Well, as I mentioned, this was a great symposium, although a little intimidating. The piece de resistance was last night's showing of KING KONG with LIVE ORCHESTRA. This was A-MAZING. I should always watch scary movies this way! I totally could not get scared because it was clearly going to be okay--there was the orchestra right there. We watched it as a Max Steiner concert with pictures, and I liked it!
It was a huge job to make this happen. Let me just give some background information.
First of all, we have the Max Steiner papers (and his three Oscars, and his giraffe piano, and his tuba lamp, and boxes and boxes of scores and sketches of music) at BYU. Jim D'Arc, our previous curator of film music at BYU, had approached Steiner's widow, Lee, about his papers, and they came to BYU. I think things are a bit easier with Steiner because he had no heirs but his wife, and when she died, the things are BYU's. I mean, there are still some copyright issues that pertain to the studios he mostly worked for, RKO and WB. But. If the documentary that we watched on Friday night, by filmmaker Diana Friedberg (who is South African originally BTW--so many connections with Africa in our family!) ever is made available, do watch it. It is very good. Anyways, Max and his third wife Louise had one son, Ronnie, who died. In Max's words "I loved my son Ronnie as long as I had him." AARGH. When those words came, I knew that he had died. So sad.
Anyways. Two film composers from LA, John Morgan and William Stromberg, restored the score to the way that Max intended it, sometime in the 1990s. That means that all the scribbled out parts, they put back in. They recorded this with an orchestra in Russia, and this is available on the Marco Polo label. These guys came to BYU last year with Diana to do some recording, with Bill directing the orchestra at BYU, for the documentary. So, then Brent Yorgason asked them about doing a KONG showing with live orchestra. So, that meant that they had to go through the restored score and take out the parts that had been taken out when the movie was made. Brent and his students engraved the adjusted score on Finale, and made the individual parts. Another student made a click track, which is super complex.
Some stories: John Morgan first met Max Steiner when he was a little boy in Grade 5 or 6 -- about 1957 or 1958. He lived in Pasadena, and his school had arranged for a field trip to Warner Brother's. John's mother said, "You might get a chance to play the piano for Max Steiner! You should learn Tara's Theme (from Gone with the Wind)." And so he did. And when they were at the studio, sure enough, while the children were on the sound stage with Max and the orchestra, he said, "Do any of you play an instrument?" And John raised his hand, and when he said piano, Max asked him to play something for them. So he played Tara's Theme, and Max brought the orchestra in with him. What an amazing experience for a young boy!
About 10 years later, as John was working towards a film music career himself, he looked up Max Steiner in the phone book, called him, and Max invited him up to his house. They reminisced about meeting when John was a boy, and then they became friends and John spent as much time with Max as he could. When he was at Max's house, the music for "King Kong" was always on the piano. John asked, "Why do you always have this music out?" Max said, "Well, I know you are going to ask about it, so I have it ready."
Max loved to talk music, and John and he could do that, so Max really enjoyed their visits. At the time, John did not know that he was going to go into reconstructing classic film scores, but that has become what he does, along with William Stromberg.
Back to the Kong score--Max had written the cues, and notes in the margins for the orchestrators. John said they would hate it when the notes would say, "Call me later. I'll explain," because he says, "I can't afford that phone call!" (to heaven...)
William said that the score is super difficult to conduct, because everything is rubato. Like, there are time signatures, but everything is rubato--hold here, hold there, hurry there, etc. Every measure is paced differently. He said it is like when you are playing the piano to accompany a really lousy singer who is always messing up the rhythm. Except in the Kong score, there is a reason: to match the action in the film. But for the conductor, whose job it is to keep the orchestra together, it can be a nightmare!
Another man, Ray Faiola, who is a sound engineer in New York City, had to make the tracks for the dialogue and sound effects, so that it was still a talking picture even though the orchestra at BYU was providing the music. Sometimes, he just chose not to replace certain of the sound effects, wishing to just let the orchestra tell the story. (Like the airplanes buzzing around Kong at the end--he said, and I quote only with some censoring, "To he-- with the airplane imitations!")
Anyways! It was wonderful! I was so glad that I went! Our cousin Jordan Hope was playing in the orchestra, and I ran into him after (as I was escaping out the back hallways that most people don't know about) and he said that even though it was hard (they had to wear headphones and listen to the click track and watch the conductor and play) it was a lot of fun! A super memorable experience for him!
So, here are a few pictures. The first one is most of us who were at the symposium. This statue of Kong was only made in the last decade of so, when Jim D'Arc decided to take Kong stuff to a Comicon or Fan-con or whatever. The new film music curator, Ben Harry (the younger guy to the left of Janet who is wearing red), scheduled himself 20 minutes to move the statue from level 0 to level 1, and it took 2.5 hours! He was a beast to move!
This picture shows important Kong creators. I will try to get all their names in the caption.
It was a huge job to make this happen. Let me just give some background information.
