Max Steiner

From Vienna to New York

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 Suppé and Johann Strauss Jr. His father, Gabor, controlled five major theatres and an amusement park (for the record: it was he who built the Ferris wheel in the Prater). Marie Hollmann, his mother, had inherited three of Vienna's most fashionable restaurants.

The young Maximilian, an only child, had the chance to grow up in a very musical environment (his godfather had been Richard Strauss), and to receive a first-class education. At the age of 15, he entered the Imperial Academy of Music to study with the likes of Robert Fuchs, Herrmann Graedener, Gustav Mahler* and Felix Weingartner. A child prodigy, like his contemporary Erich Wolfgang Korngold, he was a marvel to his teachers, completing a four-year course in one year. Later, Steiner would recall with irony: "Mahler predicted that I would become one of the greatest composers of all time. He didn't know that I would end up at Warner Bros."

From this time onwards, Steiner embarked on a career in operetta and musical revue. At the age of 16, he wrote an operetta called “The Beautiful Greek Girl”, which, produced by one of his father's competitors, was one of the hits of the season. As a conductor, Max Steiner travelled to Berlin, Moscow and Johannesburg. In 1906, after his father's bankruptcy, he decided to settle in London where he soon made a name for himself in the musical theatre world.

When war broke out, the Austrian Steiner was forced to leave the country. He decided to go to the United States, where he arrived in December 1914# in the port of New York, “with thirty-two dollars in my pocket.” With Broadway a long way from London, Steiner had to start afresh. He accompanied vaudeville performers on the piano and took a job as a copyist at Harms Music Publishing. Before long, he was hired as an orchestrator for musicals. Over the next few years, Steiner worked as an arranger, orchestrator and conductor with the great names of the American musical, including Victor Herbert, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and Florenz Ziegfeld.

Arrival in Hollywood

When, on 6 October 1927, an enthusiastic audience saw Al Jolson conversing on screen with his “Mammy” and singing a few songs from the popular repertoire, it was also the death knell for silent films. Hollywood panicked: how would the new audience expectations be met? THE JAZZ SINGER and its near sequel THE SINGING FOOL (1928) had set the direction. The new synchronization procedures seemed to benefit mainly musical revues that were largely adapted from Broadway. With audiences eagerly demanding new 'talkies', Hollywood producers, short on time but also fearful of additional risks, decided to turn to the vast musical heritage of ‘Tin Pan Alley’.

Determined not to be left behind in the hunt for audiences, RKO, one of the major companies of the day, acquired the rights to Harry Tierney's ‘Rio Rita’. The composer recommended Max Steiner, who had already orchestrated and conducted the original version, for the musical direction. William Le Baron, the head of production at RKO, was quick to get Steiner to sign a contract. Steiner accepted, and in December 1929 he arrived in Hollywood, probably unaware that this decision would change his entire life.

By the end of 1930, audiences were beginning to grow weary of these filmed musical revues, which ended up looking very similar and often lacking any real narrative. RKO decided to reduce its music department and put Steiner in charge of the day-to-day business. This meant, in practice, only recording overtures and incidental music for dramatic films, based on pre-existing material. This policy was no different from that of other studios.

The birth of a new art

There were several reasons why music was banned from talking pictures at this time. After 1927, there seems to have been a transitional period, when the soundtrack of some films consisted largely of uninterrupted music. This might give way to one or two dialogue scenes (often added after the fact), earning the film its 'talking picture' label. The musical practice was directly oriented to that of silent films, i.e. compilation and naive musical equivalence prevailed over original composition and the search for specific sound worlds.

When, following LIGHTS OF NEW YORK (1928), and in parallel with the first wave of musicals, the fashion for ‘all-talkies’ developed, i.e. 100% talking films in which one dialogue scene followed another, music was almost completely abandoned. Once a substitute for a realistic soundtrack, it was thought to be superfluous in the age of the talking picture, which seemed to satisfy the audience's need for naturalism. It was allowed in the credits and chase scenes, but was banned from dialogue scenes.

