Underscoring Richard Wagner’s influence on film music
You may not know his ‘Ring,’ but if you’ve seen ‘Lord of the Rings’ or ‘Star Wars’ you’ve entered his musical universe.
June 17, 2010|By Jon Burlingame, Special to the Los Angeles Times
Max Steiner, the pioneering film composer who wrote the music for “King Kong” and “Gone With the Wind,” was once complimented as the man who invented modern movie music.
“Nonsense,” he replied. “The idea originated with Richard Wagner. Listen to the incidental scoring behind the recitatives in his operas. If Wagner had lived in this century, he would have been the No. 1 film composer.”
That last point is debatable. (Try to imagine Wagner working for Harvey Weinstein.) But Wagner’s influence on film-music history certainly has been enormous, “probably more than any other single composer,” says Roger Hickman, professor of music at California State University Long Beach and author of “Reel Music: Exploring 100 Years of Film Music.” Read more at LA Times.com