Music George Dreyfus

LP release:

A suite of the music was released as part of an LP collection of George Dreyfus's film music.

World Record Club R-05228, released in November 1978.

A Side: A1 Rush A2 Suite From Break Of Day A3 Let The Balloon Go

B Side: B1 Power Without Glory B2 Nellie's Theme B3 Marion B4 A Steam Train Passes

Licensed From – Australian Broadcasting Commission Published By – Allan's Credits A&R [A & R Co-ordination] – Michael Bowden Composed by – George Dreyfus Conductor – George Dreyfus Engineer – Robert Hobson Liner Notes – Bill Hawtin Orchestra – Queensland Symphony Orchestra Producer – Robert Karbow

An Australian Broadcasting Commission recording, released for its members in Australia by World Record Club.

Australian WRC pressing, sourced from original stampers and featuring unique sleeve art. "R 05228" on sleeve, "R-05228" on flag labels.

This was later released by Move on CD, with these track timings (see Trove here) (all tracks by George Dreyfus):

MD 3098, released 1990, total running time 73 mins 35 seconds

Queensland Symphony Orchestra, conducted by composer, tracks 1-3, and 5-8. Symphony Orchestra, conduced by composer, tracks 4 and 9-13.

1. Rush [Orchestral] 2'34" 2. Break of Day Suite 11'35" 3. Let the Balloon 6'05" 4. Lawson's Mates 2'55" Power Without Glory 5. Main Theme 1'51" 6. Nellie's Theme 3'04" 7. Marion 2'50" 8. A Steam Train Passes 9'55" 9. Sons of the Anzacs Peace Theme 3'36" 10. Mary Gilmore Goes to Paraguay Suite from And Their Ghosts May Be Heard 14'10" 11. We Belong 3'26" 12. Rush [Strings] 3'34" 13. Dimboola Water Music and Waltz 8'00" James McCarthy, then Music Officer at Film Australia, prepared a press release in relation to the two Film Australia scores featured in the release - Dreyfus also did the music for the FA children's feature Let the Balloon Go:

Produced in 1975, this nostalgic, imaginative essay on one of the majestic but now retired C38 class steam locomotives has won acclaim from audiences and critics all over the world. Included in a string of awards it has picked up is the coveted Statuette of St Finbarr (Short Fiction Film Category), 20th Cork Film International (Ireland) 1975 and the Special Jury Award, 19th Annual San Francisco Film Festival, 1975. Rather than writing predictable steam train music, in which every aspect of the train is imitated in the score, Dreyfus has oped for music that counterpoints the splendid natural sound effects incorporated in the sound track. This fine symphonic score, strong enough to stand by itself, was just what was needed to weld the strong subject matter into a whole. Few people who have seen the film fail to comment on the contribution the music makes to the film, an appropriate tribute to the man many regard as Australia's most original film composer.

Reviews:

The Age made a brief mention of the LP release in its 1st May 1980 issue:

The Sydney Morning Herald also briefly noted the release in its 18th December 1978 issue: "HL" in The Australian Jewish News took a look at the LP release in its 15th February 1980 issue, but wasn't impressed with the music for A Steam Train Passes: Profile:

