The Hollywood Film Music Reader

"The Hollywood Film Music Reader is a wonderful cross section of articles by film music's most significant practitioners, both present and past. With many of these articles long since out of print, this volume is a valuable addition to the current literature on the subject."---Roy Prendergast, author of Film Music: A Neglected Art

"Cooke extracts essential flavors from a century of writing on music for films, and has served them up with lively and knowledgeable introductions. It is a pleasure to see these texts newly published and available, giving readers a history and theory of the art of film music written by those who created and debated it."---Claudia Gorrman, Professor of Film Studies, University of Washington, Tacoma

"An important addition to the shelf of any serious scholar or enthusiast of Hollywood film scoring. Cooke has gathered in one place previously out-of-print and difficult-to-access writings from film composers themselves, covering the period from silent film to the present. What a joy to get to know these composers through their own words. Sometimes witty and urbane, sometimes jaded and bitter, and always interesting, the composers represented here offer a range of insights into film composing as an art and as a business. Cooke's insightful introductions provide the launching pad for this fascinating collection."---Kathryn Kalinak, Rhode Island College

A rich and informative look at the experiences of composers working under high pressure in the U.S. film industry, The Hollywood Film Music Reader brings readers from film's earliest days to the modern blockbuster era. Beginning with the origins of movie music in the heyday of silent film, the book traces film music's progress through Hollywood's so-called Golden Age to changes in musical styles and working practices from the 1960s to the present. Also included are vivid firsthand accounts from composers such as George Antheil, Elmer Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Adolph Deutsch, Jerry Goldsmith, Bernard Herrmann, Henry Mancini, Thomas Newman, Andre Previn, David Raksin, Miklos Rozsa, Max Sleiner, Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman, and John Williams, along with testimonies from composers working in animation and documentary film. The book concludes with a section of criticism and commentary, including an essay on film music by Sidney Lumet and Igor Stravinsky's provocative views on the subject

Mervyn Cooke Professor of Music at the University of Nottingham. His many books include monographs and edited volumes on the music of Benjamin Britten, jazz, twentieth-century opera, and film music