The very thought of motion pictures conjures up visual images in our minds, yet from the industry’s very beginnings, even in the silent era, the vast majority of films have featured some sort of musical accompaniment. From the start, some musical scores, such as Camille Saint-Saëns’ accompaniment to The Assassination of the Duke of Guise (1908-the first by a major composer) have outlasted the films for which they were composed.

Conversely, most films of the early sound era, such as Universal Studio’s Frankenstein (1931)-which in Leonard Maltin’s words “cries for a musical score”-feature music heard only during their title sequences. Only a couple of years later, with the improvement of sound-on-film systems, the concept of actual background music came into play.

Before discussing the actual film music at hand, there are two pieces on tonight’s program from the late Romantic era that, in spite of becoming celluloid “hits,” were never intended for films. A significant Italian opera composer in his day, Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945) is remembered today primarily for his relatively short 1890 opera, Cavalleria rusticana (Rustic Chivalry); it in turn is remembered today for its rousing drinking song and its simple yet lucious “Intermezzo.”

The Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) is known for his symphonic giganticism, both in terms of the size of the orchestra he required and in terms of the length of his compositions. At more than an hour and a half, his Symphony No. 5 bears this out, yet its fourth movement, “Adagietto,” a tender orchestral love letter to his wife Alma, is scored only for strings.

Most of the following classic film scores have achieved a permanent place not only on Turner Classic Movies but also in Symphonic Pops concerts and a few, such as Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (1957), regularly appear on non-pops classical concerts.

Our upcoming Symphny Movie Pops Night concert opens with a work by John Williams (1932- present), who many would consider to be the Dean of film composers-living or departed. In addition to being a composer, Williams was also conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra for a fourteen-year period between Arthur Fiedler’s tenure and that of the present conductor, Keith Lockhart. Volumes could be (and have been) written about Williams’ extensive contributions to the genre. The work on tonight’s program, suite from Superman, dates from 1978.

Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004) was one of the most prolific of film composers, having written some 150 scores for movies in a variety of styles, from the heavily romantic The Ten Commandments (1956) to the light-hearted Ghost Busters (1984). He was no relation to conductor Leonard Bernstein. The two Bernsteins were often distinguished from each other by location: Bernstein West (Elmer) and Bernstein East (Leonard), based on their bases of operation, respectively Hollywood and New York. Immediately after it was written, Elmer Bernstein’s score to The Magnificent Seven (1960) became an instant classic, heard everywhere, including a plethora of television commercials.

Giovanni Rota Rinaldi (1911 – 1979), better known as Nino Rota, was an Italian composer, pianist, and conductor who is remembered primarily for his film scores, particularly those for Romeo and Juliet (1968) and the first two films of The Godfather trilogy (1972,1974). This reviewer became familiar with the latter’s love theme not through its “proper” setting, but through a salsa version available in a juke box in a café in the mountains of Puerto Rico, proving that a great theme can survive just about anything.

John Barry Prendergast (1933-2011) was a prolific English composer best known for the “James Bond Theme” from Dr. No (1962) and the music for eleven subsequent James Bond films. For his musical score to the Academy Award winning Out of Africa (1985) he received a Grammy, and in 1999 he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), a knight.

French composer Maurice Jarre (1924-2009) is best known for his work on films, particularly on those directed by David Lean (i.e. Lawrence of Arabia and A Passage to India). His "Lara's Theme", from Dr. Zhivago (1964) was transformed into “Somewhere My Love, “with lyrics by Paul Francis Webster. Performed by the Mike Sammes Singers, it spent 38 weeks on the billboards chart, reaching a high of No. 14.

Los Angeles native James Horner (1953-2015) had a fantastic career as a film composer before his life was cut short in a tragic single-engine plane crash (of which he was the pilot) in the Los Padres National Forest. From humble career beginnings, writing music for Roger Corman “B” movies, he ascended quickly to become perhaps the greatest film composer of his generation. He won two Academy Awards--one for Best Original Score, the other one shared with lyricist Will Jennings for Best Original Song ("My Heart Will Go On”)-both for James Cameron’s Titanic (1997); it became the best-selling orchestral film soundtrack of all time.

Italian Ennio Morricone (1928-2020) was an eclectic composer, at home with just about any musical ensemble, from heavy metal bands to full orchestra. He is best known for his collaboration with director Sergio Leone on the Spaghetti Western’s “Man with No Name” trilogy.  His score to The Mission (1986), a drama about Spanish Jesuit priests and territorial rights in South America, over three million copies.

Massachusetts native Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) is forever remembered as the conductor of the New York Philharmonic (or, in musical circles, as “The Man who Tamed the New York Philharmonic”) even though he served in that capacity for only eleven years. A “triple-threat” (equally adoit as a composer, pianist and conductor), Bernstein’s greatest stage and screen success is his West Side Story (stage-1957, film-1961). He was not happy with the scoring of the film by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostel, for it tripled the size of the thirty-person orchestra used for the show. Nor was he pleased with the singing, and several years later he re-recorded the music with singers of his own choosing. It is not known what Bernstein would have thought of Steven Spielberg’s (some would say unnecessary and unfortunate) 2021 updating of the film.

It is a fitting tribute that the last collection of film music heard tonight is from the movie that is, perhaps, most associated with film music, Star Wars (1977). Many times John Williams has graciously acknowledged his debt to the great film composers of the 1930’s and 1940’s. It is no secret then, in fact a tribute, that the first five tones of the main Star Wars theme are the same ones employed more than three decades earlier by Erich Wolfgang von Korngold for his theme for King’s Row (1942)!

A Season Finale You MUST Attend!

The program includes:

Superman Returns

Magnificent Seven

The Godfather

Out of Africa

Dr. Zhivago

Titanic

West Side Story

Cinema Paradiso

The Mission

AND Star Wars

Click here to reserve YOUR tickets!

The Stellar Season Finale

Concert V “Symphony Movie Pops Night” Saturday, April 27, 2024

Music of many of the greatest and most popular movie film scores - including music of John Williams - from the past 50 years.

Sit back, close your eyes, and see your favorite stars in your favorite scenes!

Date and Time:
April 27, 2024 at 7:30pm

Location:
Milford Town Hall, 52 Main Street, Milford, MA 01757