The mixing of two sound levels seemed unacceptable. "Where would the music come from?" was the usual question from the producers. The only exception was music that was explicitly or implicitly part of the reality of the film, i.e. played by an orchestra, a phonograph, a barrel organ, etc. It should also be remembered that for the first talking films, sound recording was greatly hampered by the fact that the image and the sound (dialogue, noise, music) were recorded at the same time.

In the best of cases, this absence of music benefited the film. But much more often, the mere use of realistic sounds leaves the impression, nowadays at least, of a lack in the cinematographic work, all the more so as the reality of the film is far from the reality of the spectator. Thus, the viewer often cannot identify with the story and is led to criticise the artificial, ‘studio’ atmosphere and the 'incoherent' editing of the film. This was particularly true of the melodramatic and fantasy films that were beginning to flourish in these times of economic depression.

In Hollywood, it was Max Steiner who first discovered the immense psychological potential of music. Or should I say ‘rediscovered’, for music has always been used to overcome the viewer's psychic resistance to making a fabricated reality his own. The habit of accompanying dialogues with music was already characteristic of the romantic and melodramatic theatre of the 19th century. Moreover, the practice of accompanying silent films with music was too recent to have been completely forgotten. In the 1930s, a large number of music directors and composers were veterans of silent films.

The psychological impact of music in film was demonstrated by Gregory LaCava's SYMPHONY OF SIX MILLION (1932), about the emotional problems of a Jewish doctor in New York. After editing, producer David O. Selznick felt that his film was missing something and asked Steiner to write music - on an experimental basis - for a scene in which the doctor's father dies after undergoing surgery. RKO executives were delighted with the new dimension their product was taking on and asked Steiner to complete his work on the entire film.

The score of SYMPHONY OF SIX MILLION may seem rather crude and lacking in subtlety today, but it was a great advance in 1932. While in style and form of its themes it is more akin to silent film music, the judicious placement of the music, which was no longer in continuous use, indicated a new approach. The moral the producers drew from this example was that the composer is a kind of doctor who comes to the patient after all other attempts to save him have failed; with his briefcase full of melodies, he can perform any miracle he wants. "You must save our film” was a phrase that composers would hear more and more often.

Perfecting a style

Two other films from 1932 allowed Steiner to continue his development; BIRD OF PARADISE, a love story between an American sailor and a Polynesian girl, and THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. Both films contain almost 100% music, obviously to overcome the gap between the viewer's reality and the ‘reality’ created by the film. Indeed, of those who bought a ticket to immerse themselves in a darkened room and forget the daily grind, who could claim to have ever seen a Polynesian archipelago up close or been chased by a mad count on a desert island, which, respectively, was the point of these films. The result is certainly striking if one compares THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME to a film like ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, made in the same year, which, despite its artistic qualities, seems much more artificial and ‘implausible’, most likely due to the lack of a musical score. Steiner wrote restless music for the hunting scenes, foreshadowing in places the music he would write the following year for KING KONG.

KING KONG (1933) is arguably the first masterpiece of American film music and also did much to put the composer's name on the map in Europe. Steiner even received an offer to teach his film music technique in Moscow. Here, too, the studio (RKO) initially thought they could do without music; President Kahane, believing that too much had already been spent on the silly story of a giant ape falling in love with a white girl, asked Steiner not to add to the production costs and to use pre-existing music from the studio archives.

Merian C. Cooper, the film's producer, also felt the weaknesses of the story and the frame-by-frame animation, but came to the opposite conclusion: he asked Steiner to do his best and even offered to pay all the extra costs. The composer did not hesitate to hire a 46-piece orchestra (RKO's regular orchestra consisted of only 10), adding $50,000 to the budget. The result was an incredibly modern and daring film score for its time; the wild rhythm and frequent use of dissonance reminded one more of Stravinsky than of Tchaikovsky.

Max Steiner's score was based on the use of short ‘leitmotifs’ as used by Richard Wagner in his operas, whose function was to unify the performance and to establish relationships between characters, situations or ideas that were not otherwise obvious. An essential characteristic of these motifs is their brevity, which contrasts with longer and generally less flexible themes. The ‘leitmotifs’ of KING KONG fit this definition well; for example, Kong's motif, three descending chromatic notes, can be adapted to any situation and can be accelerated, slowed down, reversed or combined with other motifs.

