Music And The Screen

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 189, 12 August 1939, Page 7 (Supplement)

Music And The Screen

Screen Page

■WE.TERAN filmgoers who witV nessed the resurrection of The Sheik might have found themselves yielding to the spell of old times, in spite of the fact that the idolised Valentino of the silent screen was the laughingstock of Gable fans. While tho eye howled before the exa jrcrfr.i t I'll action that used to speak louder than captioned words. tlit* car I,o ' "2 charmed liv pound that had been liunislic.l trrmi thp cinema with tlio nd\ent of tlio all talking, „Il-dam-inrr era.— tho pound of " imndultoreU Ptrin<rs. wood-wind and brass blending in first hand mupical commentary on t ho screen dtimli show. I.ecalled for a. brief spell from tlu: " f forgotten things, the cinema- ' 'I'i'h'M in evoked melodioiiri memories of I days when musical tais-te was moulded mainly by the tunes that were C ;,t II"' I'ict ures. - ' Tliomo tunek 1«'-;iii lo strike the ear of the lilin<n>er nt the end of last century, u hen pioneer hSowini'li tried to drown the rattle of their primitive projectors beneath a ~f tintinnabulation from barrelus ami musical boxen. Phese were all very well for :.<>ft, films which pnvc' their audiences half-minute jrlimpse's of dancing "iris, Derby winner*. prizeficrhteiv and rotiyli sens at Dover. Hut when Minis bepi n to spread themselves o\er the bent part, of a thousand feet nf celluloid, an<L took upwards of ten

minutes to tell their tales of great train robberies, IvnchingK at Oripple Greek and davcs in the lives of American tiremen, barrel-organs and musical-boxe* proved inadequate. Something more was wanted, and that something was found in tin; cinema pianiist. Seated at his cottage upright, hits neck cl icked ser<"Miw ard~. this "'aster of impromptu art thumped into servico keys which at one moment trembled in train-port* of purple passion, and at the next galloped in pursuit of mounted Redskins. When increasing prosperity sent the film from its shop-fronted premii-eis to the "electric palace," the improvising pianist to lean on the bowing-arm of the fiddler, and to invoke the jiowcr of tho YollUt's olbow. S null. Illlteis, clarinets, trumpets ami trombones werc heard in harmony with the strings—but only until the drummer took the downward path that led to no ses-oiV. An ardent disciple of realism, this jack-of-all-instrumonts presided over an arrav of apparatus that could yield anything from a peal of wedding bell« to a clap of thunder. By the time lie bad perfected bis strange devices, caeophonic realism had given place to musical impressionism. The conductor at the "super-cinema" was 110 longer content with uninterrupted renderings of Nuppe overtures, Sousa inarches and Waldteufol waltzes.

Memories Of A Vanished Art By JS.

He had begun to match (lie \ isible wave: of x-ieen >cas with the audible ripple: of "l'ingals Cave." Storm scenes wen enacted to the accompaniment o Rossini's thunder from the overture t< "William Tell." The desert lo\er will hi- la-s to the strains of Indian J.ov< J, y lies. As musical consciousness developed ii the cinema, the outworn tunes were dis carded. The surging quavers of Stern dale Bennett's "Naiades" and the bree/\ na lit icalit ies of Ansell's "l'lyinoutl Hoc" replaced "Kintal's Cave*' as inter preters of the sea. Rossini's thundei wan stolen by Beethoven's reverberatinjj basses as they weathered the storm ol the "Pastoral'' Symphony, and deserl p.i-siou was kindle<l anew on becomin; attuned to the third movement ol Himsky -Korsakoff's "Scheherazade." Thiri search for variety led to thf accumulation of m usic libraries thai numbered their compositions bv the thousand. Ranging from the weighty works of Bach to the syncopated trifle; of Gershwin, these compositions not onl\ had their place upon the library shelves of the cinema, but were graven on tin mind of the musical director. Watchin; the film as it rehearsed it* silent tal( in advance of its public showing, tin conductor would note the various changes of scene and action, and the kin< of music, that would best tit each skua t ion. The story might lie one that dealt with the French Revolution. Litolir'.overture to "Robes pierre'' would in stantly flash through the conductor'* mind as a probable starter. An IStli century ballroom scene would suggest the minuet from Mowirt's "Jupiter' Symphony. Ardent love-making might become associated with the tlirobbin; rhythm of a passage from Tschaikow sky's "Romeo and Juliet.So it woulc <j<» on until upward of .">0 items haf Wen selected 1o cover the run of a 70 minute film. Practice made the conductoi perfect in the art of modulating froir »me item to another, and after skimminf through his compilation with tin orchestra (time -permitted Init a mini mum of rehearsal), he was ready foi the show. If he were one of the London luminaries of the profession, his musical sug

gestions might be issued in printed form to circulate among tlie lesser fry in the provinces—unhappy wights who often hacl to set their music "blind" (without seeing the film), and whose restricted combination of fiddle, piano, cello and bass had to cope with works scored for orchestras of Wagnerian proportions. Subsequent developments led to the adoption of certain compositions as themes which wore associated with various characters and situations. Ihe identification of tne gossiping women in (iriltiths* "Way Down East' with the chattering bassoon of a Tschaikow-sky "Humoreske.'' is a classical instance, and was but one of innumerable themes calculated to interpret anything from love to hate, from joy to sorrow, from villainy to heroism and from birth to death. With the groxyth of the cinema orchestra, even the vast repertory of existent music proved inadequate, and facile writers of incidental items found themselves greatly in demand. From their pens came a of musical pictures that lived most faithfully up to titles like the "Battle Music" of the American Xamecnik, "The Horsemen" of Joseph Fugleman (a Birmingham man. incidentally), and the "Covert Pursuit" of (Juiseppe Becce. whose "Kinothek" series was to be found in every cinema library throughout the world. Perhaps the most vivid piece of musical impressionism in this genre was that done l>v Rapee and Axt in "The Toilers" —that aural interpretation of the galley-slaves at work in "Ben Hur." From single items designed to illustrate certain scenes, it was but a step to the evolution of the specially-written score, designed to follow the action of specific films in their entirety. Then, just as the cinema musician had reached the culminating point of his career, the screen found its tongue, and the denizen of the orchestra well woke up to find himself, like Othello, with his occupation gone. From the standpoint of the provincial filmgoer who had to put up with much in the way of indifferent playing, the 1 supercession of the cinema musician by I the mechanised sound-strip was 110 doubt a good thing, since it brought * synchronised perfection to the ninei pennies at PuddlecomW Parva as well as r to the eight-and-sixpennies in Leicester > Square. But that perfection cost the world r of music dear, for it was estimated that, in its silent heyday, the cinema provided four-fifths of the paid musical - employment in this country alone.

With chances of gaining a livelihood reduced by so great a proportion, it was but natural that competent instrumentalists should become increasingly scarce, and that conductors of symphony orchestras should lament that scarcity. Science, however, has heard this plaint, and is evolving means whereby the deficiency may be remedied. With its usual thoroughness, science lias devised the hand-written sound-track. As described by Herr Kurt London in his book on film music, this phenomenon is based on the photographic reproduction of sound-waves. What, asks science, is to prevent those sound-waves from being created synthetically? Seeking an answer to that question experimentalists have drawn -the desired sound-waves, photographed them, and reproduced the results by means of suund-on-film. If this kind of thing develops, it looks as thougli we may one day find the performer extinct. For the composer of the future may dispense with the staved notepaper on which he now sets forth ideas for orchestral interpretation. Instead, he will be able to draw sound-waves for interpretation by the photo-electric cell —with musical instruments conspicuously absent!