Gone With The Wind, Casablanca, Now, Voyager, A Summer Place, Jezebel, The Charge of the Light Brigade, and the original King Kong (RKO 1933) are just a few of the memorable film scores composed by Max Steiner (1888-1971) in his prolific career, during which he scored over 300 films!

     Of the 15 scores composed by Max Steiner for Errol Flynn films, The Adventures of Don Juan was music creating an aura of heroism and romanticism that enveloped and enhanced the image of this 20th century cavalier.

     Warner Brothers’ 1949 production (direction by Vincent Sherman) owed little or nothing to any earlier version of the Don Juan legend in drama, literature, poetry or music. Nor did it refer to the story line of the same company's 1926 production starring John Barrymore. Much of the Flynn version, set in the 17th century, has to do with an apparently reformed Juan saving the gracious Queen Margaret of Spain (Viveca Lindfors) and her slightly addled King, Philip II (Rommey Brent) from the evil machinations of the Duke de Lorca (Robert Douglas). The earlier parts of the narrative detailing Juan’s balcony climbing, wooing and encounters with irate husbands, are lighthearted and edged with satire: a spoof of the character and of Flynn himself. Once Juan meets Queen Margaret and becomes involved in court intrigue, alternating melodramatic and sentimental moods prevail.

     This was the only Flynn cloak and sword swashbuckler to which Max Steiner was assigned at Warner Brothers. In the wake of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s landmark scores for Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Sea Hawk, the test was severe.

     But Korngold surely would have been proud to have written the main Don Juan theme, which bursts upon us like a whirlwind the minute the Spanish court fanfares have had their say. It has a fiery exuberance, capturing the Don’s limber athleticism, wry humor and larger-than-life bravura. A secondary motif is audibly Spanish in coloring, and so too is the beginning “Serenade,” which accompanies each of Juan’s lighted romantic interludes.

     The scoring is sweet-scented: celeste, guitar, vibraphone and harp with a bass clarinet for support. Here Steiner’s solo violin writing tells its own tales of intimate nights in the gardens of Spain.

     Ardent love music in Steiner’s most generous vein under lays the scene in Juan’s chambers when he convinces Margaret that she cannot forsake her people for him. To a pensive treatment of the Don’s theme, the lover of his age prepares to devote himself to scholastic pursuits. But then a fair damsel passes by in her carriage and beckons; interest is aroused (from bone glissando), and the Don rides off in pursuit of new conquests.

     “Parade into London” with Flynn pretending to be a nobleman en route to his bride, is built on a massive musical scale. In those halcyon days, no expense was spared in the interests of spectacle, and Steiner’s requirements include a total of 10 percussion (with a complete set of church bells), guitar, mandolin, harps and two baritones (euphoniums).

     Like Korngold in the scene of Flynn’s triumphal march near the beginning of The Private Lives of Elizabeth & Essex, Steiner does not really try to give the music a pseudoarchaic flavor except for occasional sections, but instead allow the color of his instruments and his dramatic instinct to guide him. The result is a fine festive glitter. 

Carl Maria von Weber: Overture to Der Freischütz

  Weber was born into an impoverished musical family in 1786, but proving a prodigy, was by the age of thirty named director of the German Opera at Dresden.  He was the real thing, having composed two symphonies, three concertos, sonatas and cantatas.  But opera was his true forte and he arrived at just the right time to swell and ride the crest of German romanticism with “Der Freischütz” (produced with great success in Berlin in 1821), “Euryanthe”, and his masterpiece “Oberon” in 1826.  In these operas he anticipated the romanticism of Wagner, but in mood may seem closer to the sound world of Mendelssohn.

  The story of “Der Freischütz, radically shortened, involves a shooting contest in which a young gamekeeper, Max, competes for the hand of his sweetheart Agathe.  Desperate to win her, Max has arranged with the evil Kaspar (himself in thrall to the dreaded ‘black hunter’ Samuel, a supernatural being) for a set of magic bullets that will infallibly hit their mark.  The casting of these bullets takes place at midnight in the Wolf’s Glen, an eerie setting which summons up some of Weber’s best music.  Next day at the event, Max fires at the target, a white dove.  But, oh no!
The dove has become Agathe.  Suddenly the bullet is diverted onto Kaspar, who dies and is consigned to Hell.  Agathe’s escape, we learn, was due to the presence of roses in her garland which had been blessed by a pious hermit.  Max is pardoned and all ends happily.
  

