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CONRAD SALINGER -
M-G-M ARRaNGER SUPREME
by RICHARD HINDLEY
"What a glorious feeling, I’m happy
again"
Think of a production number from one of
the great MGM musicals. Whether it be Gene Kelly splashing
along the sidewalk from ‘Singin’ in the Rain’,
Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse ‘Dancing in the Dark’
from ‘The Bandwagon’, or Fred with Judy Garland
as a ‘Couple of Swells’ in ‘Easter Parade’,
the chances are you’ll be associating these famous performers
with those equally well known arrangements by Conrad Salinger.
What’s interesting is that even if he hadn’t been
associated with the number of your choice, it was Salinger
who eventually set the defining style of the studio’s
musicals, something that took place soon after the start of
his 23 year career there.
His life-long friend and associate, John
Green, who was Head of the MGM Music Department in the 1950s,
described him as the studio’s ‘star orchestrator,
one of the two or three outstanding arranger/orchestrators
in the entire field of musical theatre’. In a recent
interview John Wilson described Salinger’s talents: "he
could translate colour and mood into sound to produce the
most startling production numbers. When needed he could write
on a grand scale, as in the climax of ‘This Heart of
Mine’ (‘Ziegfeld Follies’, 1946), and then
he would paint delicate smaller scale sound pictures as in
parts of ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ (1952)".
Jeff Sultanof, conductor, arranger and editor,
describes it in technical terms: "Salinger’s genius
was to fill the sound canvas with rich, beautiful harmonies
balanced with contrapuntal lines, and then set them in basic
orchestral colour groups, the combination almost too busy
in some cases, but not quite. There are those who believe
that MGM’s musicals are over-orchestrated and overdone
musically, but I’ve rarely heard a musician complain
about Salinger’s work, because it is skilfully written
and yet inspired. And there is always room for the singer.
This is why Salinger’s work continues to inspire orchestrators,
even though few of us will ever have the opportunity to create
that level of work since there are few movie musicals made
today".
Salinger’s credentials are a case in
point when it comes to music making in Hollywood, where three
composers - Max Steiner, Alfred Newman and Erich Korngold
- had established during the nineteen thirties a scoring style
based on nineteenth century romanticism. Moving on to the
Hollywood musicals from the 1940s, Salinger’s talents
brought in a French sensibility to the musical scene,
influenced by Debussy and Ravel, and, by implication, their
acknowledged master, Rimsky-Korsakov, whose rich orchestrations
left an indelible mark on both of them. Christopher Hampton,
the late musician and writer, also credits Frederic Delius
as an influence too, reminding us that he’d lived for
most of his life in France, and whose music was deeply influenced
by Impressionist painting. Hints of the legacy of these composers
run through Salinger’s work and you can sometimes spot
a dash of Respighi and Stravinsky as well. To understand why,
you only have to look at his background.
"It’s a lovely day that’s all
around you, count your treasures you are well-to-do…"
In its promotional publicity, Brookline,
Massachusetts, describes itself as ‘a desirable commuter
suburb of Boston’. John F Kennedy was born there in 1917,
and its later musical residents included Arthur Fiedler, Serge
Koussevitsky (a music professor from Moscow who became conductor
of the Boston Symphony) and Roland Hayes (a renowned black
American lyric tenor). Ironically, there is no mention of
Conrad Salinger, born there on 30th August 1901. The music
flowing from his pen would be heard by more people around
the world than all three of these together. This image of
Brookline gives an implication that he came from a wealthy
and probably cultivated family, one that could afford to encourage
his talents even after his graduation from Harvard in 1923.
To complete his musical studies, he crossed the Atlantic to
France where he was enrolled in the Paris Conservatoire. Yet
this shift to another culture was enticing in more ways than
one: Salinger was homosexual, and, by moving to Paris, he
could turn his back on the puritanical and censorious society
of his upbringing. (In fact Boston retained this reputation
well into the 20th century, prompting the expression "Banned
in Boston" - an unintentional pun mercilessly exploited in
the sixties in the eponymous David Rose bump and grind composition
- for MGM Records, to boot).
Salinger studied harmony and orchestration
with André Gédalge, himself author of a famous
work on counterpoint, and possibly Maurice Ravel as well.