Steiner has often been criticised for the excessive use of these ‘leitmotifs’, which only reflect the superficial content of the images. However, as early as KING KONG, the composer used these motifs to indicate what was not immediately contained in the visual perception. By using a theme already clearly associated with a character or a situation, for a scene with apparently very different or difficult-to-decipher content, the composer can bring out the deeper meaning or even suggest a new idea.

In 1935, THE INFORMER was released, a film that made Max Steiner a household name in the United States and elsewhere. However, his score also provoked violent controversy, particularly from the French composer Maurice Jaubert, who severely condemned the technique of musical synchronism, taken to its extreme in THE INFORMER. This underlining of material effects (called ‘mickey-mousing’ because of its use in cartoons) was one of the most frequent criticisms aimed at Max Steiner. While Stokowski found the composer's idea of translating Leslie Howard's limp in OF HUMAN BONDAGE (1934) into music brilliant, Aaron Copland called the effect ‘too obvious’ and ‘vulgar’.

Whatever one may think, the musical approach of THE INFORMER was the result of a deliberate stylization, by the director and musician, of natural sounds, which were not used much in the film. At the time, the result seemed convincing to many people, as evidenced by the numerous awards Steiner received: Oscar, medal of the King of the Belgians, Officer's medal of the French Academy, prize at the Venice Festival, etc. Max Steiner had become the most prominent composer in Hollywood. “Ask Steiner”, “We absolutely must have Steiner” were exclamations that could be heard more and more often in the executive offices of the big studios. Two years later, Frank Capra, directing LOST HORIZON at Columbia, decided to hire Steiner to supervise and conduct the music composed by the “novice” Dimitri Tiomkin.

The Classic Period

In 1936 Steiner left RKO to join David O. Selznick, who had just formed an independent production company to make “quality” work, as opposed to the mass production of the major studios. Selznick was a great admirer of the composer, although his musical taste was somewhat simplistic, and the two men often had differences of opinion. Steiner was to stay with Selznick for only a year, composing the music for LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY (1936), THE GARDEN OF ALLAH (1936) and A STAR IS BORN (1937). In the meantime, he was “rented” (such was the legal situation for artists under contract with a studio) to Warner Bros. for CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE (1936) and two other films.

In 1937, Steiner signed a long-term contract with the studio, which proved to be of great importance to both parties. The head of Warner's music department, Leo F. Forbstein, a mediocre musician but a shrewd technocrat, was determined to give his studio the best music department in Hollywood. To this end, he had already succeeded in getting Erich Wolfgang Korngold, a compatriot of Steiner's and one of the most famous musicians of the inter-war period, to sign a contract. As the first internationally renowned composer to come to Hollywood, Korngold had managed to obtain absolutely exceptional conditions; for example, he had the right to choose the films he was interested in and the copyright remained in his possession instead of becoming the property of the studio, which was an absolutely unique case.

Around the two star composers Korngold and Steiner, there was a team of secondary composers (who sometimes had a speciality, such as cartoons), orchestrators (such as Hugo Friedhofer), songwriters (such as Harry Warren), lyricists, arrangers and various supervisors. Division of labour was the rule in the big studios and the music departments were no exception. "We were all wheels in a well-oiled machine", Hugo Friedhofer later recalled.

Thanks to means such as the ‘cue sheet’ (cutting a sequence into seconds and fractions of a second) and the ‘click track’ (a sort of metronome synchronised with the film), the technique of film music had reached perfection. The age of improvisation was definitely over. Steiner had played a decisive role in the development of these techniques, the aim of which was to achieve absolute synchronization.

The style of music was generally that of German Romanticism and Post-Romanticism; Wagner, Mahler and Richard Strauss were the great idols, but also Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Puccini and Rachmaninov. This can be explained both by the education of the musicians, most of whom came from Central Europe, like Steiner, by the taste of the public and producers (decisive!) and by the tradition of silent cinema.

