guest, pretty Eve Trowbridge (Fay Wray), quickly And so begins one of the most exciting symphonic never lets us completely forget Little Kong’s famous enough!” Certainly, Kaun and Steiner succeeded in giving way to panic, mirrored in a frantic motif for sequences ever written, either for concert hall or movie parent. When Denham talks to a ship captain about their task, whatever reservations they may have had, strings that captures the nervous quality Eve displays in screen. With a sudden splash of the harp, an appropri- Little Kong (about two minutes into the cue Quicksand and when Little Kong at last drives the black bear off the face of danger. The cue ends with another airing of ately Russian-sounding passage erupts and the score’s – Little Kong), Steiner mournfully reminds us of Papa into the forest, they concoct a fierce whining and the count’s murky motif, this time on a clarinet and thrilling chase music begins, trumpeting similarly high- Kong (and, incidentally, Mahler) with repeated mention whimpering in the violins, high clarinets and piccolo to bass clarinet in spooky-sounding octaves, before the charged music to come in Kong Kong but here of King Kong’s three-note motif, including on a most convey the utter humiliation Little Kong heaps upon orchestra unleashes another howl of awful dissonance. sustaining the frenzied pace for much longer. All woeful-sounding trombone. the beaten beast. (Steiner specifically mentions the bear Eve’s motif panics again in The Iron Door as she motifs and themes that have gone before are swept up Although Steiner’s The Son of Kong score lacks “yipping” in his sketches.) And yet, such nonsense and Rainsford are turned out of the dank castle and in this headlong orchestral onslaught, the hunter’s horn anything as intoxicatingly primitive as the earlier remains resolutely musical and utterly engaging. invited to try eluding till dawn the count’s deadly skills calls dominating it all and the resolute motif for Count score’s sacrificial dance, it does provide its share of Despite the prehistoric trappings, this score often as a hunter, conjured up here by various renditions of Zaroff indicating his increasing advantage as he pursues vibrant action music. That includes a loud and defiant reflects tenderness and compassion, such as when the hunter’s waltz. A leaping figure in the strings, Rainsford and Eve through the fog-shrouded swamp cue originally titled The Stegosaurus which composer Denham and Hilda attempt to bandage the injured punctuated by horn calls, nicely captures Rainsford’s and across a deep chasm in The Chase and The Chase John Morgan, while reconstructing this violent scene finger of their new simian friend. Ironically, Little resolve to rise to Count Zaroff’s challenge, hunter to Continues. On the original soundtrack, one can sense from the remaining original sketches, quietly retitled Kong’s largely insignificant wound causes him initially hunter. Finally, we are treated to an especially creepy the nearly complete exhaustion of the players, The Styracosaur after noticing ever-busy Max Steiner to object to medical attention in the most infantile of airing of the count’s motif that sinks to the deepest particularly a drained trumpet player as Rainsford and had gotten his dinosaurs mixed up. (Incidentally, this ways, his howling captured among screaming brass and depths of the orchestra. Serving as an effective prelude Eve cross a log over the chasm. (When Louise Steiner sequence – scored for a scene in which a trio of winds almost a minute and a half into Finger Fixings. to the particularly anxious music ahead, Night begins Elian was reminded of Steiner’s sometimes massive adventurers is pursued and cornered in a rocky crevice Much of this cue is devoted to Little Kong’s motif (after with a rising bass clarinet line carrying Rainsford’s scoring and the trying workouts he often gave studio by a mammoth horned dinosaur – is original and does an introduction that includes the playing of the courage motif, answered by other winds and then strings (as musicians, the retired harpist declared: “I’d much rather not echo the like-titled but entirely different cue motif on the harp). Often Little Kong’s motif airs on well as a flute and harp that hint at the courage motif be playing than counting 198 measures of rest!” The Stegosaurus in the King Kong score.) The following a highly expressive solo violin line. At one point King of the still-to-come King Kong score). Mounting composer’s resourcefulness is evident even in this cue, The Black Bear, is also particularly exciting, as Kong’s legacy is again evoked. The following cue chords beginning in the orchestra’s lower regions