The tuition with Ravel is in dispute, but Ravel was certainly
involved at the Conservatoire during this period, another
of his pupils being Ralph Vaughan Williams. In any case, Ravel
himself had studied under Gédalge - whose other pupils
included Darius Milhaud and Arthur Honegger. But there would
have been other influences at work on Salinger as well, for
let’s not forget what a vibrant and exciting place Paris
was at this time. Even after the ravages of the First World
War it still remained the arts capital of the world, with
jazz adding to the vigour of the music scene, aided and abetted
by such luminaries as Josephine Baker who created a sensation
with her performances of exotic primitivism.
Salinger spent a total of seven years in
Paris, and apart from learning to speak fluent French, he
would have been exposed to the popular French music of the
day. Running throughout his work are cheerful jaunty motifs,
redolent of the boulevards of Paris: think ‘Mimi’
by Rodgers and Hart and ‘Ah Paree!’ from Stephen
Sondheim’s ‘Follies’, to name other writers
who have consciously parodied that French boulevard style
in their songs. This influence, with its lightness of touch
mixed with the solid academic background from the Conservatoire
(he was a proficient composer and conductor, too) was to serve
Salinger brilliantly during his career, although the technicolor
world of the French capital as portrayed in ‘An American
in Paris’, ‘Funny Face’ and ‘Gigi’
lay quite a few years ahead. One wonders what the look on
the face of André Gédalge would have been, were
he to have heard ‘Sinbad the Sailor’, Salinger’s
reworking of Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Scheherezade’
some 25 years later for Gene Kelly’s ‘Invitation
to the Dance’.
"Your troubles there, they’re out
of style, for Broadway always wears a smile…"
Returning to the art deco splendour of New
York in 1929, Salinger was very much a cultivated ‘man
of the world’, always impeccably dressed, an image of
sartorial splendour that he’d retain throughout his life,
quite the opposite of the public’s idea of how many musicians
present themselves. Indeed, closer inspection of a 1937 photograph
taken of him joking with co-worker John Green reveals a framed
reproduction of the Dutch master Vermeer: an unexpected adornment
for the wall of his office, where presumably the photograph
was taken, but certainly in keeping with his refinement.
His professional career started at Harms,
the music publishing company, as a staff arranger. He then
moved into the world of Broadway shows and the movie industry,
for at this time some of it was still based in New York. His
first film experience was for Paramount, both at their Astoria
Studios on Long Island and the Paramount Theatre on 41st Street
NYC. This was the era when first run movie releases were preceded
by spectacular stage shows. The head of the department who
engaged him was Adolph Deutsch, who would reappear in Salinger’s
career at MGM. Salinger is acknowledged to be an uncredited
arranger, along with John Green, for the Lubitch musical ‘The
Smiling Lieutenant’ (1931).
Between 1932 to 1937 Salinger concentrated
on arranging for a dozen Broadway shows, initially assisting
Robert Russell Bennett, who considered him to be a protégé.
David Raksin and John Green were other noteworthy arrangers
on some of these shows, again names that would reappear at
MGM. Green in fact scored the Broadway show ‘Here Goes
the Bride’ in 1931 on which Salinger worked. Other titles
from this period include ‘George White’s Scandals’
(1936) and ‘Billy Rose’s Jumbo’ (1935) with
a Rodgers and Hart score. This one would eventually be filmed
at MGM in the sixties after delays of many years caused by
contractual restraints. Of particular interest is ‘Ziegfeld
Follies of 1936’ which boasted a sophisticated score
by Vernon Duke and Ira Gershwin and a cast including Bob Hope,
Fanny Brice and Eve Arden. This is one of the few instances
where we can now hear a new cast recording utilising the original
arrangements, all painstakingly reconstructed. Issued recently
on CD by Decca USA, it evocatively conveys the original intentions
of the production, although the many glorious arrangements,
the work of three other arrangers in addition to Salinger,
regrettably remain unsigned.
"I’m on my way, here’s my beret,
I’m going Hollywood…"
Salinger’s transition to Hollywood was
not instantaneous: his first assignment was for Alfred Newman
at Goldwyn-United Artists in 1937, but the experience proved
unenjoyable and he returned to New York and Broadway. He was
also assigned to the the Astaire/Rogers musical ‘Carefree’
(1938) at RKO, where his work as arranger/orchestrator went
uncredited, as was that of his co-worker Robert Russell Bennett.
But by now Salinger’s fame and reputation had spread
throughout the industry, and he’d already met up with
Roger Edens, an accomplished musician and writer, a man of
many talents who acted virtually as an associate producer
at MGM. Edens was a close colleague of songwriter producer
Arthur Freed, who was to create the studio’s most prestigious
musicals. This he achieved by surrounding himself with a handpicked
team composed of the studio’s top talent, the legendary
‘Freed Unit’. Freed’s clout and standing ensured
its members were virtually on call for his productions, much
to the occasional annoyance of other producers at the studio.
