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Salter/Skinner - Monster Music

£11.78

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Label: Naxos - Film Music Classics

Cat No: 8557705

Barcode: 0747313270521

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Orchestral

Release Date: 1st October 2007

Works

Skinner, Frank

Son of Frankenstein (orch. J Morgan)
The Invisible Man Returns (orch. J Morgan)
The Wolfman (orch. J Morgan)

Artists

Moscow Symphony Orchestra

Conductor

William Stromberg

Works

Skinner, Frank

Son of Frankenstein (orch. J Morgan)
The Invisible Man Returns (orch. J Morgan)
The Wolfman (orch. J Morgan)

Artists

Moscow Symphony Orchestra

Conductor

William Stromberg

About

If ever a genre needed musical assistance in creating a sufficient amount of atmosphere, it was the horror film of the 1930s and 1940s. Today, early Universal horror classics such as Dracula and even Frankenstein (both 1931) occasionally come off as stilted, partially because they lack full music scores.

Subsequently, when director Rowland V. Lee proceeded with Son of Frankenstein in 1938, he engaged staff composer Frank Skinner to compose a wholly new score for the picture. It was this music, orchestrated by Skinner’s soon-to-be frequent partner Hans J. Salter, that set the tone, literally and figuratively, for all horror film scores to come from Universal.

Because of the type of pictures Salter and Skinner often worked on, and because of the low budgets usually allotted them, the composers have gained an unfair reputation as talented hacks. One which, through this disc, Naxos prepares to challenge.

Of all their work, though, the macabre music of Frank Skinner and Hans Salter for Universal’s horror-film heyday in the late 1930s and 1940s ranks as their finest work. Even with today’s ever-changing tastes and perspectives, this music is likely to find favour as long as the films themselves do – maybe even longer.

SKINNER: Son of Frankenstein
Universal Signature; Main Title; The Message; The General; Discovery—Blute Solo; The Examination—Looking for a Monster; Death of Ygor; Monster’s Rampage; Finale—The Cast

SKINNER/SALTER: The Invisible Man Returns
Universal Signature; Main Title; Two Hours to Live; Together; Resting; The Ghost; The Return; End Title

SKINNER & SALTER (Also CHARLES PREVIN): The Wolf Man
Universal Signature; Main Title; The Telescope; Wolf-Bane; The Kill; Bela’s Funeral; Desperation; Sir John’s Discovery

Reconstructed and orchestrated by John Morgan.