Romantic in its essence, film music was dramatic and expressive; it reflected the perceived visual in space and duration. Expressing feelings such as love, hate, sadness, disappointment, it needed a certain duration to deliver its message. Structured by easily identifiable ‘leitmotifs’, the music helped the viewer to enter the director's world. If it seems excessive at times, it is because its function was not to link the characters on the screen to reality but to myth. This sentimentality, which makes today's jaded viewer smile, is a characteristic of the melodramatic cinema of the time and was not considered musical redundancy.

It is in this respect that Steiner contributed to films such as JEZEBEL (1937), FOUR DAUGHTERS (1938), DARK VICTORY (1939), FOUR WIVES (1940), ALL THIS, AND HEAVEN TOO (1940), THE LETTER (1940), NOW VOYAGER (1942), SINCE YOU WENT AWAY (1944), and epic westerns such as THE OKLAHOMA KID (1939), DODGE CITY (1939), VIRGINIA CITY (1940), SERGEANT YORK (1941) and THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON (1942). The osmosis between the images and the music is total. The influence of Korngold is noticeable in these scores, both in the richer and more complex harmonization, which was to become something of a trademark of the studio, and in the greater subtlety of the use of 'dialogue underscoring', of music accompanying the dialogue.

Steiner and Korngold had a clear preference for the traditional symphony orchestra, in this case consisting of about 50 contracted musicians, as in most of the major studios. The opening credits always included a kind of overture setting out the main themes of the score and calling on the full orchestra. The dialogue scenes were mostly accompanied by violins or the string ensemble, for psychological reasons, but also because their timbre is relatively neutral compared to the human voice.

Patriotic Interlude

After the United States entered WW2 in December 1941, Hollywood decided to put itself at the service of the nation, using the immense psychological potential of the cinema to bolster American morale. Propaganda films of varying degrees of transparency were churned out by the major studios. Warners showed a particular dexterity in this field, so it was only natural that the music for several of these films was composed by Max Steiner.

CONFESSIONS OF A NAZI SPY (1939) was a milestone in this field and was followed by such films as DIVE BOMBER (1941), CAPTAIN OF THE CLOUDS (1942), DESPERATE JOURNEY (1942), WATCH ON THE RHINE (1943), MISSION TO MOSCOW (1943), CASABLANCA (1943), PASSAGE TO MARSEILLES (1944), and SINCE YOU WENT AWAY (Selznick, 1944), to name a few. All these films are characterised by the extensive use of popular tunes and various national anthems to show the heroic resistance of the Allied Nations. Steiner, who always refused to adapt classical music into his film scores, was a great supporter of this kind of musical quotation. It is undeniable that the use of a popular musical heritage benefited these films greatly, taking them beyond the personal misfortunes of the protagonists who become exemplary figures.

The musical quotation of highly connoted tunes is a technique used in almost all the scores of Max Steiner and other Hollywood composers of the time. Apart from the wedding march from “Lohengrin”, which inevitably accompanied all wedding ceremonies, there are many other tunes, such as “Auld Lang Syne”, which heralds the new year, and “Gaudeamus Igitur”, which is heard as soon as the son of the family leaves for university. And of course, we must not forget the West, the land of patriotic folk songs.

But Steiner also sometimes based entire scores on well-known tunes. In ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, for example, the composer makes highly ironic use of “There is a happy land, far, far away” and “Rock of Ages” to mock the quasi-religious zeal of the two old ladies to send people to the afterlife. In an entirely different genre, there is BEYOND THE FOREST (1949), where Steiner uses the first three notes of the song 'Chicago' to show the attraction of the city to Rosa Moline (Bette Davis), the disgruntled wife of a country doctor.

But, returning to the war film, this genre can pose yet other problems for the composer, expressed rather laconically by Max Steiner: “You kill yourself writing a score, and all we hear afterwards is boom-boom-boom-boom!” The fact is that even Warners, the studio reputed to be the most musically prominent in its film soundtracks, tended to favour realistic sounds in the action scenes. This resulted in a permanent variation, unplanned by the composer, in the level of music in the mix; a decision sometimes made at the expense of the film. It is true that this situation also testifies to the lack of co-ordination between the different departments of a studio, which were largely autonomous.