reconstruction of the score for full-sized orchestra. Just well as being extraordinarily difficult to perform. Campfire at Night finds Runaway Blues and a lovely accompany Zaroff as he closes in on the pair in The over four minutes into The Chase, the composer – Based primarily on Runaway Blues and Little Kong’s theme first heard in An Offer of Help settling down Count Approaches. This sparks Eve’s jittery motif unable to add any more instruments to the intense rage motif (the latter first heard in this dramatic cue on two with Little Kong’s own motif for an idyllic nocturne as the evening’s quarry once again realize just how he is whipping up in his own minuscule studio orchestra clarinets in unison), this rousing, Wagnerian piece serenading Denham, Hilda and Little Kong into heavily the odds are stacked against them. The count’s – puts the chase music into minor-seconds, creating a pauses only when Little Kong takes a fall or commits peaceful dreams. The ominous, ascending motif from motif materializes nearby and the two-note hunter’s particularly disturbing bitonality that chillingly conveys a blunder, compelling the composer to bring dramatic the King Kong score’s own cue The Island (complete call sounds eerily in the distance. The resumption of outright frenzy among the dogs as they bay at their action in the music to a halt to take notice of this dose with the courage motif on a wayward flute, nervously the waltz in the brass and the ticking of a harp prompt human prey from the base of a tree while fighting one of physical comedy with the aid of a soprano sax supported by clarinet and oboe) reminds us that dangers a particularly insistent announcement of Rainsford’s another. The broad musical gestures in The Waterfall playing Little Kong’s motif, again in a “screwy” still lurk on Skull Island. motif to finish out this cue, though motifs continue to seem to promise some relief, but the tension in the manner. “This fight is intended to be somewhat With the film’s short running time nearly out, the interact in Misterioso Dramatico, which includes a orchestra only gathers again before Rainsford and one humorous!” Steiner mockingly scribbled on sketches to time for nonsense on Kong’s island is nearly at an end. 8.570183 8 5 8.570183 570183bk Son of Kong 2/6/06 9:10 PM Page 4
should have been far less successful than it was. In It is little wonder Runaway Blues is so fitting as a of the dogs plunge into a waterfall. About a minute passage, almost a minute into the cue The Old truth, O’Brien’s meticulous stop-motion animation in motif, particularly since both Denham and later Hilda, and a half into this cue, the horns seem to revel in the Temple, to enhance Little Kong’s helpful tearing the sequel in many ways outshines that in King Kong. a young American woman he befriends in the Orient, almost orgasmic thrill Count Zaroff experiences at the down of a temple wall to reveal hidden treasure. But And while Steiner had just over two weeks to write are fleeing one thing or another. Space here doesn’t game’s outcome, his motif becoming more settled as there is also drollery in his aforementioned, upbeat nearly 45 minutes worth of new music (with the film permit a complete analysis of the entire score (though Eve’s own is given another chance to succumb to dread. take on the opening lyric of George M. Cohan’s tune itself being released Dec. 20, 1933 – just three weeks one is provided on an earlier deluxe edition of this The cue finally concludes with the horn calls signaling Over There that opens Steiner’s cue Johnny Get Your after the hurried soundtrack was recorded), the album, Marco Polo 8.225166). However, the blues tune hunt’s end, though subsequent cues indicate that, Gun, which airs when Little Kong innocently composer nevertheless furnished an imaginative, dominates The Son of Kong, including in the cue unbeknownst to the overly confident count, the game examines Denham’s shotgun. And when the orchestra thoroughly winning score that today remains one of his Runaway Blues, where the melody returns in a more is not over. is sounding its colorfully comic trills in the Finale of most attractive of all. Much of this comes from his intimate setting, suggesting an unfulfilled longing for Even when divorced from the breathlessly The Son of Kong, Steiner calls for the rubbing of crafting of an infectious blues tune – his own so-called home as it airs passionately on a cello, then bass clarinet enthralling film for which it was written, Steiner’s sandpaper by a percussionist, obviously to illustrate “Runaway Blues” – and setting it loose throughout the and finally the rest of the orchestra. It also figures in the score for The Most