DR: Yeah, a little bit. I've also written for television,
too. As a matter of fact I did a half-hour program for Camera Three on Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975),
and then narrated it on camera. It was interesting. I got to
use one of those marvelous little machines, the teleprompter. In fact
it was the one that Walter Cronkite used. They were telling me I didn't
need to worry about it. I said, "Well, it's all right for him; he
doesn't worry." [Both chuckle] So, where are we?
DR: The purpose of music in society is manifold, and I have
an idea that there's no way in which I could really capture it all in one
nutshell. But I will say this: the purpose of music is expression
of one kind or another to the extent that it expresses a noble soul, or
even an ignoble soul doing something wonderful. There have been such
people who wrote gorgeous, glorious music, who were villains of the first
water, maybe the second water, too. Maybe something has been expressed
which, despite this, has been kinda wonderful. Aldous Huxley, whom
I knew well, used to say that there is no one-to-one correlation between
goodness as we know it and think of it, and the production of works of art.
[English writer Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) lived in Los Angeles from 1937
until his death] So you're expressing something and you're hoping that
somebody else will listen. Maybe there's a message in it. The
message in it is not gonna be something that Western Union can carry, but
it's gonna be a message. It's gonna say things to people which in such
a way that it can actually penetrate their defenses which are rigged against
speech and sight much more than sound.
DR: [Thinks for a moment] Greatness, I think, has to
do with authenticity, talent, insight and the ability to express all these
things in a way which is palpable. To whom it's palpable is something
else again. Years and years ago, when I was trying very hard to think
of myself as a dangerous radical without too much success, I was asked to
come and address a bunch of people who were left-wing types - moreso than
I - and one of the people there fed me a question which was designed to elicit
a reply that would suit them. They wanted to know about [speaks slowly,
in caricatured "dopey guy" voice] "What is this fellow Béla Bartók?"
You know, who understands his music? And I said to this guy, "If you
are really faithful to your alleged political precepts, you will know that
the fact that you don't understand what he's writing doesn't mean a thing,
nothing at all. He's a guy writing something which may not be understood
for years, and if you stand in the way of that, you're impeding progress,
so get outta the way.
DR: We had become friends. I brought him down to USC
to talk to one of my classes - not one of my music classes, but a class I
teach in the School of Public Administration. He was down there and
we became friends. I find him a very remarkable and interesting, a
wonderful man. Anyhow, I had been asked by a young record producer to
do some stuff. He said, "You can have any orchestra you want, so get
busy and write some stuff. I've been listening to your music and I
think it's wonderful." Well, you know, there it was. So I sat
down and started to write, and I was about two-thirds of the way through,
when all of a sudden he was killed in a dreadful accident. It was really
sad. So there I was. I kept writing. I said, "Well, I'll
do this, that's what I'm here for." And then I said to myself, "I should
really make some kind of an effort to do something that would not be out of
my way of doing things. I'll tell a few friends." So the first
guy I ran into was Benny Carter (1907-2003), the saxophonist and composer.
He was a wonderful, wonderful, dear man. I told him about it and I said,
"Benny, if you ever run across anybody who's interested in doing an album
of this kind, just let me know." Well, the second guy was Frank who
wanted me to come over. I can't remember what it was we were talkin'
about, but he said, "What are you doin'?" So I told him about this thing,
and I said, "You know, this guy has been killed." He said, "Yes, I
heard. That's too bad. What're you gonna do about the album?"
I said, "Well this is what I'm doing - I'm talking to you!" He said,
"Well that isn't good enough," so he said, "I'll take care of it."
And he called up a guy who was then president of RCA and told him about it,
and this guy came out here and saw me. I didn't know who he was.
I just went to see him, and the first thing he said to me was, "If you think
you're gonna have to do any convincing, forget it. I was around when
Percy Faith (1908-1976) made a recording of The Bad and the Beautiful, and I've never
recovered. You've got it, carte blanche." Later I wondered if
this guy could do it so I looked at his card and it said, "Kenneth D. Glancy,
President, RCA Records." [Both laugh] So then I finished the
thing and of course I'm mighty grateful to Frank for it. There were
still many battles ahead which had to be taken care of.
BD: Does he ever come
to the States?
DR: You gotta be careful with me. I think that the ideal
was expressed by George Burns (1896-1996). I once went to Las Vegas
at the invitation of a marvelous group of guys called the American Society
of Geophysicists. These are guys who find out where the oil is so
that Standard Oil can steal it. They're a wonderful buncha guys and
they invited me to one of their big meetings. I was up there, and
George Burns was there for their entertainment. He said a great thing,
"People ask me, how did I make the transition from being a comedian to a
serious actor. The essential ingredient is truth, and if you can fake
that, you've got it made." Isn't that wonderful?| David Raksin,
the film score composer whose theme from the 1944 film noir Laura
became one of the most recorded songs of all time, has passed away on Monday,
August 9, 2004 in Los Angeles, CA. He was 92.