Ivan Hutchinson did a profile of composer Dreyfus for the July 1977 issue of Cinema Papers, not so long after he'd done the score for A Steam Train Passes. It came with an illustration of Dreyfus working on the score for the FA children's film Let the Balloon Go: George Dreyfus is one of the small number of professional musicians working in Australia who manage to make a living by concentrating almost exclusively on composing. It is only in recent years, however, with the growth of locally-made television programs and films that this has become even remotely possible. Dreyfus’ compositions range from chamber music to opera, and have been performed in many countries, but it is his work in films and television which concerns us here. Dreyfus came to Australia with his parents before World War 2 and was educated at Melbourne High School, after which he spent what he described as a “disastrous” year at the Conservatorium of Music at Melbourne University. There he attempted to learn the bassoon, but claims that his enthusiasm far outshone his musical ability. He left the Conservatorium in 1948, having failed to pass the exams, but continued his study of the bassoon. Two years later he joined the orchestra for the opera season of 1948 sponsored by J. C. Williamson. Staying on, Dreyfus then played for “South Pacific", “Annie Get Your Gun”, “Oklahoma” and the Ice Follies. Dreyfus was doing some arranging and composing at this time but was predominately an orchestral musician. This stint in the pit orchestra later proved invaluable experience because he learnt about orchestration the hard way and learnt it from observing the work of some of the finest American theatre-music arrangers. Dreyfus then joined the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the ne plus ultra at that time of Victorians hoping to make a living out of performing orchestral music. But he soon found that the “strict regimentaton” was not at all to his liking. He was recognized as a bassoon player and successful at it but his unhappiness forced him into developing his talents as a composer. In the early 1950s, Dreyfus left for Vienna and studied there for two years. On returning to Australia he began writing chamber music for himself and his friends, and gained some recognition. Then, Dorian Le Gallienne, a well-known composer and critic of that time, who had written a score for ’s film The Prize, was forced by ill-health to withdraw from another project of Burstall’s, a series (of 12 episodes) which the ABC had commissioned called The Adventures of Sebastian the Fox. Le Gallienne suggested to Burstall that Dreyfus take over the work. Dreyfus went to work with an orchestra consisting of only a piano and three wind instruments. He conducted the score without click-track or any of the devices today considered essential to film music, but it worked, and, optimistically, he left the orchestra and worked with Eltham Films. Not long after, however, Eltham Films closed down. Dreyfus has been writing almost continuously since for films, somewhat to his surprise as he had no idea then, along with nearly everyone else, that the renaissance of the Australian film was approaching. Between 1963 and 1973, he wrote scores for nearly 12 documentaries for the Commonwealth Film Unit, for the ABC series Delta and Marion, and for the Phillip Adams-Bruce Petty film Reflections in Vietnam, among others. (With regard to the latter, Dreyfus' music was bartered with a recording of Dreyfus’ “Golden Lieder Song Cycle”.) In 1974, the ABC made Rush, and with the theme music Dreyfus soon had a hit on his hands. It captured the public imagination and it became, in a version played by Brian May and the ABC showband, one of the most successful Australian instrumental records of recent times. Dreyfus claims he put 10 years of experimentation into the theme because in the early 1960s he bad written versions of Australian folk songs for a projected version of the Ned Kelly story which Tim Burstall wanted to do. (In the event, the money could not be raised and Tony Richardson did the story with less than exciting results.) Some of this music was scored and performed and, in addition, he wrote for his Expo music for Japan a “mock Australian” folk song (part “Click Go the Shears", part “Waltzing Matilda") which he scored for the Sydney Symphony. Whether as a result of this obvious success or not, commissions have been coming since. He wrote the music for one of the finest of recent documentaries, Film Australia’s A Steam Train Passes, the musical theme for This Day Tonight (Victorian edition) and for possibly the most successful, certainly the most prestigious, of all recent ABC television series, Power Without Glory. But it was not until 1976 that Dreyfus moved into the feature film world, scoring both Let the Balloon Go and Break of Day. Dreyfus describes the latter as a “dream film” for the composer as the film is visually very strong with dialogue kept to a minimum. Music therefore plays an important part in the film, and in response to my question as to the type of music he felt the film had needed he replied: “Well I don’t think I could have done music of the day the way John Barry did in The Day of the Locust where they just played, in my opinion, the old records. (Actually he did a little bit of scoring.) Then the other one with Liza Minnelli, Lucky Lady; fabulous arrangements — 1970s arrangements, superb sound, but I don’t think we should have done that either, it would have been quite tasteless to have film music playing Roy Agnew’s piano music. So what I’ve done is to write a love theme. Not Summer of 42 , but I was essentially in a situation where I could write my own love theme.” Dreyfus would like to be in a position where he could concentrate on one film score a year. He is adamant about having control over the sound of his music and he has no desire to let others orchestrate his musical ideas ((“I don’t think the money’s good enough for me to split it, you see”), and he feels very strongly that composers should stick to the music they do best. Amplifying this last statement, he feels that before accepting an assignment, he would like to have his music heard by those making the film, the director or the producer; they should be “sure whom they’re getting and also sure of whether there is plenty of evidence of ability and style”.

Composer George Dreyfus:

In the absence of narration, the film also relied heavily on the music score, provided by George Dreyfus, who has a detailed wiki here. Dreyfus was favoured by government bodies for film and TV music - he did the score for the ABC TV gold rush series Rush, as well as a number of works for Film Australia.

