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What's the music that makes movies magical? This week, tune in for the Hollywood soundtracks behind your favorite films, from the magic of Disney to the galaxies of Star Wars and the mountains of Middle-earth.
Howdy, howdy, howdy! I’m Solomon Reynolds, and this is: Saturday Morning Car Tunes! This morning, you’re going to the movies!
Writers and directors have always known that music makes stories better. Even before Beethoven, composers have written incidental music to bring plays to life. After sound came to movies in the 1920s, Hollywood grew quickly, and many European composers moved there, bringing their late Romantic style with them. One of them, Max Steiner, wrote the score for the 1933 movie King Kong, one of the first major film scores.
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Another European immigrant who worked in Hollywood was Erich Wolfgang Korngold. His score for The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) is one of his most celebrated. Can you hear the excitement?
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Hollywood composers were usually different from those who wrote for concert halls. Aaron Copland changed that. His distinctly American style impressed studio producers, and his score for Our Town (1940) was nominated for an Academy Award.
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Live action movies weren’t the only ones with great music. Walt Disney’s animated films were famous for their songs, almost like musicals, like from Pinocchio (1940).
Along with Romantic classical music and Disney songs, jazz also made its way into movie soundtracks. The smooth score to A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) by Alex North showed that jazz could be used in serious films, too.
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Bernard Herrmann was one of the most famous movie composers ever. He used unusual sounds, strange harmonies, and repeating patterns that feel a little creepy. He wrote the music for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960).
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Ennio Morricone became famous for scoring spaghetti Westerns—cowboy movies made by Italian filmmakers. Have you heard this theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)?
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John Williams is probably the most famous living film composer today. His symphonic scores gave a sense of grandeur to galaxies far, far away (Star Wars, 1977).
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Around the turn of the millennium, with the rise of science fiction and fantasy films, orchestral scores inspired by 1930s Hollywood made a comeback, reaching a peak with Howard Shore’s music for The Lord of the Rings (2001-3).
Music makes movies magical.
I’m Solomon Reynolds. I write and produce Saturday Morning Car Tunes with research assistant Carolina Correa and audio engineer Stephen Page, only on Classical California thanks to listener support. Tune in—or out of your car—next Saturday morning!