 Debussy wrote of “Der Freischütz”: “Barely touched by the wand of the magician Weber, the realistic and natural scene for the most German of melodramas assumes a grace and freshness, a mystery even worthy of Shakespearian fantasy.”

Antonin Dvorak: Scherzo Capriccioso
  Composed in 1883, the same year as Mahler’s “Songs of a Wayfarer” and Chabrier’s “Espana”, Dvorak’s “Scherzo Capriccioso” is one of his own finest pieces of nationalistic writing.  He was at approximately the midpoint of his career, having already composed his “Czech Suite”, several symphonies, a wonderful violin concerto and many delightful chamber works.  But it would be another nine years before he’d move to New York to assume the directorship of the National Conservatory of Music and compose his famous “New World” symphony.

  In this playful scherzo he is working themes from Czech folk music in exuberant writing which exploits the full resources of the orchestra.  A lyrical secondary theme provides contrast and an opportunity to catch our breath between the lively dances.

Domenico Cimarosa: Concerto in G for 2 Flutes and Orchestra   

Featured Soloists Sharon Sparrow  and Jeffrey Zook, flutes
  This prolific eighteenth century Italian composer is remembered chiefly for his opera “The Secret Marriage” which so enthralled Leopold II at its Vienna premiere in 1792, that he ordered supper for the cast and made them perform it again.  The Grove Dictionary identifies what it was that so appealed to the Emperor: “Cimarosa’s real talent lay in comedy — in his sparkling wit and unfailing good humor.  His invention was inexhaustible in the representation of that overflowing and yet naïve liveliness, that merry, teasing loquacity which is the distinguishing feature of the genuine buffo style.”
  

These qualities of happiness and high spirits which characterize his operas are also present in this wonderful Concerto for two flutes, a work of enormous charm, with its justly famous final rondo.  There is some very difficult florid writing for the solo instruments, playing in thirds and sixths, that when brought off well is truly spectacular.  

Jean Sibelius: Finlandia
  This popular work comes out of the atmosphere of oppression and censorship that was imposed by Russia on Finland in the late 1890’s.  In October of 1899 Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), a passionate nationalist, composed music for a melodrama called “The melting of the ice on the Ulea River” with a particularly striking brass chord progression for the line “I was born free and free will I die.”  The next month he supplied music for yet another nationalistic drama with the final section again featuring the very same brass chords. That was it.  This striking theme caught on in a big way with the rebellious Finns, Sibelius reworked it into the piece we now know as “Finlandia” and it has been the virtual national anthem ever since.

Richard Rodgers: Carousel Waltz
  Rodgers and Hammerstein always regarded their 1945 hit musical “Carousel”, which followed “Oklahoma” by just a few years, as one of their finest achievements.  “To me, my score is more satisfying than anything I’ve ever written”, Rodgers said in his memoirs.  Based on the play “Liliom” by Ferenc Molnar, but shifted to a New England fishing village, it tells the story of a carousel barker, Billy Bigelow and his ill-fated love for Julie Jordan.  It is filled with great songs such as “If I Loved You”, “June is Bustin’ Out All Over”, “Soliloquy” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone”.  But these tunes are not heard in our selection.  Instead of a conventional overture, the show opens with this haunting waltz, an evocation of the turning carousel and the intense emotional highs and lows to follow.

Johann Strauss Jr.: Vergnügungszug (Pleasure Train) - Fast Polka
  In the Waltz King’s day, it was a favorite activity to go on Sunday outings.  The Viennese loved to pile into the carriages of a steam train with their picnic baskets and fine clothes to explore the surroundings of their city by rail. This cheerful polka with its evocations of the sound of the train, tells the story of such an outing.

Richard Rodgers: Selections from “The King and I”
  The power of Rodgers and Hammerstein to delight us is ever present in “The King and I”, their 1951 hit show based on the popular novel and film “Anna and the King of Siam”.  It made Yul Brynner a star and raised Gertrude Lawrence to even more fame.  Rodgers employed some exotic instrumentation, just enough, to create the appropriate illusion of Siam through American eyes.  And the songs including “I Whistle a Happy Tune”, “Hello Young Lovers”, “Getting to Know You”, “Something Wonderful” and “Shall We Dance” will always live in our musical memories.  These tunes are seamlessly woven together in this potpourri from one of the twentieth century’s greatest shows.