Composer of the Week: Elmer Bernstein

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

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An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004): Firing On All Cylinders

Firing On All Cylinders

Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004)

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004), Firing On All Cylinders

Donald Macleod talks to Peter Bernstein about his father Elmer's projects in the 1960s.

In the second of their conversations, Donald Macleod talks to Peter Bernstein about his father, film composer Elmer Bernstein's projects in the 1960s including The Magnificent Seven.

In the second of their conversations Donald Macleod talks to composer Peter Bernstein about his father film composer Elmer Bernstein's projects in the 1960s. 

Born in 1922, Elmer Bernstein created the music for more than 150 films.  His big break was one of Hollywood's biggest pictures, Cecil B DeMille's swan song, the 1955 biblical epic, "The Ten Commandments". At the same time as working on that enormous canvas for DeMille, Bernstein was composing the first in a series of groundbreaking jazz-infused scores, "The Man with the Golden Arm".  He went on to write the music for the Hollywood adaptation of Harper Lee's classic novel "To Kill a Mockingbird", westerns that include The Magnificent Seven, surely one of the best-known title themes in the history of cinema, before he became the go to composer for John Wayne. His scores for action adventures include "The Great Escape" and a moving depiction of the inner life of a prisoner in "Birdman of Alcatraz". Nominated on numerous occasions, he won an Oscar for "Thoroughly Modern Millie". In the 1980s he delighted younger generations of cinema goers with scores such as "National Lampoon's Animal House", "Ghostbusters" and "Airplane!”, before deciding to make a return to more serious drama.  Projects with Martin Scorsese included the film of Edith Wharton's novel "The Age of Innocence" and a remake of "Cape Fear". Among Bernstein's other projects was the music for "My Left Foot", the film about the artist Christy Brown. His last score, for which he received a final Oscar nomination, was for Todd Haynes's "Far from Heaven" in 2002. He died just two years later in 2004. 

Donald Macleod marks the centenary of this gifted and versatile film composer in conversation with Peter and Emilie Bernstein, two of Elmer Bernstein's children. They offer a fascinating insider's view into the film music industry alongside a personal portrait of their father. 

From the sleazy atmospheric jazz score for Walk on the Wild Side to the rolling vistas conjured up by The Magnificent Seven to a satirical show on Broadway, the 1960s were a period of creative success and diversification for Elmer Bernstein. 

Walk on the Wild Side 
Main title 
Elmer Bernstein and his Orchestra 

The Magnificent Seven 
Ambush  
Petra’s Declaration 
Defeat  
Crossroads 
Elmer Bernstein, conductor 

To Kill a Mockingbird  
Tree Treasure
Lynch mob  
Guilty Verdict   
Ewell regret it  
Royal National Scottish Orchestra 
Elmer Bernstein, conductor 							

True Grit 
Where there is smoke / the Dying Moon  
Preparation / Dugout Stakeout / Shots Galore!
Ruffled Rooster
The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra
James Fitzpatrick, conductor 					

How Now Dow Jones  
A Little Investigation 
Hiram Sherman 
How Now Dow Jones Ensemble

Composer of the Week: Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004)

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod surveys the life and work of American composer Elmer Bernstein.

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