Tune in Wednesday night when host Terry Klippenstein will have the complete Gone With the Wind soundtrack in the 8PM hour.

Charles Gerhardt conducts the National Philharmonic Orchestra in a one-movement high sound-quality suite prepared by Gerhard himself and George Korngold in the early Seventies, for complete symphonic orchesta.

The project had the approval of Max Steiner himself, though he died much before the production took place.

Not to be confused with the original Soundtrack recording nor with Max Steiner's own suite for smaller orchestra still available in a recording from the early Sixties with the London Sinfonietta.

This 44-minute suite, like a Symphonic Poem, includes without cuts a long summary of most of the themes used in the original soundtrack recording.

For many decades it was the most complete work regarding this beautiful music.

 

Gone With the Wind Film Score:

Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American epic-historical romance film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind.

It was produced by David O. Selznick of Selznick International Pictures and directed by Victor Fleming.

Set in the 19th-century American South, the film tells the story of Scarlett O'Hara, the strong-willed daughter of a Georgia plantation owner, from her romantic pursuit of Ashley Wilkes, who is married to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton, to her marriage to Rhett Butler. Set against the backdrop of the American Civil War and Reconstruction era, the story is told from the perspective of rich white Southerners.

The leading roles are portrayed by Vivien Leigh (Scarlett), Clark Gable (Rhett), Leslie Howard (Ashley), and Olivia de Havilland (Melanie).

To compose the score, Selznick chose Max Steiner, with whom he had worked at RKO Pictures in the early 1930s.

Warner Bros.—who had contracted Steiner in 1936—agreed to lend him to Selznick.

Steiner spent twelve weeks working on the score, the longest period that he had ever spent writing one, and at two hours and thirty-six minutes long it was also the longest that he had ever written.

Five orchestrators were hired, including Hugo Friedhofer, Maurice de Packh, Bernard Kaun, Adolph Deutsch and Reginald Bassett.

The score is characterized by two love themes, one for Ashley's and Melanie's sweet love and another that evokes Scarlett's passion for Ashley, though notably there is no Scarlett and Rhett love theme.

Steiner drew considerably on folk and patriotic music, which included Stephen Foster tunes such as "Louisiana Belle," "Dolly Day," "Ringo De Banjo," "Beautiful Dreamer," "Old Folks at Home," and "Katie Belle," which formed the basis of Scarlett's theme; other tunes that feature prominently are: "Marching through Georgia" by Henry Clay Work, "Dixie," "Garryowen" and "The Bonnie Blue Flag."

The theme that is most associated with the film today is the melody that accompanies Tara, the O'Hara plantation; in the early 1940s, "Tara's Theme" formed the musical basis of the song "My Own True Love" by Mack David.

In all, there are ninety-nine separate pieces of music featured in the score. Due to the pressure of completing on time, Steiner received some assistance in composing from Friedhofer, Deutsch and Heinz Roemheld, and in addition, two short cues—by Franz Waxman and William Axt—were taken from scores in the MGM library.