Born on August 4, 1912 in Philadelphia, Pa, Raksin grew up in a musical household. His father was a music shop owner who also composed for and conducted music for silent films. Growing up Raksin studied piano and was taught how to play wind instruments by his father, who had played with the Philadelphia Orchestra as a clarinetist. At age 12, Raksin had his own dance band and while he high school he taught himself composition. He worked himself through the University of Pennsylvania by playing a number of radio orchestras. Following graduation, he moved to New York City, where he worked in radio and on Broadway and arranged music for various record companies. In 1935 Raksin headed to Hollywood to work with Charlie Chaplin on his film Modern Times. Although Chaplin had ideas for the music that he wanted in the film, he lacked the training to write them down. Raksin was hired to transcribe and expand upon Chaplin's themes. He would receive a co-arranger credit for the movie. Raksin's received his break when he was offered the opportunity to score director Otto Preminger's 1944 film Laura. Studio scuttlebutt said that the film had had a troubled production and Alfred Newman and Bernard Hermann had already passed on working on the project. For the film Raksin wrote a haunting melody which plays repeatedly on the film's soundtrack to emphasize the lingering impact a murdered woman (Gene Tierney) has had on those whose lives intersected with hers. Dana Andrews played the detective investigating the woman's murder who finds himself falling in love portrait of the object of his investigation. Many attribute the power of the score to the fact that Raksin began his work on it the day after his wife had left him. The film was a hit and Johnny Mercer was enlisted to write lyrics for the main theme. The resulting song "Laura" would go on to hit the top spot on the Hit Parade. The song "Laura" would go on to be recorded over 400 times, with Hoagy Charmichael's "Stardust" being recorded more. Oddly enough, Raksin would not receive any Oscar recognition for his most famous piece. He would receive two Academy Award nominations for Forever Amber in 1947 and for Separate Tables in 1958. Raksin also wrote scores for such films as The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty (1947), Pat And Mike (1952) and Suddenly (1954). However, for all of Raksin's success, he still encountered some instances of "artistic differences" with the directors and producers he worked with. In 1952, when Raksin first played the theme from The Bad and the Beautiful for the film's director Vincente Minnelli and producer John Houseman, they were less than enthusiastic. However, he found two champions for the music in the form of Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the screenwriters for Singing In The Rain, who convinced Minnelli and Houseman to use the music. In 1951, Raksin appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee due to a brief membership in the Communist Party in the early 1930s. Although he supplied the committee 11 names of party members who were already dead or had been named by other witnesses, it was an action Raksin later regretted. In a 1997 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Raksin stated, “What I did was a major sin, but I think I did as well as most human beings would’ve done under torture. It wasn’t an abject capitulation. I told the committee they should leave the Communist Party alone, not to try and crush it. But there I was, a guy with a family to support and a fairly decent career about to go down the drain.” Raksin also worked in television supplying the themes for Wagon Train, Ben Casey and Medical Center. He served eight terms as the president of the Composers and Lyricists Guild of America from 1962 to 1970. He taught composition for film at the University of Southern California and has composed several concert pieces which have been performed by the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Pops and the London Symphony. |
This interview was recorded on the telephone on May 24, 1988. Portions
were used (along with recordings) on WNIB in 1992 and 1997. This transcription
was made and posted on this website in 2008.
To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here. To read my thoughts on editing these interviews for print, as well as a few other interesting observations, click here.
Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001. His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.
You are invited to visit his website for more information about his work, including selected transcripts of other interviews, plus a full list of his guests. He would also like to call your attention to the photos and information about his grandfather, who was a pioneer in the automotive field more than a century ago. You may also send him E-Mail with comments, questions and suggestions.
Rakisn worked first on the composing staff at Universal Studios and then
Columbia Pictures before landing a job at Twentieth Century Fox. Raksin
worked on 48 films throughout the 1930s where he never received credit.
As was the custom at the time, screen credit was usually reserved for the
studio's music department head, who often oversaw teams of composers on
individual films. He did receive a shared credit with four other composers
for 1939's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Since Raksin had studied
with Arnold Schoenberg at the University of Pennsylvania, his music was
often considered avant-garde by others in the studio system and so Raksin
would often by assigned to lower budgeted horror films like the 1942 werewolf
picture The Undying Monster. Some of his early credited work includes
the films Dr. Renault’s Secret (1942), Something To Shout About
(1943) and Tampico (1944).