\"Max Steiner knows more about drama than any of us\"Bette Davis (Hollywood, 1934).The Viennese Max Steiner wrote more than 300 Hollywood film scores, including film classics like GONE WITH THE WIND, CASABLANCA and KING KONG.Steiner won 3 Oscars and was nominated for the Academy Award for 18 times.We see the silhouette of Scarlett O´Hara on a hill at dusk, next to her a huge tree, in front of her the Tara family estate. With her words \"Gold shall be my witness: when everything is over I´ll be stronger, and I´ll never suffer from hunger again\", we hear the famous Tara-Theme, main theme of Gone With The Wind.This well known melody, one of the best known film tunes ever written, was written by a Viennese composer: Max Steiner.C H I L D H O O D I N V I E N N A Max Raoul Steiner was born on 10.05.1888 in Vienna and named after his famous grandfather, Maximilian Steiner, impresario of the Theater an der Wien. His father, Gabor Steiner, director of the theatres Ronacher and Orpheum, also founded the popular amusement park Venedig in Wien and built the Vienna Ferries Wheel in the Vienna Prater.Only with 16 years, Max Steiner graduated from the Vienna University for Music and Performing Arts, then left for London and later New York, where he conducted and arranged several Broadway Musicals.I N T H E D R E A M F A C T O R Y At the beginning of the sound film era, RKO offered Max Steiner the post of the studio´s musical director. 1933 Steiner composed the first symphonic film score ever written for King Kong. His colorful orchestral music complemented the film´s expressiveness and the movie became a sensational hit.Thus, Steiner initiated the era of Hollywood´s \"dramatic film scoring\" and is, since then, considered as the Father of Film Music.He brought the techniques of Wagner, Mahler and Strauss from Vienna to Hollywood and used them for his epic scores and implemented the \"Click Track\" for the film. Steiner established the \"Leitmotif\" - technique for the movie by adding an own musical theme to every figure. Through integration of country-specific tunes, he took the audience with him to the area, where the film was playing.Later, Max Steiner went to Warner Brothers, where he also wrote the fanfare for the studio.Max Steiner died on28.12.1971 at the age of 83 in Beverly Hills. Compared with all other composers of his genre, he had one of the longest and most successful careers in the film music business of the 20th century and still remains a big role model for his successors. On the Hollywood Walk of Fame the Viennese was honored with a star and since 2003 his portrait is pictured on an US-American stamp. |