Dangerous Game retains every bit Little Kong scratching his head in utter bafflement score, thus endowing both the music and the film with subsequent cue Fire! When the tension explodes in this of its visceral, gripping power, suggesting the grand (though, with everything else going on in the orchestra an easy, all-American charm. The tune even resounds, cue, accompanying a scene in which a two-bit circus evolution of those soaring, horn-filled, symphonic in the re-recording at hand, you either hear it or don’t albeit ominously, after the airing of Little Kong’s own succumbs to arson, Steiner unleashes a hot-footed depictions of hunts so fancied by composers of the hear it just as well as you do – or don’t – on the original leaping motif, which introduces the score’s Main Title. piccolo (undoubtedly manned by a player with large 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. Indeed, both it and 1933 soundtrack). “The boys loved Max,” Louise These two motifs are followed by a more familiar one lungs!) to scamper above it all in short, staccato bursts, Steiner’s score for The Son of Kong are able to vie on Steiner Elian said of fellow RKO studio musicians – that for the unfriendly island aborigines from the suggesting frenzied flames dancing to and fro. The their musical merits alone, particularly in their when toiling under their hard-working music head. original King Kong score – just to remind and reassure composer’s imaginative picture-painting also finds high complete forms, thanks to the composer’s readily “Max had a great sense of humor and he’d inject a bit us that we will soon be re-entering the realm of King clarinets flitting about briefly, representing the trained communicative narrative quality, his fanciful way of of that humor into whatever we were doing, which was Kong. After Runaway Blues finally erupts in more monkeys and seals that quick-thinking Hilda turns loose redressing and altering his engaging motifs and themes certainly nice when we were working frantically engaging form about a minute into the Main Title, it before the ramshackle tent becomes a blazing inferno. and, finally, his sheer eagerness to please. As for against the clock, and that was most of the time.” cleverly gives way to King Kong’s heavy, descending, Other highlights in the score show up once our Steiner’s supposedly shameless habit of “mickey- Perusing Steiner’s sketches reaffirms not only his keen three-note motif from the earlier film as the sequel’s intrepid adventurers land on Skull Island. They include mousing” – yes, there is ample evidence of that, though musical insights but his famous sense of humor. At action opens upon a poster of the giant ape – all that the cue Quicksand – Little Kong, which has us on those critics who endlessly harp about this forget that one point in the sketches for The Most Dangerous remains of Carl Denham’s dashed dreams for King largely new musical turf with a scurrying figure in the film composers ranging from Erich Wolfgang Game, Steiner scribbled one of his occasional, wry Kong and himself. Ironically, the four-note, so-called strings conveying the rush by guilt-ridden Denham and Korngold to Bernard Herrmann to John Williams have asides to his orchestrators, remarking wickedly on the “courage motif,” again from King Kong, and more animal-loving Hilda to aid Little Kong, mired in also engaged in the practice, and that many film clingy heroine portrayed by Fay Wray and the frantic often used to gauge the anxiety levels of the astonished quicksand. Runaway Blues sounds as they undertake composers who have strayed into this habit have failed manner in which she clutches a candlestick in manly adventurers while dealing with Kong and his their good-hearted mission, the last chords resplendent to acquit themselves with the utter musicality and Joel McCrea’s presence. “Max’s humor is always overgrown neighbors, also surfaces as King Kong’s in deep, rich orchestral garb with a very deliberate and sharp wit that Steiner displays. For instance, there’s a evident,” noted John Morgan, who has probably done motif first airs in the sequel. What’s more, in the cue’s proud harp glissando. A few moments later, we are sense of wonderfully disruptive alarm that, in The Most more than anyone to ignite serious interest in Steiner’s final seconds, the courage motif sets off on its own, greeted with an obviously comic treatment of Little Dangerous Game, actually heightens the musical music and knew the composer from his own youth. sounding in a humorously mocking way on one Kong’s motif on a muted trumpet, suggesting this well- suspense when, 37 seconds into The Chase “Here he’d been working on this score all night