Scoring for the silver screen: Patrick Savage on why film music should not be underestimated

André Previn, interviewed by The Observer in 2008 about his time in Hollywood, joked, ‘Do you know I haven't set foot in a movie studio in, wait a second, 30... in 43 years? There is a statute of limitations. People shouldn't bring it up.’  

When Previn worked in movies, during the time often referred to as the Golden Age of Hollywood, film music composers with classical ambitions were wise to be circumspect about their movie achievements. For Franz Waxman, composer for Rebecca and Rear Window, who developed a parallel international career on the conductor’s podium, his concert publicity was discreet about his enormous output of film scores. On the other side of the Atlantic, Miklos Rozsa began his composing career hiding under a nom de plume for non-classical work.

The classical music world, especially in the West, tended to view film scoring as a lesser art, but I believe that underestimation of film scoring and its practitioners came at a cost to classical audiences. 

During that time, from the late 20s to the 60s, when Hollywood film studios effectively owned the lives of the most glamorous stars in the world, a stable of extraordinary composers were also on their books. Some, like Max Steiner or Alfred Newman, revelled in the movie scoring work. Others, like Miklos Rozsa or Jerome Moross, saw film work principally as enabling their true calling, which was to compose for the concert hall. But for those composers who made it big in the movies, having their classical output taken seriously by the classical world could prove an uphill battle.

Patrick Savage's new album The Golden Age of Hollywood: Concert Works for Violin and Piano is resurrecting classical works for violin and piano by composers from Hollywood’s Golden Age which were overlooked by audiences of their day © Sim Canetty-Clarke

In part, that can be blamed on the plentiful supply of mediocre music by hacks in the earliest years of film scoring. Higher-calibre composers were tainted by association. Then, there was flat-out professional envy: film work could be lucrative, and studio distribution gifted a film composer a world-wide audience of millions – an audience classical composers could only dream of. 

And then there was the question, could a composer that churned out emotion to order for mass entertainment be taken seriously as an artist? The qualities that enabled composers to excel in film: the discipline and fluency to meet tight delivery deadlines, and the flexibility to meet the precise demands of directors, could be viewed warily by gatekeepers in the classical world. There was also the death of romanticism to consider. Early in the twentieth century, Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School created a new, dissonant musical language, free from the diktats of popular fashion, throwing off the populist shackles of romanticism. Popular appeal was no longer a worthy priority. Back in Hollywood, composers tended to be romantics at heart, and a keen sensitivity to broader public taste was part of their DNA. Classical music history passed them by.

As a result, valuable classical works by Hollywood film composers tended to be overlooked, left for later generations prepared to listen with fresh ears. Film scores are often met with an even grimmer fate, with mountains of orchestral sheet music dumped into landfill to clear warehouse space. 

Encouragingly, a recent resurgence of interest in the composers of Golden Age Hollywood has turned a spotlight onto their film scores and concert music. Worthy of particular mention, John Wilson’s reconstructions and superlative performances of music from MGM musicals have been joy-filled highlights of the BBC Prom calendar for years now.

On a vastly smaller scale, during COVID lockdowns I sought out and recorded classical works for violin and piano by composers from Hollywood’s Golden Age – a project that granted a fascinating insight into their most intimate music. These were varied, richly colourful, uplifting pieces, eminently approachable for any audience. Unfortunately for audiences of their day, some of these exceptional works were either rarely performed, or never heard by the public.

Many decades after Herrmann’s Citizen Kane and Rozsa’s El Cid, the sound of film music has changed but the fundamental qualities required for film scoring are the same: a film composer needs the flexibility to function as a member of a team and to take direction, a precise understanding of the role of music within a project, and the ability to present musical ideas clearly to an audience with no musical background. From my perspective, these are key skills for a composer to have in any genre of music. 

As the mindset of the Second Viennese School and the associated audience disconnect proceeded to dominate twentieth century music – particularly in the West – classical concert programmers turned to music written with popular appeal very much in mind – music by 18th and 19th century masters. It’s a curious situation in classical concert halls that the core, most loved repertoire precedes the invention of the gramophone record. 

With that in mind, I would love to see an element of film scoring as a part of any tertiary composition course, not just confined to film music schools. That discipline of composing to someone else’s creative vision, and, crucially, the exercise of communicating musical ideas to the widest possible viewing public – to me, that can only be for the good. 

As far as my own album project, The Golden Age of Hollywood: Concert Works for Violin and Piano is concerned, I hope it contributes in some small way to the argument that the classical music world can only be richer for lending an ear to musical voices from less conventional backgrounds.

Formerly principal first violin with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and first violin with the Tippett Quartet, Patrick Savage is now a freelance concertmaster, soloist, studio session player and West End musician performer and a composer for film, theatre and video games. His latest album, The Golden Age of Hollywood: Concert Works for Violin and Piano will be released tomorrow (12 April).