Edens arranged that Salinger should immediately
join the Unit and he was eventually offered an irresistible
long-term contract that drew him permanently to Hollywood.
This was a well worn path for countless actors, directors
and musicians since the start of talking pictures, for Hollywood
had always had the drawcard of fame with its concomitant wealth
to seduce talent to its doors. So Salinger gave his regards
to Broadway and started a career at MGM. His contribution
to some 50 musicals would be inextricably linked to the fortunes
of the MGM dream factory.
"Where troubles melt like lemon drops
away across the chimney tops, that’s where you’ll
find me…"
His first assignment was on ‘The Wizard
of Oz’(1939) as the uncredited orchestrator of the ill
fated ‘Jitterbug’ number, unfortunately destined
for the cutting room floor, although the music track remains
in existence. ‘Strike Up the Band’ (1940) brought
him his first on-screen credit and from then on the credits
run thick and fast, his work on all the musicals directed
by Vincente Minnelli from 1942 being particularly inspired.
Minnelli was also an import from Broadway as well as being
a self-confessed Francophile. Their collaboration worked to
such an extent that, as John Wilson aptly puts it, ‘he
heard what Minnelli saw’. No wonder his work reached
new highs. Jeff Sultanof describes it as being ‘beautiful
to hear and sophisticated in content. I believe the other
orchestrators at MGM were influenced by Salinger. Wally Heglin’s
arrangements before and after 1943 show the Salinger influence
as an example’.
During these years Salinger and Roger Edens
created a powerful synergy in their contribution to the production
numbers: Edens would sketch out the mood, tempo, texture and
setting of a prospective number, after which Salinger fleshed
out the details. ‘The Trolley Song’ in Minnelli’s
second movie musical ‘Meet Me in St Louis’ (1944)
is the perfect example, and a description of Judy Garland’s
recording of it is vividly described in a book by Hugh Fordin
on the Freed Unit: ‘even after the orchestra’s first
reading of his arrangement…an excitement spread among
those playing and listening. Then, when Judy came in with
her dead-sure instinct of what she was to deliver, the ceiling
seemed to fly off the stage…..Salinger’s arrangement
was a masterpiece. It conveyed all the colour, the motion,
the excitement that was eventually going to be seen on the
screen. With the remaining numbers and the background scoring
for this film as well as all the work he was to do thereafter,
Salinger always maintained sonority and texture in his writing,
which made his a very special sound and style that has never
been equalled in the American movie musical’.
For the next Minnelli collaboration, ‘Ziegfeld
Follies’ (1946) we get sumptuous and exotic textures,
notably in the lavish production numbers ‘Limehouse Blues’
and ‘This Heart of Mine’. In the latter Salinger
includes French horn obbligato passages worthy of Richard
Strauss to transport us well and truly ‘over the top’.
But most importantly, in both these numbers, it’s the
narrative - the dramatic story telling which bursts through
the confines of those popular songs - that pushes the art
of the arranger well into the realms of composer.
Jeff Sultanof points out that the Salinger
style ‘was also tailored for the microphone, an important
distinction’, and this is the key explanation of that
unique MGM sound. In the late twenties, Bing Crosby had studied
the limitations of 78 rpm recording techniques, tailoring
his voice accordingly. In similar fashion, Salinger accepted
that the optical sound recording of the day, the process that
preceded tape recording by photographing the audio onto film
- had a limited dynamic range, with a consequent loss in quality
between live performance and final release print. Despite
those huge Hollywood budgets and virtually limitless musical
resources at the studio, he realised his writing sounded best
with around 38 players, more in keeping with the pit orchestras
of Broadway. Any choral backing was consequently scaled down
to match, thus creating something relatively easier (and less
costly) to record. But this also had the advantage of creating
an orchestra from the cream of talent available. As described
by John Wilson: ‘it was really a dance band line-up with
a string section. Many of the musicians had been star players
with such as Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey. Si Zentner, for
example, usually led the trombones. And they were augmented
as required from film to film. Above all, though, the orchestra
was noted for its warmth of the brass sound and the ‘fat’,
almost old-fashioned string sound. You have to bear in mind
that America received a flood of refugees from Europe, particularly
from Russia, and that many brought with them the Jewish traditions
of string playing. So the sound is rich and vibrant, full-bodied,
at times almost flashy, with a strong vibrato, and relentlessly
brilliant.’
