Home

Space focus

for Great Masters

of the Golden Age

1930-1961

This site focuses on articles and interviews with and by the people who had part in their making, and what many film historians refer to as the “classical period” of the studio system. Film composers obviously have fascinating things to say about film music.
Music does not need the cinema - but the cinema has, it seems, always needed music. - Muir Mathieson

The Classic Film Scores Series

In the 1970s thanks to RCA and Charles Gerhardt many of these Hollywood classic scores were re-recorded in faithful reproductions of the original soundtrack recordings but in modern stereo sound. All fourteen albums in the series, were re-issued in CD format. All are recommended to admirers of film music. - Ian Lace

Alfred Newman, one of the most versatile composer in Hollywood

It has been said that Alfred Newman sprang full-grown from the head of Samuel Goldwyn, holding the score of Street Scene in his left hand and a baton in his right. The story is apocryphal, for Newman was a musician of considerable reputation before he came to Hollywood in 1930. - Lawrence Morton

Enter on unofficial composer website

King Kong, the grandfather of all movie scores

Among the great original myths that cinema has produced, it is appropriate to place King Kong at the top. Although the story is inspired by Beauty and the Beast, the character of the giant gorilla is a twentieth century creation, unlike Frankenstein or Dracula. Like all mythical films, King Kong has given rise to dozens of different interpretations: economic, political, sociological, philosophical or psychological. - Jean-Louis Scheffen

S T E I N E R

The birth of a new art

Maximilian Raoul Walter Steiner was born in Vienna on 10 May 1888, at a time when the Strauss family was still alive and well, but the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the end of its carefree society were already in sight.

The Steiner family was more than well off: Maximilian Steiner, Max's grandfather, had directed the famous “Theater an der Wien” and produced the first operettas by Franz von Suppe and Johann Strauss Jr.