Main Theme - Gone With The Wind
Max Steiner
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Browse piano sheets by Max Steiner on Zen Virtual Piano. Maximilian Raoul Steiner was born in Vienna, Austria, on 10 May 1888. The Songwriters Hall of Fame says he grew up surrounded by music, with Johann Strauss a close family friend and both his father and grandfather active as operetta producers. He studied at the Vienna Imperial Academy of Music with Robert Fuchs, Herman Graedner, Felix Weingartner and, briefly, Gustav Mahler. At fourteen he wrote and conducted his first operetta, Beautiful Greek Girl, and it ran for a full year at Vienna’s Orpheum Theater. An operetta written at fourteen and a run of a whole year suggest a musician whose theatre career began before he was grown, long before he met the screen. Steiner left Austria for the first time in 1904, travelling to England, where he conducted at the Adelphi Theater, Daly’s Theater, the Hippodrome and the London Opera House. In 1914 he took conducting engagements at the Alhambra Theater in Paris and the Winter Garden in Blackpool. A first trip out of Austria in 1904, followed by posts in Paris and Blackpool in 1914, can be read as a working life that kept crossing borders. Variety says he was summoned to Hollywood in 1930, and soon began experimenting with dramatic music in films such as Cimarron and Symphony of Six Million, perfecting the use of the click track, and adapting Wagner’s concept of the leitmotif, themes for characters, places and ideas, for the big screen. Variety adds that his music essentially saved RKO’s King Kong in 1933, demonstrating the power of dramatic underscore to create mood, propel the action and provide emotional support. A score credited with carrying a giant-ape film suggests how much a film’s emotion could depend on its music. Variety says he wrote three hours of music in twelve weeks, including the immortal Tara theme that became synonymous with Hollywood. Encyclopedia.com says at least three prominent characteristics of his style have been singled out, one of them his skilful blending of original music with popular or folk tunes, as in his Oscar-winning score for The Informer, with its Irish melodies. The Songwriters Hall of Fame says Steiner received the first Oscar citation the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ever gave, for his 1935 score for The Informer. During the 1950s his style began to seem old-fashioned, yet he continued to write scores for Warner Brothers until the mid-1960s and retired reluctantly. A run of Warner Brothers scores into the mid-1960s, after his style began to seem old-fashioned, can be read as a late stretch of work set against changing taste, with scores still being written while fashion moved on.
Browse piano sheets by Max Steiner on Zen Virtual Piano.
Maximilian Raoul Steiner was born in Vienna, Austria, on 10 May 1888. The Songwriters Hall of Fame says he grew up surrounded by music, with Johann Strauss a close family friend and both his father and grandfather active as operetta producers. He studied at the Vienna Imperial Academy of Music with Robert Fuchs, Herman Graedner, Felix Weingartner and, briefly, Gustav Mahler. At fourteen he wrote and conducted his first operetta, Beautiful Greek Girl, and it ran for a full year at Vienna’s Orpheum Theater. An operetta written at fourteen and a run of a whole year suggest a musician whose theatre career began before he was grown, long before he met the screen.
Steiner left Austria for the first time in 1904, travelling to England, where he conducted at the Adelphi Theater, Daly’s Theater, the Hippodrome and the London Opera House. In 1914 he took conducting engagements at the Alhambra Theater in Paris and the Winter Garden in Blackpool. A first trip out of Austria in 1904, followed by posts in Paris and Blackpool in 1914, can be read as a working life that kept crossing borders.
Variety says he was summoned to Hollywood in 1930, and soon began experimenting with dramatic music in films such as Cimarron and Symphony of Six Million, perfecting the use of the click track, and adapting Wagner’s concept of the leitmotif, themes for characters, places and ideas, for the big screen. Variety adds that his music essentially saved RKO’s King Kong in 1933, demonstrating the power of dramatic underscore to create mood, propel the action and provide emotional support. A score credited with carrying a giant-ape film suggests how much a film’s emotion could depend on its music.
Variety says he wrote three hours of music in twelve weeks, including the immortal Tara theme that became synonymous with Hollywood. Encyclopedia.com says at least three prominent characteristics of his style have been singled out, one of them his skilful blending of original music with popular or folk tunes, as in his Oscar-winning score for The Informer, with its Irish melodies. The Songwriters Hall of Fame says Steiner received the first Oscar citation the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ever gave, for his 1935 score for The Informer. During the 1950s his style began to seem old-fashioned, yet he continued to write scores for Warner Brothers until the mid-1960s and retired reluctantly. A run of Warner Brothers scores into the mid-1960s, after his style began to seem old-fashioned, can be read as a late stretch of work set against changing taste, with scores still being written while fashion moved on.
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Common questions
Maximilian Raoul Steiner was born in Vienna, Austria, on 10 May 1888.
Variety says his music essentially saved RKO’s King Kong in 1933.
Variety says he experimented with dramatic music, perfected the click track and adapted Wagner’s leitmotif for the big screen.
Encyclopedia.com says he continued writing scores for Warner Brothers until the mid-1960s and retired reluctantly.