ABSTRACT

Right from its start, the career of Franz Waxman (1906–67) bridged the supposedly opposite worlds of ‘art music’ and ‘popular music’. Waxman quickly established himself as an orchestrator and composer in the German film and entertainment industry; only after emerging in the 1930s as one of Hollywood’s most prolific film composers did he decide to write expressly for the concert hall. Overlaps between music for film and for the concert hall play an important role in Waxman’s career, and his founding of the Los Angeles Music Festival in 1947 can be seen as evidence of Waxman’s crucial involvement in the musical life of the United States. This chapter highlights the importance of Waxman as a key figure in the international music industry. It includes an evaluation of the public perception of Waxman both as film composer and as composer/conductor/administrator for the concert hall; it includes as well a critical reading of various interviews in which Waxman deals with the apparent aesthetic discrepancy between concert music and film music.