Max Steiner's 'Searchers' EP

In 1956, Max Steiner was nearly 30 years into a Hollywood career that made him one of the most recognizable names in film music. His scores for such films as Gone with the Wind and Now, Voyager had brought him fame and great renown.

Steiner's marquee assignment in 1956 was for The Searchers, today widely considered one of the best Westerns ever made.

No soundtrack LP was issued at the time; the closest approach was via an RCA Victor EP that included just one excerpt from Steiner's score, with the composer conducting a studio orchestra. The balance was devoted to other excerpts from his music, all as much (or more) intriguing than The Searchers music.

Here are a few words about each of the selections on this EP.

"Indian Idyll" from The Searchers

The Searchers is John Ford's violent film of obsession and revenge with John Wayne in the central role. The "Indian Idyll" is uncharacteristically calm music in this tense tale of the post-Civil War West.

"Forward the Light Brigade" from The Charge of the Light Brigade

This time we're not in the Old West, we're in India in 1856, but the motivation is the same - revenge. Errol Flynn's Capt. Vickers is out to seek vengeance for a massacre of women and children. The music is not an idyll; it is instead Steiner's version of a rousing march. The film is from 1936.

"Petite Waltz" from The Fountainhead

Steiner wrote one of his most admired scores for 1949's The Fountainhead, based on Ayn Rand's novel of an individualistic architect resisting conformity and the pressures of the marketplace. The critics hated the film, but it has been since re-evaluated as a major work from director King Vidor - one that is still influential today. Here we have the "Petite Waltz," which again is not characteristic of the score as a whole but is undeniably charming.

"Symphonie Moderne" from Four Wives

The three selections above were shoe-horned onto one side of the EP, with the second side devoted to what to me is the most interesting music on the disc. It is the so-called "Symphonie Moderne" from the 1939 film Four Wives. The music is of great significance, both in the film and in foreshadowing a fashion for quasi-piano concertos in the decade ahead.

In brief, Rosemary Lane is the widow of a composer who died while writing his "Symphonie Moderne." The widow resists the attentions of another composer, until she has discovered that he has completed the symphony. Yes, this is symbolic, folks - they fall in love.

But while the "Symphonie Moderne" was a precursor of the faux concerto trend, it was soon overshadowed by the extraordinary popularity of Richard Addinsell's "Warsaw Concerto," heard in the 1941 English film Dangerous Moonlight. The latter is a catchy bit of fake Rachmaninoff that surpassed the Symphonie Moderne in popular appeal. Even so, Steiner's piece is well worth hearing in this performance led by its creator.

These selections did appear on LP. RCA included them on a 1956 album mainly devoted to Steiner's music from Gone with the Wind. I believe those latter pieces were themselves excerpted from a 1954 LP entirely devoted to the 1939 score.

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