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): Behind the Scenes

Behind the Scenes

Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004)

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004), Behind the Scenes

Donald Macleod talks to Peter Bernstein about his father Elmer Bernstein's film music.

Donald Macleod talks to Peter Bernstein about his father film composer Elmer Bernstein's projects in the sixties and seventies, including The Great Escape, Hawaii and Zulu Dawn.

Today Donald Macleod talks to composer Peter Bernstein about his father film composer Elmer Bernstein's projects in the sixties and seventies and gets an insight into Bernstein's working methods. 

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. 

As well as a hugely successful career as a film composer Elmer Bernstein assumed several leadership roles. He also financed a scheme to preserve Hollywood film scores. Among the music he preserved was Max Steiner's King Kong. 

The Great Escape main title 
Elmer Bernstein, conductor 

Overture to Hawaii 
City of Prague Philharmonic 
James Fitzpatrick, conductor 

The Birdman of Alcatraz 
New Friends
Cage building / The birth 				
United Artists Studio Orchestra 
Elmer Bernstein, conductor

Summer and Smoke 
Alma’s Dilemma 
Rosa 
A Stranger in the house   						
Elmer Bernstein and his Orchestra  

Big Jake
Riders
Reunion
All Jake
Buzzards
Going Home – Finale
Utah Symphony Orchestra 
Elmer Bernstein, conductor 

Zulu Dawn, orchestration by Christopher Palmer 
River Crossing 
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra 		
Elmer Bernstein, conductor

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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