May 7, 2005
A Label Puts Music From Films in Focus
By DANIEL J. WAKIN
Like the dribble of an automatic coffee maker, a stream of classic movie music is issuing from the Naxos record label.
They are not classical music staples like Leonard Bernstein's "On the Waterfront" score. The titles include the classic, the arty, the obscure and the Grade B: "The Wolf Man," "The Maltese Falcon," "The Invisible Man Returns," "Red River," "King Kong," "Captain Blood," "Les Misérables" and "Objective, Burma!"
Naxos released 10 albums in February. Another 3 are due this year, one each in May, June and September. Most are cheaper reissues of recordings previously on the company's more expensive Marco Polo label, which has put out some 30 recordings of film music in recent years. More reissues are expected.
The releases are shining light on the works of a generation of journeyman composers who worked in Hollywood starting in the 1930's.
These composers were masters of swelling romantic melody, scampering chase music, stirring chords of triumph, sinister forebodings - and plenty of musical filler with all the character of cardboard. It is an odd artistic position: the composers were shackled to a film's narrative while still striving to evoke emotions through the ear.
They include Max Steiner, Adolph Deutsch, Franz Waxman, Bernard Herrmann, Erich Korngold and Dimitri Tiomkin. The Naxos series also includes movie scores by well-known classical composers whose names in movie credits may be more surprising, like Georges Auric, Jacques Ibert, Dmitri Shostakovich and Arthur Honegger.
Sales have been tiny but not inconsequential. "There is a very well defined collector's market for soundtracks," said Klaus Heymann, the founder and chairman of Naxos. "There are some grand tunes that can come from a symphony or orchestral piece. And there are people who like to have every note."
Mr. Heymann said the film score series would account for less than 1 percent of the label's yearly worldwide sales, which he put at about seven million. "We do a lot of things that are not profitable," he said.
The releases by Naxos, known for classical music, are a small testament to how much a part of the American classical music scene movie music has become.
Other record companies, led by Sony Classical, have tilted toward soundtracks in recent years. The violinist Joshua Bell regularly performs a violin concerto based on John Corigliano's score to "The Red Violin." A symphony derived from Howard Shore's "Lord of the Rings" score is making the rounds of orchestras.
Film music programs have become entrenched in orchestra seasons as a way to draw ticket buyers.
"The orchestral world is clearly trying to break out of its old and prescribed box," said Deborah Borda, the president of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. "This has been seen as one way that orchestras in a fairly graceful way can reach out to new audiences. After all, so often the first music that people hear is film music."
At the Los Angeles Philharmonic, movie music was generally confined to the Hollywood Bowl until two years ago, when it was brought into the main subscription concerts at the recently opened Walt Disney Concert Hall.
The New York Philharmonic performed an evening of movie music last month for the second season in a row. Both years' concerts sold out, said the orchestra's spokesman, Eric Latzky, a rarity when the orchestra, on average, is selling only four-fifths of Avery Fisher Hall. Two movie nights are planned for next year.
"Obviously we have discovered a substantial general public that is interested in this music," Mr. Latzky said.
Much of the film music in concert-hall programs is by contemporary composers who have written for recent movies. Naxos is digging up more obscure archaeological specimens.
John Morgan, a 58-year-old film composer who grew up in San Diego, has recreated many of the scores for Naxos, which contracted the recordings to the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. Recording with the orchestra in Russia was a major cost-saver.
"The people that love this stuff, they can't get enough," Mr. Morgan said. "If you leave out one cue, the most mundane cue in the score, it's going to be someone's favorite cue, and you'll hear from them." Cues are passages of music often associated with specific scenes.
Given the fragmentary and ephemeral nature of film scores, Mr. Morgan's work is painstaking.
Movie composers often did not create full scores, and in those cases Mr. Morgan had to rely on a piano reduction or several individual parts to produce one. In the case of "King Kong," he obtained Max Steiner's original pencil sketches from Brigham Young University, which holds the composer's papers.
He examined the sketches and compared them to the soundtrack, which he listened to over and over to produce a complete picture of the music on paper. When there was a score in other cases, it sometimes did not match the finished product because of last-minute changes to match the images.
Reconstruction was not an easy task.
"In 'King Kong,' there's a lot of fast-running-around music," he said. "Millions of notes."
"I just love dramatic music," Mr. Morgan added. "For a guy like me, who still has that old-fashioned heart, I guess film is the only place you can make a living with your heart on your sleeve."
(Thank you, thank you... I'll be here all week)