long, woodwind after another, signifying that showman Carl intentioned chip off the old block will prove far less Continues, Steiner acknowledges a hunting dog’s around the clock, and yet he’d still find time to stop Denham’s stealth and daring are now employed in trouble than his father. Although this motif can sound sudden misstep. Steiner’s wide-ranging playfulness and put these bons mots and jokes in!” avoiding process-servers around New York City in the properly brawny with the right orchestration and is evident throughout The Son of Kong, including such wake of King Kong’s brief but destructive reign. dynamics, the affectionate ape’s motif is often carried graphic mickey-mousing as the grandly descending Bill Whitaker, 2000 8.570183 4 9 8.570183 570183bk Son of Kong 2/6/06 9:10 PM Page 10
Arranger’s Notes Lost Worlds and Forgotten Music: Max Steiner’s Legendary RKO Scores With the success of our complete recording of Max section. Like King Kong, there was a great amount of Steiner’s King Kong and numerous requests for more doubling in the woodwinds, with some players asked to As much as Babe Ruth, Frank Buck or Will Rogers, than-usual studio orchestra to work with, later singled Steiner music from this rich period at RKO, we decided play several different instruments, including composer Max Steiner – or rather his music – fired the out King Kong as a picture that would challenge any to record both the sequel to Kong – namely, The Son of saxophones. In the early days of sound recording, imagination of an entire generation of Americans, and composer to furnish his very best. “It was made for Kong – and King Kong’s predecessor, The Most saxophones provided a fuller, rounder sound than some during some of the country’s most trying times. When music,” he said. “It was the kind of film that allowed Dangerous Game. This was no easy task as the music of the traditional woodwind family and were often used King Kong descended upon movie-goers in spring you to do anything and everything, from weird chords had to be reconstructed and completely orchestrated to provide clarity in counter-melodies. Since I wanted 1933, Americans found a fantastic, faraway refuge, if and dissonances to pretty melodies.” from Max Steiner’s original sketches. Bernhard Kaun this score to be presented the way Steiner had but for a few hours, from the winding soup lines of the When King Kong was felled at the end, another had originally orchestrated (and brilliantly) all of The envisioned it in an ideal world, I orchestrated the big cities and raging dust storms in the parched, rural daring foray into Hollywood film-making came to a Son of Kong and a substantial part of The Most complete score directly from Steiner’s original Midwest. They found refuge, too, from the hard fact triumphant close – and while the film’s huge success at Dangerous Game, but due to budget restraints sketches, incorporating the touches and detail he could that one-fourth of the nation’s workforce was out of the box office immediately brought demands by studio (resulting in far fewer players than even Papa Kong only imagine but had clearly indicated in his sketches. work (including 400,000 lost souls right on the streets executives for a sequel, The Son of Kong would had), much of the detail, timbre and soundscape Steiner Like The Son of Kong, The Most Dangerous Game of Los Angeles) while many others struggled just to experience the fate so many sequels do after magic has indicated in his sketches simply could not be realized ended up with a very tight schedule for completion of hang on. In the vast, darkened palaces that were the struck. Although again helmed by producer Merian C. at that long-ago time. the music, though for very different reasons. Because movie theaters of the era, viewers could sympathize Cooper and director Ernest B. Schoedsack, The Son of The Son of Kong was a rushed production from the of Steiner’s workload at RKO, he assigned W. Franke with the pretty, trembling, blonde damsel in distress Kong was given a mere six months for production – an get-go as RKO wanted to get this film out as soon as Harling to write the score for The Most Dangerous portrayed by Fay Wray, marvel at the amazing stop- outlandish expectation for a film involving the possible, owing to the enormous success of King Kong. Game. Harling composed a complete score and motion prehistoric creations of special-effects pioneer painstakingly slow, meticulous process of stop-motion Steiner composed substantially new music for this film, recorded it, but when producer Merian C. Cooper heard Willis O’Brien and revel in the strange chords and animation. In addition, the budget was roughly one- deftly