[78-L] Max Steiner, "Symphonie Moderne"

[Jeff Sultanof]

In the published score of Steiner's work, there is a long preface written
by Frank Campbell-Watson, who was the 'classical' music editor at Music
Publishers Holding Corporation, the combine of Harms, Remick, Witmark and a
couple of smaller music companies (Campbell-Watson edited George Gershwin's
orchestral music for publication). Campbell-Watson writes of the huge
interest in this piece by musicians and music lovers. Apparently it was
Campbell-Watson's decision based on this interest to prepare it for print.
Instead of renting the scores and parts (the norm for concert music) MPHC
actually printed sets for sale (Gershwin's orchestral music was also
available for sale as well). So a symphony orchestra could buy this for
performance.

This was actually rather forward-thinking, as David O. Selznick had been
saying for years that movie fans liked the music for many films and wanted
to hear it again. I don't know how many copies Symphonie Moderne sold, but
I do know that it was in print into the 1960s. It is interesting to me why
he chose this piece and not, say, a suite from Gone With the Wind for
print, as MPHC owned the music copyright.

Jeff Sultanof

On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 9:14 AM, Julian Vein <julianvein at blueyonder.co.uk>wrote:

> On 10/07/12 13:42, David Lennick wrote:
> >
> > As for Warsaw Concerto..it's still popular, so who am I to judge? As for
> > Cornish Rhapsody..just a ripoff of the Warsaw Concerto. But at least
> it's two
> > minutes shorter.
> >
> > dl
> >
> >
> ===========================
> I suppose "On The Trail" would be "The Saddlesore Concerto"?
>
>       Julian Vein
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