André Previn was about to be my 4th checkmark, but the "other(s)" will cover my other two selections because the Previn soundtracks I like are from the early 1960s.
My other Top 5 composers are Daniele Amfitheatrof and Sol Kaplan.

If there was no capping at 5, then B. Kaper would also be ticked. (plus my appreciation for Lyn Murray has also increased)

The duo of Paul Sawtell & Bert Shefter are also absent from the poll, but so are many others. I realize there are too many to be comprehensive, so my guess is that the focus is upon the A-listers scoring the prestigeous films and the realms of lower-budget "B" movies are not the priority here.

 

I don’t think you should restrain yourself from voting for Previn just because some of his scores go over the mark. I put in the post-1960 limitation more to prevent people from voting for clearly silver age composers, not to prevent you from considering the later work of the listed composers when evalusting them.

 

Steiner, Korngold, Waxman, Rozsa and Herrmann were my votes, and seem the obvious votes, which makes me want to delve more into the ones that are less obvious.

 

Korngold, Steiner, Waxman, Tiomkin and Herrmann for me. That European training of the first four sure paid off when it came to film music. I have collected a huge number of disks with their music and even a large number of DVDs. For Korngold it was easy: the 17 movies he scored have all been available on DVD and I picked them all up. For Steiner I have a list of every movie he scored and check them off when I finally get to see the movie. Just last week I was watching all of the Hitchcock movies that Herrmann scored - what a musical mind!

 

Allow me to be hung up on technical details, but the thread title includes the phrase "the Best", while the poll includes the word "Favorite". These are two different things in my mind.

I can easily differentiate favorite composers from best (or greatest) composers.

So, I went with favorites:

Tiompkin
Rósza
Young
North
Herrmann

If I'd voted for "Best", I probably wouldn't include Victor Young or North, opting instead for either Korngold, Steiner, or Newman for those two spots.

 

I think the Golden/Silver age names besides being a bit arbitrary and not so much about quality, are more about the studio periods, rather than anything to do with the music or quality. The Golden Age was when the studios were king, contracting stars, having productions largely on their backlots and sound stages and owning a lot of the cinemas. After World War II, they had to divest themselves of the cinemas and as time went on more actors worked freelance and had their own production companies, partnering on movies. More composers also worked on individual projects rather than being contracted to one studio.

 

In the old studio days it wasn't uncommon for the heads of music departments to be listed as a film's composer and even win awards even if they didn't write all the music. Herbert Stothart won the Oscar for best original score of The Wizard of Oz even though a lot of it was arrangements of Harold Arlen's music for the songs and there were interpolations from classical composers(including Mendelssohn when Toto escapes from the Witch's castle, Schumann at the start, and Mussorgsky during the chase in the castle). Interpolations from other composers - past or contemporary - does not seem to have been uncommon. And composers, like writers, sometimes get trodden on. Aaron Copland's Oscar-winning score for The Heiress had incorporated Plaisir d'Amour but it was substituted for his original music in more places than he had intended.

 

Sorry, how did Andre Previn get in this list alongside Steiner et al?

 

 

Why not? Previn worked in Hollywood as a composer, conductor and arranger in Hollywood from the 1940s to the 70s - overlapping with Steiner and many others - and won 4 Oscars. His original film scores included such movies as Bad Day at Black Rock, Long Day's Journey Into Night, and Elmer Gantry.

 

Thank you. I hadn't realised Previn went back quite that far.

Even so, I'll quibble with the OPs inclusion of composers who rose to prominence in the 50s, which is not IMO, part of the Golden Age. Especially since they call Alex North a borderline inclusion, who did substantial work in the early fifties. But includes Hans J Salter??

Was there no Golden Age of British movies and composers worthy of inclusion?

 

It doesn’t surprise me that Herrmann is winning this poll. His partnership with Hitchcock produced some remarkable music. He was a master of instrumental effects, especially with string ensembles. Also the way he could get such incredible sonorities with just a few instruments whereas a lot of film composers from this era were going for the big, splashy symphonic gestures. Herrmann really was something special and, for me, is my favorite composer from this particular group of composers.

 

His partnership with Hitchcock produced some remarkable music.

Undoubtedly it did. Was that because Hitchcock had an ear for the best music? Or that Herrmann wrote the same quality score for all the directors he worked with, it's just that the Hitchcock films proved to be a better partner for Herrmann's music?

Or are we neglecting the other films he scored? Citizen Kane, for example, his first (at least as listed by IMDb) - how does that score rate, as a film often voted as the best ever made? Come to that, was The Magnificent Ambersons ruined because the music was "butchered"?

It's a complicated business, it seems to me, to gauge the effect of a score, since most of us don't hear the score without watching the film at the same time. Both senses are seared simultaneously, imprinting a combined memory. I don't the fact that it's now possible to listen to an OST CD before seeing the film undermines the general point - and certainly in the case of the Golden Age Greats.

 

@Ron39 Thanks.

didn't get the indelible association Hermann did

Maybe not - so the question is, why did Herrmann have an indelible association?

he wrote something dark (given the movie) and the director is said to have snapped that if he had wanted Bernard Herrmann he would have hired him.

Is this the answer? Herrmann's instinct was to write 'dark' scores, so he suited Hitchcock's film subjects better than the other composers you mention.

Hitchcock had intended the shower murder in Psycho to have no music but Herrmann scored it anyway and Hitchcock acknowledged its effectiveness by saying his earlier stance was an "improper suggestion"

Could this have had anything to do with the fact that this scene was alleged not to have been shot by Hitchcock himself?

 

@Ron39 Thanks.



Maybe not - so the question is, why did Herrmann have an indelible association?



Is this the answer? Herrmann's instinct was to write 'dark' scores, so he suited Hitchcock's film subjects better than the other composers you mention.



Could this have had anything to do with the fact that this scene was alleged not to have been shot by Hitchcock himself?

Nobody said that but Saul Bass. Janet Leigh said Hitchcock did it all. Bass did sketches/storyboards.

 

I'm doing a shout out for Maurice Jarre. I know he's outside the time limit, but David Lean was a golden age director (albeit mostly in England), but Lawrence of Arabia stands shoulder to shoulder with Ben Hur, and his music for Doctor Zhivago, Passage to India and Witness also has a golden age vibe. Who can forget the wide open air passacaglia he wrote for the barn building scene in Witness? (Or is it a chaconne?)

And I agree there are some notable British film composers. They stand comparison with their Hollywood counterparts, probably because they were classically trained. Addinsell, Bax, Auric, Alwyn, Vaughan Williams, Arnold, Bliss, Coates, and the list goes on!

 

Yes, plenty of excellent British film composers. I didn't go into them simply because the topic was Hollywood movies but obviously British and European composers flourished too. Some of the folk you mentioned, I'd say, were mostly well known as classical composers who did film scores as a sideline (not that there's anything wrong with that). Some were known for movies more than their other compositions and some straddled both solidly. Walton is someone else to add.

 

Interesting examples. I suspect Hollywood paid a lot more than the British studios.

 

No doubt Hollywood would pay more. But every bit helps!

 

Previn began working at MGM in the 1940s while still in high school. Previn's first score was for the 1949 Lassie movie The Sun Comes Up and he composed scores for such films as Kim (1950) and Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) so he was working before 1960, which was the cutoff.