"Forget your troubles come on get happy,
you’d better chase all your cares away…"
Throughout his career at MGM, Salinger also
distinguished himself as a composer of background scores for
many of the musicals in addition to arranging the numbers,
such as ‘Till the Clouds Roll By’ (1946) ‘On
the Town’ (1949) and ‘Show Boat’ (1951) for
which he shared an Oscar Nomination with Adolph Deutsch for
‘Best Scoring of a Musical Picture’. For some dramatic
productions, such as ‘The Last Time I Saw Paris’
(1954) and ‘Gaby’ (1956) he scored the entire film,
utilising as thematic inspiration Jerome Kern’s song
for the former, and Richard Rodgers’ ‘Where or When’
for the latter. With the introduction of tape recording, and
later on stereophonic recording, he saw the studio revert
to the larger orchestra, which suited the new wide screen
image and spectacular adaptations of Broadway musicals like
‘Brigadoon’ (1954) and ‘Kismet’ (1955)
and ‘Silk Stockings’(1957).
These gradually took over from the staple
musical output that had been the hallmark of MGM into the
early fifties, so that the release of such masterpieces as
‘Singin’ in the Rain’ (1952) and ‘The
Bandwagon’ (1953) signalled the gradual demise of original
scripts and the scaling down of musical output in general.
Christopher Hampton considers this period to be the epitome
of Salinger’s endeavours, when he created ‘the de
luxe quality of orchestral writing exemplified by ‘Dancing
in the Dark’, ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ and
‘The Heather on the Hill’ (from Brigadoon) - a quality
born of his feeling for beauty of timbre, for mood, for atmosphere,
for nuance, above all for line, the give-and-take of melody
and countermelody’.
By the mid fifties, Metro was starting to
fall apart, with producers no longer under contract and the
famous roster of stars well on the wane. Consequently we find
Salinger looking in other directions for employment. His credit,
as composer, is to be found in the TV series ‘General
Electric Theatre’ (1954), ‘Wagon Train’
(1957) - quite a contrast to frothy musicals, but in the distinguished
company of such other composers as David Raksin, David Buttolph
and Gerry Goldsmith - and ‘Batchelor Father’ (1960
series). Even so, Salinger still worked as orchestrator on
the dwindling number of musicals, two of them with Paris settings.
‘Funny Face’ was directed by Stanley Donen in 1957
and has the notable ‘Bonjour Paris’ number, for
which Salinger provides a brilliant kaleidoscopic arrangement
that describes the bustle and panoramas of the city in its
underscoring of Roger Eden’s song. ‘Gigi’ (1958),
proved to be the last production for the Freed Unit that was
not developed from a Broadway show and Salinger’s last
collaboration with Freed and Minnelli.
One surprise is to discover that he was the
uncredited orchestrator on the blockbuster western ‘The
Big Country’ (United Artists, 1958). The score, composed
by Jerome Moross, is regarded as one of Hollywood’s best.
One wonders what exactly Salinger’s contribution was,
given his stature and years of experience against those of
Moross, a relative newcomer to the Hollywood big league. There
has to be an irony about those opening bars - the composer
describes the spinning wagon wheels of the main title, but
his orchestrator is the man who had created and arranged the
‘Trolley Song’ wheel motif! Nevertheless, a compensating
recognition was about to come to Salinger, one that would
bring his name to prominence for the record-buying public.
By the late fifties Verve Records was identified with recordings
featuring top jazz instrumentalists and singers. All the more
unusual then, that Salinger was approached to prepare an instrumental
album of his arrangements. This was the idea of Buddy Bregman,
the label’s star arranger/conductor and head of A &
R, a man with a huge list of impressive credits. By then he
had already accompanied Ella Fitzgerald on both her Cole Porter
and Rodgers and Hart Songbook albums, two of the top twenty-five
albums in almost every magazine poll and Record Guide Book.
These, plus the Bing Crosby album ‘Bing Sings Whilst
Bregman Swings’ had all gone platinum. Bregman had also
recorded several successful big band albums of his own. Norman
Granz, chief producer at Verve (and creator of the label itself),
gave Bregman the go-ahead, and the album started to take shape.
