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I've just finished Robert Russell Bennett's autobiography, "The Broadway Sound" -- engaging, revelatory -- a wonderful read.
I had no idea of the scope of Mr. Bennett's various works for film (or for that matter of his extraordinary non-theatrical/film works – some of which have been recorded by Mr. Stromberg on Naxos). Other than his well known contributions to "Victory at Sea" -- I did not know that he had composed for and orchestrated so many other films and TV series.
In one intriguing section on his Hollywood career (but one musical career of many!) he notes, "Two films for which I did quite a big job of anonymous music were officially by two of the best of all time, Alfred Newman and Franz Waxman. They were at the height of their careers and were overworked. The pictures were good ones: ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ and ‘Rebecca’. Sharing a score with one of these great fellows was an education, an education you can’t get from any book or school. They knew all the pitfalls and all of the answers of the profession. I used the word ‘anonymous’; perfect background scoring must be anonymous. It must sneak into the pulse of the viewer and stay out of his conscious mind. Franz Waxman ran a film with his music in it for me once. At the end of the picture he started to talk about the end of the music. It, he said, was the first example of a score that finished with two trumpets, loud, on a sustained dissonance – B and C, for instance, a half-tone apart. I hadn’t noticed it. All I noticed was that the picture ended just right. Of course, after he spoke, I could go over the last part of the music in my mind and realize what he had done, but it never had a chance of being heard while the story was coming to its end. The film was 1935's The Bride of Frankenstein.’”
Despite the enormity of his achievements in music, Mr. Bennett is, among other things, extremely modest in his assessment of his contributions to film and musical theater. So much so that the fact that he admits to contributing to these two scores at all indicates that he contributed quite a bit!
He comes across as a generous, kind, loving, brilliant soul. Some of our fellow FSM’ers may have been friends with, or worked with, Mr. Bennett. Any idea as to what we should attribute to him in “Hunchback” and “Rebecca”?
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I also wondered if Mr. Bennett might make mention of his musical namesake wunderkind. No mention at all of the other Bennett.
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Are there any comments on him being confused with the more famous Richard Rodney Bennett?
Richard Rodney Bennett (born 1936) once told me that he was always being confused with Robert Russell (June 15, 1894 – August 18, 1981), but there was a very big difference in ages.
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Although Robert Russell Bennett arranged and conducted the original recordings of VICTORY AT SEA, it was Richard Rogers, who composed 13 hours of music for the 26 hour documentary series.
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Re: Victory at Sea
If one believes Bennett's autobiography, his contribution to "Victory at Sea" was much more than a mere orchestrator...Rodgers contributed a set of tunes...then left the rest of the hours and hours of actual work to Bennett...apparently hundreds and hundreds of pages of musical manuscript by Bennett's hand alone...
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Russell and Rodgers also collaborated fruitfully on the Churchill series, THE VALIANT YEARS. The old ABC Records LP is well worth seeking out, dividing the score into four lengthy suites, a couple of which made it onto one of the Kunzel/Cinncinnatti Pops CDs.
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Jon Burlingame goes into detail about Bennett's contribution to Victory at Sea in his book. As stated, Rodgers wrote some tunes, and Bennett fashioned them into a symphonic thirteen-hours worth of music.
Why has no one mentioned Mr. Bennett's compositional work? We put out something of his on Bay Cities (maybe his violin concerto - with Louis Kaufman playing?) and it was wonderful music. He was much more than just an orchestrator.
And let's not be belittling Mr. Rodgers' work either. He was much more than just a tunesmith - he had IT. And his work pre-Hammerstein, with Mr. Hart, is some of the most adventuresome popular music of the early 20th century, right up there with Gershwin.
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To be fair, Syndetic mentioned Bennett concert works in his topic-setting post, and one or two others have done the same as this thread has progressed. But 'tis true it's a lesser-known side to this great American talent, and we're grateful to record-producers such as yourself who have helped spread the word.
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