Dreyfus is represented at AMC here, which had this bio for him:

'I arrived in the world on 22 July, 1928. I chose Wuppertal, in Germany, because that city had what was at that time the only overhanging railway in the world, Die Schwebebahn, and I like trains. And I chose my father and mother, Alfred and Hilde, not to mention my grandparents Wilhelm and Paula, Albert and Ida, who all had pots of money, cars, Kindermädchen and holidays in Switzerland and Czechoslovakia. And the home I chose was into culture, a good start for someone who finished up with music as a career. Of course, in 1933 Germany turned sour for those of its population who were Communist, unionist, handicapped, homosexual or, worst of all, Jewish. For schooling and safety reasons my family moved from Wuppertal to the big city, Berlin. I made a tenuous start in art with piano lessons. My parents, brother Richard and I just made it, escaping to Australia in 1939. My grandparents didn't make it. For a while my brother and I lived in a Melbourne children's home, Larino. Then we lived with our parents, in various flats in St Kilda. I resumed my piano lessons and on Saturday mornings sang in the synagogue choir. At Melbourne High School I went music-mad, conducting the choir, playing clarinet in the school orchestra and giving talks on Richard Strauss. I joined John Bishop's Junior Symphony Orchestra. The Dreyfuses may have been poor migrants, but I had music. There were too many clarinettists about, so I enrolled at the Conservatorium as a bassoonist. The tuition was awful, my instrument was awful and I couldn't do the harmony and counterpoint. I failed! After that I cleaned carpets during the day with my parents for a year, practising and playing in amateur orchestras at night. Then I got my first paying music job. It was heaven! Even if I could barely manage the difficult bassoon parts of all those fifteen operas that I played in the J.C. Williamson Italian Opera Season. It started at His Majesty's Theatre in 1948, and over the next year we travelled right around Australia, playing every night. I stayed on at His Majesty's after the Italians had gone home, playing musicals, the Borovansky Ballet and the Gilberts. In 1953 I joined the ABC's Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. It was heaven again! Playing all those great orchestral masterpieces and, unlike His Majesty's Theatre, different music at every concert. I even thought I might become a better bassoon player, so I studied for a time at the Vienna Academy with the renowned Karl Oehlberger. I was asked to play the woodwind chamber music classics with my colleagues from the orchestra. Some of them encouraged me to write some new chamber music for them to play. My early attempts at composition were tentative. I never had a teacher. I learned from copying the modern composers whose music I was playing in the Symphony Orchestra. The first piece I actually finished, my Trio Opus 1 for flute, clarinet and bassoon won the APRA Serious Music Award in 1986. Not bad for a piece composed in 1956! I kept on writing serious yet entertaining woodwind music which people enjoyed and my colleagues liked playing with me. Like other young Australian composers of my generation, I discovered European contemporary music in the early 1960s. My compositions became very serious indeed and tunes were hard to find. Some of the reviewers applauded the change. Some, like the listeners, regretted it. I became Mr New Music of Melbourne. I formed contemporary music performing groups, I conducted, I organised. I was rewarded with travel grants, fellowships, residencies, commissions. I wrote symphonies, operas and more chamber music. I had the goods as a composer and could churn out the 'just right' music for the emerging film and television industry. For a composer, it was where the money was: it kept me going as a freelance. All those theme tunes made me famous: I became a Trivial Pursuit, a clue in the 'New Idea' crossword, a question on 'Sale of the Century'. And moreover, the industry and I have given Australia some instrumental music which it likes and can call its very own. I don't think I could ever have done this with my German-based serious contemporary concert music or operas. But that's how the cards have fallen, and survivors should always be grateful.' Further notes: Dreyfus's most notable music for the screen is the theme from Rush, a television series from the 1970s. He has also been very involved in the area of community music-making. His autobiography was published in 1984, followed by a book of essays in 1998. In 1991, Dreyfus was awarded the Australia Council's Fellowship and in 1992 was made a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to music. In 2002 he was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse. In the 1990s two major operas were premiered in Germany: Rathenau, based on the life of Walter Rathenau, a German Jew who was assassinated while serving as Foreign Minister in the Weimar Republic (1993), and Die Marx Sisters, based on the private life of Karl Marx in Soho, London (1996). His children's opera The Takeover, based on the Aboriginal land rights issue, was given its European premiere in Germany in 1997. Recent works include his Symphony No. 3, premiered in 2012, and a Saxophone Quartet (2007). In 2013, George Dreyfus was awarded the Distinguished Services to Australian Music Award as part of the 2013 Art Music Awards. Biography provided by the composer — current to July 2013 (Below: George Dreyfus, the first in New York in 1975, around the time of the film)