Bregman recalls the 12 tracks, all of his own choosing, were
mainly based on Salinger’s vocal arrangements from the
MGM musicals, scored for the classic line up of 40 musicians
that he’d hit upon for the MGM Studio Orchestra - although
the sleeve notes of the album refer to the tracks as
‘(the) personal favourites of Mr Salinger’. It was
recorded at Capitol Records on Vine Street, Hollywood, in
Studio A, and, as Bregman recalls: ‘Connie Salinger attended….he
left everything to me….he loved everything and the musicians
he did know he interacted with. He was thrilled that I thought
of this idea’. Bregman describes him as ‘a sweet
man, a shy guy who always smiled’, in fact the antithesis
of Bregman himself who, for this album, had the magnanimity
to step aside from his usual credit in deference to this other
great musician.
The stereo album, ‘A Lazy Afternoon’
(Verve LP MGV 2068) was issued as ‘The Conrad Salinger
Orchestra Conducted by Buddy Bregman’- and you don’t
find many accolades like that in the recording industry. Bregman
remains proud of the achievement: ‘It’s a great
album - not for my work - but for the idea that I put the
whole thing together and his great charts!’ If you were
to find a copy of this rare album, you may agree that it’s
one of the greatest, and a special one at that, for there
must be no other where it’s the arranger who has
top billing. But Salinger himself was not a recording artist
and was unknown to the general public. Perhaps this was a
disadvantage when it came to sales of the album, for in USA
they proved to be disappointing. Certainly Verve Records’
clichéd dreamy girl cover – de rigeur for
orchestral albums of the day – gives no hint of its unique
contents. Consequently its British release was scaled down
to an extended play 45rpm issue (HMV 7EG 8322), although it
fared slightly better in Australia, where it appeared on Astor,
a budget label of rather poor audio quality. Interestingly,
Bregman admits the Salinger influence for his subsequent instrumental
album of Gershwin songs featured in the movie ‘Funny
Face’ (Verve LP MGV 2064). What wonderful CD reissues
these two albums would now make!
‘Billy Rose’s Jumbo’ (1962,
aka ‘Jumbo’), the last MGM musical on which Salinger
worked, reunited him with the Rodgers and Hart score from
his Broadway past. It turned out to be not only the last musical
for the studio that has the identifiable ‘MGM sound’
but for Salinger it was both a completion and a full stop,
for by now the entire future of the studio looked bleak. Hollywood
continued to respond to the demands of a younger audience
- with the realisation that the rock era was truly here to
stay - plus even further declines in box office receipts.
Eventually the studio would be scaled down solely for television
production and by 1969 a new regime would appear, headed by
James Aubrey, who would order the destruction of the entire
music library - an act, viewed in hindsight, that symbolised
the imperatives of accountancy over any cultural legacy that
might have been preserved.
"then goodbye, brings a tear to the eye…"
Conrad Salinger lived in Pacific Palisades,
one of the wealthiest and most beautiful suburbs of Los Angeles.
It was here that, on 9th July 1961, he took his life. He was
59 years old. The international movie database notes the cause
of death as a ‘heart attack while sleeping’, surely
a more graceful and dignified public record of his passing.
Perhaps this is where we should take a few
bars rest, those of us who remain ‘waltzing in the wonder
of why we’re here’ to contemplate the achievements
of this talented man. Hollywood, with its mega Dream Factory,
may well have delivered him fame and riches, but perhaps at
the expense of peace of mind. We have seen how his life’s
work became linked to an enormous studio, whose fortunes and
production of its once staple musical output both declined.
During this period Salinger worked with its top talent, nourished
by scores from the nation’s greatest songwriters: Kern,
Berlin, Gershwin, Porter, Arlen, Youmans, Lerner and Loewe,
Burton Lane, Hugh Martin, Arthur Schwartz, Harry Warren, Comden
and Green, and not forgetting Arthur Freed himself, as lyricist.
He became, as Jeff Sultanof puts it ‘perhaps the single
greatest orchestrator for motion pictures that I’m aware
of…. I believe the following orchestrations changed the
course of popular orchestral writing: ‘Dancing in the
Dark’, ‘Mack the Black’ (from ‘The Pirate’,
1948), ‘Singin’ in the Rain’, ‘This Heart
of Mine’ and ‘The Trolley Song’.
"now the young world has grown old, gone
are the silver and gold…"
The Metro musicals, like all movies, were
once a disposable commodity, to be released one week and forgotten
the next. But with the advent of sales to television and later
the release of the ‘That’s Entertainment’ compilations
from the MGM vaults, a new generation came to appreciate their
merits. From the 80s they’ve been re-released on videotape,
laserdisc and now DVD as well as on CD by the Rhino label.
