Hollywood Rhapsody: The Golden Age of Film Music in Hollywood
“Hollywood Rhapsody,
L'âge d'or de la musique de film à Hollywood"
By Alain Lacombe
(written in french)
After having read the oral history of Hollwyood, I woke up with a rabbid hunger for more Hollywood books and the good news is that I have a few ones waiting for me since quite a while. This one seems to be out of print so I’m glad I stumbled on it in a parisian bookstore some years ago.
This book is basically divided in two parts:
- a history of music film in Hollywood
- portraits of Hollwyood composers and directors (biographies, filmographies and discographies)
It has a LOT of information, way more than the trivia stuff I usually know about music film so it was another great enjoyable reading.
The one thing that gets me puzzled is the detailed level of knowledge behind this book as compared to the short bibliography (see below). The author, Alain Lacombe, must have forgotten to write a few ones which would be too bad cause the bibiography part is my personal favourite treasure hunt in a book. Still, I definitely want to read three of them (they’re in bold):
Theodor Adorno & Hanns Eisler - La musique de film
Irwin Balezon - Knowing the Score
Henri Colpi - Défense et illustration de la musique de film
Ermano Comuzio - Colonna sonora
Ewen - All the years of American popular music
Robert R. Faulkner - Hollywood studio musicians
Robert R. Faulkner - Music on demand
Roland Flamini - Le fabuleux tournage d’“Autant en emporte le vent”
Kreuger - The movie musical
Alain Lacombe et Claude Rocle - La musique de film
Alain Lacombe et Claude Rocle - De Broadway à Hollywood
James L. Limbacher - Keeping score
Milton Lustig - Musci editing for motion pictures
Roger Manvell & John Huntley - The technique of film music
David Meeker - Jazz in the movies
Vincente Minnelli - Tous en scène
François Porcile - Présence de Musique à l'écran
Miklos Rosza - Double life
David O. Selznick - Memo
Tony Thomas - Music for the movies
And to end this post, if you wonder, these are the artists presented:
Daniele AMFITHEATROF
George ANTHEIL
William AXT
Les BAXTER
Gaylord CARTER & Lee ERWIN
George DUNING
Hugo FRIEDHOFER
Joseph GERSHENSON
Albert GLASSER
John GREEN
Bernard HERRMANN
Bronislaw KAPER
Erich Wolfgang KORNGOLD
Alfred NEWMAN
Andé PREVIN
David RASKIN
Mikols ROSZA
Hans J. SALTER
Walter SCHARF
Frank SKINNER
Max STEINER
Herbert STOTHART
Dimitri TIOMKIN
Franz WAXMAN
Victor YOUNG
As usual, if you have any information about related books, I’d be glad to hear from you!