For war films made after 1945, such as FIGHTER SQUADRON (1948), OPERATION PACIFIC (1951). THE CAINE MUTINY (1954), BATTLE CRY (1955) and DARBY'S RANGERS (1958), the same remarks remain valid, although the use of pre-existing tunes diminishes significantly. In full accordance with the films, Steiner's musical approach was to glorify human exploits in war: his music was always more heroic than dissonant. All of the above scores are essentially based on a march in the style of Sousa, which gives rise to symphonic variations throughout the film. Also noteworthy is the relatively large amount of realistic music, sometimes assuming the functions of dramatic music; if not for the Hollywood G.I.'s habit of bidding farewell to his fiancée in a bar or at a ball.

A new musical climate

In the history of Hollywood, the 1940s marked an important transitional phase, a transition to what might be called the post-classical period. The myths that had been thought to be eternal, and which constituted the common ground of Hollywood cinema, were beginning to falter. Another reality appeared behind the sumptuous cardboard sets; America, once a land of pioneers, discovered the face of an urban, ambiguous and sometimes inhuman universe. The happy ending of yesteryear was replaced by an excess of pessimism and morbidity. The line between good and evil became less clear and film noir appeared. Although Hollywood was already beginning to shake, the internal structure of the major studios did not change until the 1950s. This explains the choice of composers working in the tradition of romantic symphonies for the eminently American genre of the ‘thriller’.

In 1946, Max Steiner composed the music for THE BIG SLEEP, one of the most important films of the genre. Faced with a rather difficult stylistic problem, Steiner opted for an orchestral overkill that caused a curious discrepancy between the images and the music. The score, which ‘takes the form of a long, dull, dramatic build-up, a veritable backdrop to a metaphysical drama’ (Alain Lacombe), heralds an evolution in Steiner's style: his music was to take on a certain pessimism in keeping with the films. Heavy and crushing, it resembles a huge shroud, stating in advance the failure of the characters. The love themes (the one in THE BIG SLEEP is significant in this respect) became more sophisticated and revealed a certain disillusionment. Sensing that the old formulas were no longer sufficient to fit the new films, Steiner increasingly employed dissonance in his musical discourse and used jazz for dramatic purposes (CAGED, 1950).

Parallel to the emergence of the ‘thriller’, the old genres had begun to evolve and to make use of elements outside the original myths: the western, the melodrama and the adventure film can serve here as examples. PURSUED (1947) drew more on ancient tragedy and Freudian psychoanalysis than on the feeder myths of the Western. Steiner seems to have fully grasped the difference between this curiously bastardised work and the epic westerns he was used to. Listened to separately, the music never betrays its origins and remains one of the composer's most unusual works.

Pessimism also characterised the social melodramas of the time, such as MILDRED PIERCE (1945) and especially BEYOND THE FOREST (1949). In the final sequence of this film, where a dying Bette Davis tries to drag herself to the train to Chicago, Steiner uses a minor variation on the famous song, which has nothing to do with the long romantic crescendo accompanying Jennifer Jones' farewell to Robert Walker in SINCE YOU WENT AWAY (1944).

The same tendency towards musical overkill marked somewhat THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948), more a metaphysical parable on the human condition than an adventure film. In particular, the long, increasingly strident arrhythmic build-up that accompanies the attack by the Mexican bandits has given rise to some criticism as an absolutely gratuitous exaggeration. On the other hand, certain sequences, such as those featuring the paranoia of Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart), allowed Steiner to compose some of his most modern passages.

Since film music is a functional art, any analysis is necessarily relative, and results could only have limited validity. During the period described above, Steiner continued to compose for more classical films, among which the scores for JOHNNY BELINDA (1948), ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN (1949) and THE FOUNTAINHEAD (1949) stand out.

