Page - 249 - in Der Filmkomponist Max Steiner - 1888 - 1971

5. Summary 249 interest in the genre of movie musicals had waned and most musicians were looking for work. Steiner managed to stay employed as the bosses of RKO recognized his excep- tional musical abilities. With the demise of film musicals, Steiners primary work during this period was to write opening and ending sequences and some intermediate music for dramatic movies. It is interesting to note that the tradition at this time was that the source of the music was to be seen on the screen because the audiences were used to the orchestras playing musicals or accompanying silent movies in the film theatres. When in 1932 David O. Selznick was hired by RKO, the Situation for film composers in Hollywood changed dramatically. For one of his first big RKO movies, Symphony of Six Million, Selznick wanted a musical score which would provide more than the usual incidental music. He wanted the music to enhance the development of the story and to clarify the characters. In Max Steiner Mr. Selznick found the ideal partner, and Sym- phony of Six Million became the first Hollywood movie completely underscored with music. The composer provided music for any scene where it was deemed necessary, not just music solely to accompany the movie tautologically. Underscoring functioned to clarify those psychological spheres which were not explained by dialogue or action. With his visionary energy, Steiner managed to establish the concept of Symphonie film music in Hollywood. As a result, composers were treated as creative equals with pro- ducers, directors or writers. The Studio System of the day provided an enormous Output of films of good or excellent quality which, in turn, provided composers like Max Steiner with a workload of six to eight movies per year. The principle of the Studio System led to a high degree of work specialization. With the large Output of films the composers no longer had time to work out complete scores themselves. Instead, they just wrote "sketches" with three or four Systems with the im- portant voiee leadings and orchestral suggestions. These sketches were transformed into füll scores by the orchestrators and were then condueted and recorded by the composers. It is important to understand that the orchestrators did not arrange the music. An ar- ranger changes a piece of music whereas an orchestrator just fulfils the ideas of the com- poser. Since he was under constant time pressure, this composer-orchestrator System pro- vided Max Steiner with the perfect working strueture. It was important to Max Steiner to begin his work only after the final cut of the movie was completed, so that he would not be faced with the possibility of further chan- ges of the film. At this first viewing, he wanted to be alone and undisturbed. His second viewing was the so-called spotting Session with the director and the producer. After this, Steiner would view the film one reel at a time. During this third viewing, with his music editor, he would begin the musical cues. This System produced a dick sheet on which they combined the cues with metronome marks. Finally, the film was marked into mi-