Why read Music by Max Steiner?

Book cover of Music by Max Steiner: The Epic Life of Hollywood's Most Influential Composer

Book description

During a seven-decade career that spanned from 19th century Vienna to 1920s Broadway to the golden age of Hollywood, three-time Academy Award winner Max Steiner did more than any other composer to introduce and establish the language of film music. Indeed, revered contemporary film composers like John Williams and Danny…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Music by Max Steiner as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Gregory Camp

Author

Smith’s comprehensive biography of one of film history’s most prolific composers is a must-read for anyone interested in golden-age Hollywood.

Steiner worked on a vast array of films, such as King Kong, Gone with the Wind, and The Big Sleep, and Smith goes through the production of all of them. He explores Steiner’s life in detail, as well as his production process with his collaborators. Reading this book provides not just the life story of one composer, but an understanding of how film music worked in Hollywood in the 1930s through ‘50s.

From Gregory's list on film music.

Jon Burlingame

Author

Steiner was a film-music pioneer, scoring such classics as King Kong, Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, and The Searchers.

He won three Oscars and added music of emotion and drama to movies starring Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, and other Golden Age stars while also serving as music director on the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals of the '30s.

I didn't think it was possible for Smith to uncover anything more about Steiner's life, as the composer and so many of his contemporaries are long dead.

But he astonished me with his detailed and sometimes jaw-dropping discoveries about Steiner's early life in…

From Jon's list on film and television composers.