reworking some of the motifs from King Kong it with the film, he thought it was too “Broadway-light” thundering climaxes of Max Steiner’s trend-setting, third that for King Kong and Steiner found himself back into the fabric where dramatically and thematically for the subject matter and went to Steiner and asked fully symphonic film score, which made entirely to the usual puny orchestral set-up, which really appropriate. Because of the above-mentioned budget him to compose a replacement score. Cooper was believable the mystery of uncharted Skull Island, the qualified more as a chamber ensemble, even though restrictions, The Son of Kong utilized an orchestra of no familiar with Steiner’s earlier Bird of Paradise (1932) anxiety of intrepid adventurers quite out of their depth the adventurers were once again returning to Skull more than 28 players (compared to the 46 in King score and knew Steiner could provide the drama and and, finally, the fury of a giant, jungle-stomping, Island and meeting up with other oversized prehistoric Kong). It is quite remarkable then that the original excitement the film needed. dinosaur-busting, native-eating, train-derailing, beasts, including Kong’s snowball-hued offspring. That recording sounds as full and grandioso as it does, The orchestra for The Most Dangerous Game was skyscraper-scaling ape, albeit one with an oversized Steiner rose to the challenge is further evidence of the despite the woefully undernourished string section – only slightly larger than that for The Son of Kong, with heart to match. If King Kong was truly the “Eighth resilience, energy and industriousness he displayed six violins, two violas, two cellos and two string basses, a total of eight violins this time! For the reasons given Wonder of the World,” to quote fictional, marketing- during his RKO years. His scores from this pivotal, one doubling the tuba! in respect to The Son of Kong, I orchestrated this score savvy adventurer Carl Denham (as well as RKO’s real- pioneering period, ranging from the lively Most Orchestrator Kaun used every trick in the book to directly from Steiner’s original sketches, which, like life promoters), then Max Steiner’s massive, dynamic Dangerous Game to the luminous She, showcase get more out of the orchestra: The string parts were full The Son of Kong’s, were more ambitious than the score certainly qualifies as a “Ninth” in the realm of imagination and inventiveness, easily eclipsing many of double-stops (a technique where the string player budget allowed. Almost one-half of the 63-minute film film music, starkly forward-minded in its highlighting of his better-known scores in later decades. plays more than one note at a time). Although a contains music. Because Steiner was supplying a of far-fetched happenings in unlikely places, yet With a cut-to-the-bone budget, frantic shooting legitimate device, the awkward finger positions replacement score, he had only two weeks to compose respectfully observant of operatic traditions extending schedule and less-than-inspiring story that drags till required often resulted in bad intonation and a the music, including the last 11 minutes which consist all the way back to Richard Wagner and, in some showman Carl Denham (ebullient Robert Armstrong) somewhat weak sound in RKO’s minuscule string of fast-paced chase music with thousands of notes! If respects, even further. Steiner, blessed with a larger- again arrives on Skull Island, The Son of Kong probably 8.570183 10 3 8.570183 570183bk Son of Kong 2/6/06 9:10 PM Page 2
Max Steiner (1888–1971) these weren’t enough headaches, Bernhard Kaun I find it particularly gratifying to reconstruct music couldn’t do all the orchestrations in the allotted time – and for full symphony orchestra – from this early 1933 and some were farmed out to Emil Gerstenberger, who period of sound film. For one thing, the original music The Son of Kong occasionally orchestrated for Steiner. The composer tracks for The Son of Kong and The Most Dangerous The Most Dangerous Game 1932 found Gerstenberger’s orchestrations too florid, however, Game no longer exist; beyond that, owing to limited and made numerous changes before the copyists got to orchestra size and archaic sound recording of the Score reconstructions by John Morgan them. Because of this hectic schedule, Steiner wasn’t period, this music has never, until now, been heard with as specific in his sketches as he normally would have all the thrilling detail and rich dynamics Max Steiner Ray Harryhausen, Maker of Monsters, been, and since I was freshly orchestrating this music, originally envisioned. on Max Steiner, Maker of Music ... the two comments I dreaded most