A Tribute to Muir Mathieson, conductor, musical director and composer for the movies

10 May 2006 -

- Jean-Francois Houben: Dr Mark Brownrigg, you wrote with Sheila Hetherington a book devoted to Maestro Mathieson: Muir Mathieson: A Life in Film Music (Scottish Cultural Press, 2006). Mathieson convinced several talented British composers such as Alwyn, Arnold, Bax, Benjamin, Bennett, Bliss, Lambert, Rawsthorne, Vaughan Williams and Walton to write original music for the movies ; he supervised more than 600 British scores (as musical director and conductor)! Such a contribution to Film Music is exceptional. Can you detail his fantastic passion for the movies and for 'film music'?

- Mark BROWNRIGG: Mathieson moved quickly into movies after graduating from the Royal College of Music in London. The movie producer Alexander Korda approached the RCM looking for the services of a conductor and Mathieson was recommended by Sir Malcolm Sergeant. He was hired as Assistant Music Director at a salary of £4 a week. As his career developed, and as he moved to the forefront of his chosen profession, Mathieson realised that the cinema could be an artform, popular or otherwise, and as an artform it deserved the very highest quality of music. His unique contribution to film music history is the way he was able to finesse fine scores out of the astonishing list of art music composers you mention at a time when writing for the movies was very much looked down upon as hack work. Another huge strength was the intimate knowledge he swiftly developed about what makes film music work: all of the scores I have examined that he had a hand in producing are scarily well organised. The music doesn't simply respond to the narrative, hitting timing and accent points and utilising the appropriate style topics, but engages with the movies on a deeper thematic level. Listen to how Walton uses chromaticism to define his score for Hamlet, setting up an oposition between this for Doubt and simpler diatonic harmony for Certainty throughout the film. This conceptual argument takes place on the soundtrack just as it takes place on the screen. This score, along with all the others covered in the book, is structured in a profoundly coherent way. Mathieson also had the gift of knowing precisely when the orchestra should shut up, and was expert at choosing apposite diegetic music, often popular, for movies too.

- Muir Mathieson wrote several original film scores (from the '30s to the '70s). Do you have personal favourites among his own music for the screen?

-I am ashamed to say that I haven't had the chance to watch many of the films he scored personally - some are kind of obscure. What an admission to be forced into making! That said, I'm sure these scores are as disciplined and creative as the ones he "merely" music directed: the impression I get is that the man was incapable of making a false move or experiencing a lapse in taste. He was equally driven and obsessive about the value of all his work.
- A lot of British film scores are lost (and must be reconstructed - often by ear by people such as P. Lane - in order to be performed today). Is it the case with Mathieson's compositions for the movies?

- Scores for even landmark films can be hard to come by. As far as I'm aware, and we got this on the authority of John Huntly, nothing now exists of Noel Coward's score (orchestrated and organised by Mathieson) for In Which We Serve, a movie that won Coward a special Oscar. Not only is there no score, but no paper trail, no production documentation and no one still alive in a position to offer advice: Sheila and I tried to find someone to comment but failed. This is a particular problem in the case of this movie as current prints of it suggest that the two main tonal centres of the score are C sharp major and E major. Many musically minded people will immediately sense a problem here: both are a semitone out from key centres with widely known extra-musical associations, C major with purity and light, E flat with heroism (since Eroica). Either Coward was trying to subtly undermine the flagwaving patriotism of his stirring propaganda piece, which is unlikely given his innate Conservatism, or for some technical reason the movie has been sped up a touch and thus sounds to us sharper than originally intended. No one can shed any light on this, it seems. But C sharp seems an odd key to write/rehearse in when turning around music fast. My ear, at any rate, is of no help here, we really need a time machine.

- Do you think we can hope commercial releases of some of his film music (original recordings - if they still exist - or re-recordings)?

- It sounds obvious to say it but commerical releases of film music are made for commercial reasons. Fans of film music from the 1930s-40s often get heated about their inability to purchase scores by some of their favourite composers. Put simply, the music companies don't see a profit in what is after all a niche market within a niche market. Film music, and by this I mean original scores rather than compilation albums of rock and pop music, is a minority interest in the first place. Studio Era Hollywood scores appeal to a minority of this minority audience, many of whom are consumers primarily of contemporary film music. I suspect an interest in British film music from the same era subdivides this audience still further. Mr Horatio's Nibbles is unavailable even in film form, so the chances of it making onto CD are pretty slim. It would, of course, be wonderful if someone was to champion music from this era and either re-record it or release what period recordings there are of this stuff, but the commercial sense of such a project must be doubtful.

- A last question about the score for the 1960 movie, CIRCUS OF HORRORS (issued on a LP), credited to both Franz Reizenstein (concert composer who penned a remarkable score for THE MUMMY) and Muir Mathieson. Do you know the story behind it?

- Further complicating the authorship of this score is Tony Hatch's song-of-the-movie "Look for a Star" which became a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Beyond that I can't cast much light on this, I'm afraid, although the movie, intriguingly, features a turn from Kenny Baker who would go on to be R2D2 and was shot by Doug Slocombe who would also photograph Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters and the Indiana Jones Trilogy. Full marks to Silva Screen for putting out the CD, but the movie itself can only be found on NTSC. As to whether the score was a genuine collaboration, if Mathieson was brought in as a "score doctor" or simply provided stock music I really couldn't say. Reizenstein was a pupil of Vaughan Williams, who presumably acted as the connection between the two. An invesitgation must be carried out immediately for inclusion in the second edition of the book! Or maybe you would like to write a biography of Franz Reizenstein?


Thanks to M. Brownrigg!