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Now I really hope Preston digs up his tapes and digitizes them for posterity (and maybe us), otherwise it's $504-$1008 per favorite composer.
Preston is busy! Half any writer’s work time is taken up fending off the Gorgeous, Pliant Women© that throw themselves at his doorstep. 
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Apparently Jerry Goldsmith's unused End Title from Alien was played on a show that Raksin did. I'm not sure if it was in the actual interview with Goldsmith or on a seperate program that Raksin did on film music history. Me thinks it was on a later seperate program.
The Goldsmith interview was recorded before JG had worked on STTMP, but I cannot positively recall if they played any piece from ALIEN. My foggy guess right now is that they did not.
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No music from ALIEN was included in the two programmes Raksin did with Goldsmith. The music examples were from FREUD, LILIES OF THE FIELD, A PATCH OF BLUE, THE BLUE MAX, THE SAND PEBBLES, PATTON, PAPILLON, THE WIND AND THE LION, and THE (First) GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY.
My abiding memory of this interview was of Raksin, having researched the topic, explaining to Goldsmith why the German medal, the Blue Max, had a French inscription, "Pour Le Merite", and a bemused Goldsmith admitting that he never knew about it and wished that they had mentioned it in the picture.
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My abiding memory of this interview was of Raksin, having researched the topic, explaining to Goldsmith why the medal, the Blue Max, had a French inscription, "Pour Le Merite", and a bemused Goldsmith admitting that he never knew about it and wished that they had mentioned it in the picture.
The first memory my brain always retrieves of this interview is hearing Goldsmith light up a cigarette while he was talking.
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So let's see if I can remember at least as much as James.....
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I remember Raksin and HF talking about how pretty they thought Jean Simmons was.
HF also recalled that in the earliest days there were a lot of restrictions from the recording engineers. They were about what the composers could and could not use (certain instruments in certain ranges, etc.), or write for.
At one point he recalled musicians coming into the recording studio carrying their double basses. The engineer said, "DON'T bring those things in here! We can't record them!"
Raksin added that when he was informed of these restrictions, he made it a POINT to include them in his next work.
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The Jerry Fielding Papers @ BYU list David Raksin's 1978 radio interview with Fielding amongst the boxes of master tapes. http://files.lib.byu.edu/ead/XML/MSS2116.xml
73 1 Raksin interview - KUSC. 1978. Part I.
73 2 Raksin interview - KUSC. Part II.
73 3 KUSC - Raksin interview #II. July 20 1978.
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The Jerry Fielding Papers @ BYU list David Raksin's 1978 radio interview with Fielding amongst the boxes of master tapes. http://files.lib.byu.edu/ead/XML/MSS2116.xml
73 1 Raksin interview - KUSC. 1978. Part I.
73 2 Raksin interview - KUSC. Part II.
73 3 KUSC - Raksin interview #II. July 20 1978.
Missing episode 3. No surprise, though, since it was produced after Fielding died.
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Just recently I had to return to my old abode in the Highlands of Scotland to empty it of all possessions so that I can get it rented out or sold. Just as I was about to leave, I noticed some open-reel tapes languishing on a shelf behind some books that I had decided to donate to a local charity. Much to my surprise, the first tape box I opened showed that it contained four of the Raksin shows that I hadn't remembered ever having had. These were with Laurence Rosenthal, Miklos Rozsa, Bronislaw Kaper and Ernest Gold.
Through a friend who still possesses a tape deck I've been able to "save" a couple of them on to CDR. One anomaly though, is the Ernest Gold edition - while all of these Raksin shows were circa one-hour duration, the Gold runs to 79 minutes; lucky to fit it all on.
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One anomaly though, is the Ernest Gold edition - while all of these Raksin shows were circa one-hour duration, the Gold runs to 79 minutes; lucky to fit it all on.
Interesting. I don't remember him doing only one show with Gold; I would have guessed it to be 2. Perhaps they were broadcast together in some way?
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One anomaly though, is the Ernest Gold edition - while all of these Raksin shows were circa one-hour duration, the Gold runs to 79 minutes; lucky to fit it all on.
Interesting. I don't remember him doing only one show with Gold; I would have guessed it to be 2. Perhaps they were broadcast together in some way?
David, yes, listening to it again (although there are no direct statements from Raksin about a programme 1 and a programme 2) I'm beginning to wonder if someone has at some point welded two episodes together. For the record, the music examples are : TOO MUCH TOO SOON (theme); two cues from ON THE BEACH; two cues from EXODUS; three cues from IT's A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD; and two cues from THE SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIA.
Nothing from SHIP OF FOOLS, which, again, makes me wonder...
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One anomaly though, is the Ernest Gold edition - while all of these Raksin shows were circa one-hour duration, the Gold runs to 79 minutes; lucky to fit it all on.
Interesting. I don't remember him doing only one show with Gold; I would have guessed it to be 2. Perhaps they were broadcast together in some way?
David, yes, listening to it again (although there are no direct statements from Raksin about a programme 1 and a programme 2) I'm beginning to wonder if someone has at some point welded two episodes together. For the record, the music examples are : TOO MUCH TOO SOON (theme); two cues from ON THE BEACH; two cues from EXODUS; three cues from IT's A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD; and two cues from THE SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIA.
Nothing from SHIP OF FOOLS, which, again, makes me wonder...
Thanks for the reminder, James!
A look at his filmography jogged my memory: they definitely played excerpts from CROSS OF IRON (Steiner's theme?) and PRESSURE POINT ("Tic Tac Toe")
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Miklos Rozsa, Bronislaw Kaper
These two were fun to listen to, with their colorful accents.
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I remember Raksin and HF talking about how pretty they thought Jean Simmons was.
HF also recalled that in the earliest days there were a lot of restrictions from the recording engineers. They were about what the composers could and could not use (certain instruments in certain ranges, etc.), or write for.
At one point he recalled musicians coming into the recording studio carrying their double basses. The engineer said, "DON'T bring those things in here! We can't record them!"
Raksin added that when he was informed of these restrictions, he made it a POINT to include them in his next work.
Another memory of this HF interview:
HF recalled that he changed the harmonization of the song "This Earth Was Mine" slightly, when using it in his score.
HF says that Jimmy Van Heusen was so impressed with the change, that JVH changed the commercial sheet music to match Friedhofer's harmony.
(That's a real compliment, I think.)
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