in Steiner’s written instructions to his orchestrators were: “Phone me and John Morgan, December 2000 What an exciting surprise it was when I first heard these I’ll explain” and that cryptic abbreviation “Etc.” new re-recordings of Max Steiner’s The Most Dangerous Game and The Son of Kong. For many years, I have wished for these scores in modern sound John Morgan minus all the villainous snarling and prehistoric roaring Without peer in the painstakingly meticulous art of film music reconstruction, John Morgan is fast gaining and sundry sound effects. How marvelous it is to at last attention for his own film scores, ranging from his music for the atomic bomb documentary Trinity and Beyond have it with a full symphonic orchestra under the very and, more recently, Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation, both composed with longtime colleague talented conductor and film composer Bill Stromberg. William Stromberg. Morgan also recently scored a documentary about his friend, special-effects pioneer Ray I really never thought I’d hear these scores on their own. John Morgan, Ray Harryhausen and William Stromberg Harryhausen. In the late 1970s, Morgan worked as an orchestrator for such film composers as Fred Steiner, Bruce Some years had passed since its initial release when Broughton and Alex North. It was during this period he began work in the realm of film music restoration. A I first came across that wonderful, compact film The am delighted to be re-introduced to this revelatory Steiner friend of Max Steiner during the latter’s final years in Hollywood, Morgan has made reconstructing and re- Most Dangerous Game. At the time, I had no idea what score. The tune Runaway Blues is especially delightful recording Steiner’s greatest film scores part of his mission for the Naxos and Marco Polo film music series. In the title even meant. I must have entered the theater as it weaves its way through the rest of this exciting, recent years, Morgan has overseen the reconstruction of numerous lost scores by such eminent Hollywood after the credits, and yet I instinctively knew, upon atmospheric score about life back on Skull Island. composers as Alfred Newman, Franz Waxman, Hugo Friedhofer, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Hans J. Salter, hearing the music, I was in the presence of Max Steiner. I am most grateful that veteran film composer John Frank Skinner and Bernard Herrmann. Among other scores by Max Steiner, Morgan and Stromberg have re- One would never believe such a film score was written Morgan has resurrected these scores, so important in recorded King Kong and The Adventures of Mark Twain. way back in 1932. That haunting waltz and what it both music history and film history, for new generations becomes embeds itself long in one’s memory. to hear, admire and appreciate. True, the subject matter I was especially surprised at how wonderful The may not be everyone’s cup of tea – giant apes and Moscow Symphony Orchestra Son of Kong sounded. Although I’ve always felt The rampaging dinosaurs and remote jungle islands and Established in 1989, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra includes prize-winners and laureates of Russian and Son of Kong, as a film, lacked some of the inspiration merciless hunters are probably an acquired taste – but international music competitions and graduates of conservatories in Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev who have that characterizes King Kong and The Most Dangerous it is hard to imagine these, even today, without the played under such conductors as Svetlanov, Rozhdestvensky, Mravinsky and Ozawa, in Russia and throughout Game, there is nothing at all lacking about the music. I power of Max Steiner’s music to back them up. 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 Ray Harryhausen has created visual effects for such enduring classics as Mighty Joe Young, The Beast From Guatemala, the complete symphonies of Charles Tournemire and Russian music by Scriabin, Glazunov, 20,000 Fathoms, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts, to name but a few. Harryhausen Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky and Nikolay Tcherepnin. The orchestra also stays busy recording music for received a special Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1992 for his contribution to the world of cinema. contemporary films. Critical accolades for the orchestra’s wide-ranging recordings are frequent, including its
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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 for ever”. Many of these recordings are now being reissued in the Naxos Film Music Classics series.