First of all, we have the Max Steiner papers (and his three Oscars, and his giraffe piano, and his tuba lamp, and boxes and boxes of scores and sketches of music) at BYU. Jim D'Arc, our previous curator of film music at BYU, had approached Steiner's widow, Lee, about his papers, and they came to BYU. I think things are a bit easier with Steiner because he had no heirs but his wife, and when she died, the things are BYU's. I mean, there are still some copyright issues that pertain to the studios he mostly worked for, RKO and WB. But. If the documentary that we watched on Friday night, by filmmaker Diana Friedberg (who is South African originally BTW--so many connections with Africa in our family!) ever is made available, do watch it. It is very good. Anyways, Max and his third wife Louise had one son, Ronnie, who died. In Max's words "I loved my son Ronnie as long as I had him." AARGH. When those words came, I knew that he had died. So sad.
Anyways. Two film composers from LA, John Morgan and William Stromberg, restored the score to the way that Max intended it, sometime in the 1990s. That means that all the scribbled out parts, they put back in. They recorded this with an orchestra in Russia, and this is available on the Marco Polo label. These guys came to BYU last year with Diana to do some recording, with Bill directing the orchestra at BYU, for the documentary. So, then Brent Yorgason asked them about doing a KONG showing with live orchestra. So, that meant that they had to go through the restored score and take out the parts that had been taken out when the movie was made. Brent and his students engraved the adjusted score on Finale, and made the individual parts. Another student made a click track, which is super complex.
Some stories: John Morgan first met Max Steiner when he was a little boy in Grade 5 or 6 -- about 1957 or 1958. He lived in Pasadena, and his school had arranged for a field trip to Warner Brother's. John's mother said, "You might get a chance to play the piano for Max Steiner! You should learn Tara's Theme (from Gone with the Wind)." And so he did. And when they were at the studio, sure enough, while the children were on the sound stage with Max and the orchestra, he said, "Do any of you play an instrument?" And John raised his hand, and when he said piano, Max asked him to play something for them. So he played Tara's Theme, and Max brought the orchestra in with him. What an amazing experience for a young boy!
About 10 years later, as John was working towards a film music career himself, he looked up Max Steiner in the phone book, called him, and Max invited him up to his house. They reminisced about meeting when John was a boy, and then they became friends and John spent as much time with Max as he could. When he was at Max's house, the music for "King Kong" was always on the piano. John asked, "Why do you always have this music out?" Max said, "Well, I know you are going to ask about it, so I have it ready."
Max loved to talk music, and John and he could do that, so Max really enjoyed their visits. At the time, John did not know that he was going to go into reconstructing classic film scores, but that has become what he does, along with William Stromberg.
Back to the Kong score--Max had written the cues, and notes in the margins for the orchestrators. John said they would hate it when the notes would say, "Call me later. I'll explain," because he says, "I can't afford that phone call!" (to heaven...)
William said that the score is super difficult to conduct, because everything is rubato. Like, there are time signatures, but everything is rubato--hold here, hold there, hurry there, etc. Every measure is paced differently. He said it is like when you are playing the piano to accompany a really lousy singer who is always messing up the rhythm. Except in the Kong score, there is a reason: to match the action in the film. But for the conductor, whose job it is to keep the orchestra together, it can be a nightmare!
Another man, Ray Faiola, who is a sound engineer in New York City, had to make the tracks for the dialogue and sound effects, so that it was still a talking picture even though the orchestra at BYU was providing the music. Sometimes, he just chose not to replace certain of the sound effects, wishing to just let the orchestra tell the story. (Like the airplanes buzzing around Kong at the end--he said, and I quote only with some censoring, "To he-- with the airplane imitations!")
Anyways! It was wonderful! I was so glad that I went! Our cousin Jordan Hope was playing in the orchestra, and I ran into him after (as I was escaping out the back hallways that most people don't know about) and he said that even though it was hard (they had to wear headphones and listen to the click track and watch the conductor and play) it was a lot of fun! A super memorable experience for him!
So, here are a few pictures. The first one is most of us who were at the symposium. This statue of Kong was only made in the last decade of so, when Jim D'Arc decided to take Kong stuff to a Comicon or Fan-con or whatever. The new film music curator, Ben Harry (the younger guy to the left of Janet who is wearing red), scheduled himself 20 minutes to move the statue from level 0 to level 1, and it took 2.5 hours! He was a beast to move!
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| Nathan Platte (author of Making Music in Selznick's Hollywood--and David O. Selznick was Steiner's producer at RKO for many years) -- Steven Smith (author of Music by Max Steiner) -- Peter Wegele (author of Max Steiner: Composing, Casablanca, and the Golden Age of Film Music) -- Diana Friedberg (documentarian of the Max Steiner documentary) -- Ray Faiola (sound engineer; see rayfaiola.com) William Stromberg (composer, conductor, and score recreationist) and John Morgan (composer and score recreationist). |
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