Max Steiner
Maximilian Raoul Steiner[a] (May 10, 1888 – December 28, 1971) was an Austrian composer and conductor who emigrated to America and became one of Hollywood's greatest musical composers.
This article is about the Austrian-American composer. For Austrian actor and theater manager (1839–1880), see Maximilian Steiner. For the pornographic actor with the pseudonym Max Steiner, see Max Hardcore.
Max Steiner
December 28, 1971 (aged 83)
American (naturalized citizen 1920)
Composer, arranger, conductor
1907–1965
- Beatrice Steiner (m. 1912–?)
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;Aubrey Steiner(m. 1927; div. 1933)
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;Louise Klos(m. 1936; div. 1946)
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Leonette "Lee" Steiner(m. 1947–1971)
Steiner was a child prodigy who conducted his first operetta when he was twelve and became a full-time professional, proficient at composing, arranging, and conducting, by the time he was fifteen. Threatened with internment in England during World War I, he fled to Broadway; and in 1929 he moved to Hollywood, where he became one of the first composers to write music scores for films. He is often referred to as "the father of film music", as Steiner played a major part in creating the tradition of writing music for films, along with composers Dimitri Tiomkin, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman, Alfred Newman, Bernard Herrmann, and Miklós Rózsa.
Steiner composed over 300 film scores with RKO Pictures and Warner Bros., and was nominated for 24 Academy Awards, winning three: The Informer (1935); Now, Voyager (1942); and Since You Went Away (1944). Besides his Oscar-winning scores, some of Steiner's popular works include King Kong (1933), Little Women (1933), Jezebel (1938), and Casablanca (1942), though he did not compose its love theme, "As Time Goes By". In addition, Steiner scored The Searchers (1956), A Summer Place (1959), and Gone with the Wind (1939), which ranked second on the AFI's list of best American film scores, and is the film score for which he is best known.
He was also the first recipient of the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, which he won for his score for Life with Father. Steiner was a frequent collaborator with some of the best known film directors in history, including Michael Curtiz, John Ford, and William Wyler, and scored many of the films with Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, and Fred Astaire. Many of his film scores are available as separate soundtrack recordings.
Methods of composing[edit]
Music as background to dialogue[edit]
In the early days of sound, producers avoided underscoring music behind dialogue, feeling the audience would wonder where the music was coming from. As a result, Steiner noted, "They began to add a little music here and there to support love scenes or silent sequences."[44] But in scenes where music might be expected, such as a nightclub, ballroom, or theater, the orchestra fit in more naturally and was used often.[22] In order to justify the addition of music in scenes where it wasn't expected, music was integrated into the scene through characters or added more conspicuously. For example, a shepherd boy might play a flute along with the orchestra heard in the background, or a random, wandering violinist might follow around a couple during a love scene;[25]: 57 however, because half of the music was recorded on the set, Steiner says it led to a great deal of inconvenience and cost when scenes were later edited, because the score would often be ruined. As recording technology improved during this period, he was able to record the music synced to the film and could change the score after the film was edited. Steiner explains his own typical method of scoring:
The American Film Institute respectively ranked Steiner's scores for Gone with the Wind (1939) and King Kong (1933) #2 and #13 on their list of the 25 greatest film scores. His scores for the following films were also nominated for the list: