Max Steiner was a trailblazing composer in so many ways. In King Kong he furnished the archetypal monster movie score; Gone With The Wind defined the music for historical romance epics; They Died With Their Boots On, the story of General Custer’s “last stand” at the battle of Little Big Horn, typifies the music of the “pre-Copland” Western. Copland’s own work for The Red Pony, and more significantly Elmer Bernstein’s unforgettable contribution to The Magnificent Seven, found a new musical vocabulary to describe the open prairie, but until then, innumerable composers made do with Steiner’s pentatonic Indian tunes and rousing cavalry marches whenever directors pointed their lenses westward. The most remarkable thing about Steiner’s music is its seemingly inexhaustible energy: this stuff really moves. Thematically, the Indian themes are much more interesting than the big tune representing Custer and his crew–an oft-repeated fanfare too obviously related to Wagner’s Flying Dutchman. Nevertheless, it’s impossible to accuse Stromberg and his Moscow band of any lack of enthusiasm for their subject, and they rise to the instrumental challenges of the final battle with virtuosic glee. The disc is good, clean fun. Another classic.
