They arrived on American shores carrying musical scores instead of fortunes, fleeing fascism with fugues in their luggage.
Now, decades after these European émigré composers orchestrated the emotional backbone of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Pasadena’s innovative music experience maker MUSE/IQUE plans to illuminate the overshadowed legacy of these composers.
MUSE/IQUE’s aims to restore these cultural alchemists to their rightful place in American artistic history.
The interdisciplinary performance collective will present “Welcome to the Dream Factory” at The Huntington’s East Lawn in San Marino, a sonic excavation of cinema’s debt to the refugee musicians who traded Vienna and Budapest for Burbank and Culver City.
“I think they’re absolutely essential,” Kenneth Marcus, a professor of history and director of the International Studies Institute at the University of La Verne, said recently. “They brought techniques and skills and abilities from a world of musical comedy, opera and film, and could take these skills and techniques and adapt them to the Hollywood setting.”
The performance will illuminate the work of such luminaries as Miklós Rózsa, whose scores for “Ben-Hur” earned him one of his three Academy Awards; Ernest Gold, whose compositions for “Exodus” garnered both Oscar and Grammy recognition; and Franz Waxman, who claimed consecutive Oscars for “Sunset Boulevard” and “A Place in the Sun.”
Many of the composers were Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution, carrying with them a classical training that would fundamentally elevate Hollywood’s musical sophistication.
The studio system of the era—with eight major studios dominating the industry by the early thirties—provided a unique incubator for these transplanted talents.
“The interesting thing I think about the studio system is that it provided a kind of mentorship that really doesn’t exist on that scale anymore,” Marcus explained. “It gave immigrant and non-immigrant composers a chance to get into the system to work for Hollywood with relatively little risk in the beginning for many of them.”
This arrangement, however beneficial, came with notable constraints.
“The downside to that, perhaps, is that it really did feel for European composers [as if] they were working in a kind of factory, so it could really exhaust them. They felt their creative potential was often not being used to its fullest,” Marcus said.
The migration of these composers represents a poignant chapter in American cultural history, particularly resonant in today’s political climate.
“This demonization of immigrants that seems to be taking place in some circles, completely ignores the fact of how much immigrants have brought to this country,” Marcus observed. Many “saw horrific things” in Europe and had to “overcome the hatred, the animosity, the discrimination” while adapting to American culture.
Despite their profound influence on American film music, many of these composers received limited recognition during their lifetimes.
Some, like Hanns Eisler, were even “hounded by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)” in the late 1940s and subsequently vanished from public consciousness after departing Hollywood.
Marcus offered a nuanced assessment of Hollywood’s acknowledgement of these composers: “I think there’s sort of a yes and no to that answer. I think Hollywood has recognized a few, very few, immigrant composers, such as … [Max] Steiner and [Erich Wolfgang] Korngold, perhaps above all others.”
He credited Malcolm Cole, professor of musicology at UCLA, as being “especially instrumental in getting some of those who got much less attention” recognized, such as Eric Zeisl.
The program will also celebrate Max Steiner, often regarded as the “father of film music,” whose scores include “Gone with the Wind” and “Casablanca,” and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who won an Academy Award for “The Adventures of Robin Hood.”
The legacy of these immigrant composers extends into contemporary film composition. Marcus pointed out that they “brought their skills and taught students in Hollywood. John Williams is just one of those who learned from an immigrant composer [Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco] those skills that they could bring to their art form.”
Under the artistic direction of Rachael Worby, MUSE/IQUE has established itself through immersive, interdisciplinary musical performances of the widest range of musical genres.
“Welcome to the Dream Factory” continues this tradition, connecting music to broader historical narratives.
Both performances of “Welcome to the Dream Factory” at the Huntington Library have sold out, but tickets remain available at The Wallis on May 3, at 7:30 p.m and May 4, at 7:30 p.m. For more click here.