The 1950s and 1960s

It is well known that the quality of Hollywood cinema declined sharply in the early 1950s. Since the composer's inspiration depends largely on the film for which he is writing his music, it is not surprising that Max Steiner's scores were much less unusual during this period. Most of the time they revealed the composer's great experience, but in some cases a discrepancy between the style of the film and the style of the music became more apparent, as Steiner seemed to be most at home in traditional films. Epic westerns first: ROCKY MOUNTAIN (1950), DISTANT DRUMS (1951), THE LION AND THE HORSE (1952), THE LAST COMMAND (1955), THE SEARCHERS (1956), THE HANGING TREE (1958) and A DISTANT TRUMPET (1964), one of his last films. He also wrote scores for cloak-and-dagger films such as THE FLAME AND THE ARROW (1950), pseudo-historical films such as HELEN OF TROY (1956) and religious films such as THE MIRACLE OF OUR LADY OF FATIMA (1952). Increasingly, he was called upon to work for other studios, such as Columbia, Republic and RKO, or for independent producers.

In keeping with the trends of the time, Steiner used less music in most of his films, while making more sparing use of the ‘mickey-mousing' technique (a development already evident in the 1940s). Apart from the admirable THE SEARCHERS (1956), two other important works mark the end of this decade: BAND OF ANGELS (1957) and JOHN PAUL JONES (l959). For the composer, BAND OF ANGELS was something of a throwback to the days of GONE WITH THE WIND, from which Walsh's film story was clearly inspired. Steiner's music is important, both in terms of quantity and quality. It also shows an increasing predilection for waltz-like themes that are more nostalgic than flamboyant. It seems that Steiner had not forgotten his origins.

The year 1959 heralded a final development in the composer's work. At that time, the dismantling of the major studios caused by the film crisis led to the dissolution of the music departments and the dismissal of the old school composers. Hollywood, in search of new spectators after having had to abandon its family audience to television, had decided to go with the times. And they were going to give the young what they wanted, including music.

Steiner, at the age of 71, was to prove that he was perfectly capable of adapting to this fashion, while retaining the dramatic possibilities of the music. His theme for A SUMMER PLACE became one of the biggest hits of the season. The composer would follow this up with PARRISH (1961) and ROME ADVENTURE (1964), whose themes also managed to become very popular, but were unable to repeat the phenomenal success of A SUMMER PLACE. In 1965, after a particularly mediocre film, TWO ON A GUILLOTINE, Max Steiner stopped working for the cinema. He retired reluctantly and for the sole reason that he was no longer being offered films. He tried several times to get new engagements without success. But times had changed, and in Hollywood people are quick to forget.

When Max Steiner closed his eyes forever on 28 December 1971, he was already a legend. He probably had no idea that several years later his music would be re-recorded and his old records re-released. The composer's personal opinion was much more humble: “I always tried to subordinate myself to the film... Some films need a lot of music, others are so realistic that the music would only disturb. Most of my films were entertainments: sentimental dramas, fabulous adventures and fantasies. If these films were made today, they would be made differently, and I would write the music in a different way. But my attitude would be the same - to give the film what it needs... I think the music should be felt rather than heard. On the other hand, I've often been told that a good film score is one that you don't notice, to which I've always replied: 'But what good is it if you don't notice it?”

Editor’s notes

* Max Steiner met Mahler as a youngster (aged 15) as confirmed in “I Remember Mahler” a series of interviews recorded by William F. Malloch, music director of station KPFK, broadcast on Pacifica Radio in 1964. Part of Steiner’s interview with Malloch can be heard here : I Remember Mahler' (1964 broadcast) starting at 12:10.

# Fearful of arrest as an enemy alien following the outbreak of World War 1, Max Steiner sailed on the SS Lapland from Liverpool arriving New York City, November 7, 1914. The passenger manifest gives his contact in America as “Uncle Alex Steiner” and forwarding address as “Palace Theatre Building” New York City (NYC). However, in Steiner’s unpublished autobiography Notes to You he recalls docking in NYC on Christmas Eve 1914 after being delayed by bad weather. He may have confused the occasion as Christmas time with the arrival of his father Gabor Steiner who travelled years later to America on the SS Adriatic leaving from Cherbourg December 14, 1921, arriving NYC December 23, 1921.