William Stromberg Film composer, conductor and arranger, William Stromberg is widely viewed as a rising talent on Hollywood’s busy film music scene, especially for his work in the challenging realm of film music restoration. Along with colleague John Morgan, Stromberg has rescued many classic film scores from oblivion. This digital recording of Max Steiner’s scores for The Son of Kong and The Most Dangerous Game was originally released on Marco Polo and is now being reissued on Naxos. Busy as a conductor of studio orchestras in Los Angeles, Stromberg maintains an interest not only in film music but American music. He has recorded several much-praised albums for Naxos, including several suites by American colourist Ferde Grofé. In addition, he has conducted works by Korngold and Steiner in Europe. He most recently re-recorded the complete score to Max Steiner’s The Adventures of Mark Twain for Naxos. Stromberg has composed numerous film scores, including Trinity and Beyond (and its sequels, Atomic Journeys and Nukes in Space) as well as Killing Streets, Oddball Hall and Edge of Honor. He continues to conduct the Moscow Symphony Orchestra in his own film scores as well as those by Hollywood’s golden-age composers.
Hearty acknowledgments and thanks to those mighty souls who provided Kong-sized assistance in the production of this album ... James V. D’Arc and Brigham Young University’s Film Music Archives, Ray Faiola, Rudy Behlmer, George Turner, Howard Green, Anna Bonn, Valle Music Services, Albert K. Bender (founder, The Max Steiner Music Society), Danny Gould (Warner Bros. Music), Julie Graham and Gordon Theil (UCLA Arts Library, RKO Archives), Bill Littman, Tony Thomas, Richard Bush, Michael Haas, Robert Fiedel, William H. Rosar, Scott MacQueen, Bob Burns, Ann Whitaker, David Schecter & Kathleen Mayne, Ray Harryhausen and our all-time favourite harpist, Louise Steiner Elian.
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8.570183 FILM MUSIC CLASSICS 77:19 8.570183 DDD MAX STEINER (1888-1971) Made in Canada www.naxos.com 2001 & The Son of Kong 1933 TIE:The Son of Kong STEINER:
The Most Dangerous Game 1932 2006 Naxos Rights International Ltd. 2006 Naxos Rights International Score Reconstructions by John Morgan Moscow Symphony Orchestra conducted by William Stromberg The Son of Kong 45:27 The Most Dangerous 1 Main Title 1:50 Game 31:48 2 Ship at Sea 0:57 * Main Title 1:34 3 In Dakang 1:25 ( The Wreck 1:17 4 Runaway Blues 1:39 ) The Approach 2:24 5 Fire! 2:34 ¡ Russian Waltz 1:40 6 An Offer of Help 4:16 (Piano solo, Leonid Makarevich) 7 Memories 2:11 ™ Incidental Music 0:46 8 Chinese Chatter 4:05 £ Agitato 2:23 9 Forgotten Island 4:14 ¢ The Iron Door 2:57
STEINER: The Son of Kong 0 Quicksand—Little Kong 3:57 ∞ Night 1:04 ! The Styracosaur 0:46 § The Count Approaches 2:20 @ The Black Bear 2:41 ¶ Misterioso Dramatico 3:57 # Finger Fixings 3:31 • The Chase 4:43 $ Campfire at Night 3:24 ª The Chase Continues 0:55 % The Old Temple 2:21 º The Waterfall 2:23 ^ Johnny Get Your Gun 0:34 ⁄ The Fight 1:27 & Finale 4:59 ¤ Escape—Finale 2:00 8.570183
Recorded at Mosfilm Studio, Moscow, Russia, in April 2000 • Producer: Betta International Engineers: Edvard Shakhnazarian, Vitaly Ivanov • Music Notes: Bill Whitaker • Design: Ron Hoares Cover image: Gorilla (Mary Evans/Douglas McCarthy); landscape (Digital Stock & Corbis)