These CDs have restored the songs and numbers to the same
duration as performed in the films, unrestricted by the timing
constraints of previous 78rpm and LP releases.
Although Salinger was part of a vast team
of talent, his contribution has nevertheless continued to
be appreciated. In 1985 Barbra Streisand insisted on his orchestration
of Jerome Kern’s ballad ‘Bill’ from ‘Show
Boat’(1951) for her Broadway Album, which was then adapted
by Peter Matz. Although a new arrangement had been presented
to her, she could not forget seeing the movie as a child,
with the Salinger arrangement staying in her memory, and that
was the backing she wanted. The next significant recognition
was on a much bigger scale: the release in 1990 of the Chandos
CD ‘A Musical Spectacular: Songs and Production Numbers
from the MGM Musicals’, recorded in London by the Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Elmer Bernstein. The arrangements
were lovingly restored by the instigator of the project, Christopher
Palmer, whose detailed sleeve notes celebrated Salinger’s
work for the first time since Buddy Bregman’s album.
Palmer described him as ‘the real hero of the album’
which, thirteen years later, is in its third release, the
latest version at last giving Salinger’s credit prominently
on the front cover.
"But came the dawn, the show goes on,
and I don’t wanna say godnight!"
March 2003 signalled an even more exciting
event, when John Wilson presented his ‘That’s Entertainment’
concert at the Royal Festival Hall, London. John had set himself
an enormous task of restoration to scorepaper of many of his
favourite MGM numbers by accessing remnants of the originals,
for the most part retained in sketch form for reasons of copyright,
but ‘long hidden in deepest storage’. He assembled
an 85 piece orchestra with an enormous choir of 100 to perform
creations of many talented arrangers: Skip Martin, John Green,
Andre Previn and Robert van Epps - but the most prominent
name was that of Salinger. Unlike the Chandos recording, John
ensured his line-up included many fine musicians familiar
with the jazz idiom to recreate a much more authentic MGM
sound. The audience, to quote John, ‘went bananas’
- proof indeed that these scores should have a secure life
in the concert hall, in happy coexistence with the originals
on the soundtracks of the movies themselves.
Salinger may well have had to deal with problems
both professional and private at the end of his life, but
we can still enjoy the legacy of his talent - a talent that
enhances and sometimes transcends those glorious Metro musicals
of his day.
Author’s postscript
In researching this article I acknowledge
information from the following:
The book ‘MGM’s Greatest Musicals:
The Arthur Freed Unit’ by Hugh Fordin, published by Da
Capo Press New York 1996 (the book was originally published
in 1975 under the title ‘The World of Entertainment!
Hollywood’s Greatest Musicals’); Christopher Palmer’s
sleeve notes for the RPO Chandos CD; John Wilson talking to
Malcolm Laycock for BBC Radio 2; John Wilson’s programme
notes for his ‘That’s Entertainment’ concert,
supplied by RFS member Ken Bruce; and Gary Zantos, who has
an encyclopaedic knowledge of the MGM studios.
Thanks are also due to Buddy Bregman, and
especially to Jeff Sultanoff - his enthusiasm and supplying
of invaluable information was a great inspiration. In addition
to his conducting, arranging and editing activities, Jeff
is also an author and Assistant Professor of Music at Five
Towns University, Long Island, NY. (He modestly revealed that
he has edited and recopied fifty-two Robert Farnon compositions
and arrangements, which Bob has seen and approved. Working
in conjunction with John Wilson, he is preparing a Robert
Farnon edition of definitive versions of his music). Thanks
also to my friend William Motzing, Lecturer in Jazz Studies,
Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney, for
checking through the final draft. (Bill has recorded the Main
Title from Robert Farnon’s ‘Bear Island’
score on his 1994 double CD ‘Best of Adventure’
with the City of Prague Philharmonic).
Richard Hindley (June 2003)
This article first appeared in the Robert
Farnon Society’s magazine ‘Journal Into Melody’
in September 2003. The author Richard Hindley is a respected
Film Editor working in Australia. Richard has been a member
of the Robert Farnon Society since its very first meeting
in 1956.
A large number of Conrad Salinger’s
scores for MGM have been reconstructed by the British conductor
John Wilson, and they were featured in a widely acclaimed
Promenade Concert in London on 1 August 2009.
Most of the tracks from the Conrad Salinger/Buddy
Bregman LP mentioned in this article are now available on
various CDs in the Guild "Golden Age of Light Music"
series. For more information go to www.guildmusic.com
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