film score

When four top film studio musicians formed the Hollywood String Quartet in the late 1930s, its name was presumed an oxymoron. Exalted string quartet devotees belittled film soundtracks, while studio heads had a reputation for shunning classical music longhairs.

The musicians spent two intense years in rehearsal before disbanding when war broke out, and the quartet was brought back together in 1947 by two of its founders, Felix Slatkin (concertmaster of 20th ^{Century Fox Studio Orchestra) and his wife, Eleanor Aller (principal cellist of the Warner Bros. Studio Orchestra). Oxymoron or not, Hollywood produced the first notable American string quartet.}

Throughout the 1950s, the ensemble made a series of revelatory LPs for Capitol Records performing the late Beethoven string quartets and much else, while also joining Frank Sinatra in his torchy classic, “Close to You.” Everything that the Hollywood String Quartet touched was distinctive; every recording remains a classic.

The legacy of the Hollywood String Quartet is a celebration of Hollywood genre-busting and also of string quartet making. Today, the outstanding Lyris Quartet is one of many outstanding string quartets who can be heard in the latest blockbusters. Another is the New Hollywood String Quartet, which is devoting its annual four-day summer festival to honoring its inspiration as it celebrates its 25th ^anniversary.

The quartet’s festival began Thursday night and runs through Sunday in San Marino at the Huntington’s Rothenberg Hall. The repertory is taken from the earlier group’s old recordings. And the concerts are introduced by Slatkin and Aller’s oldest son, who as a young boy fell asleep to his parents and their colleagues rehearsing in his living room after dinner.

Conductor Leonard Slatkin speaks at the New Hollywood String Quartet concert at the Huntington.

(New Hollywood String Quartet)

The celebrated conductor Leonard Slatkin credits his vociferous musical appetite to his parents, who, he said Thursday, enjoyed the great scores written in this golden age of movie music and also championed new classical music as well as the masterpieces of the past. L.A. had no opera company in those days, and Slatkin said his parents likened film scores to modern opera scores.

Just about everyone has heard his parents in one film or another. Take “Jaws,” which is celebrating its 50th ^{anniversary. That’s Aller’s cello evoking John Williams’ shark-scary earworm.}

You’ve no doubt heard New Hollywood violinists Tereza Stanislav and Rafael Rishik, violist Robert Brophy and cellist Andrew Shulman on some movie. IMDb counts Brophy alone as participating on 522 soundtracks. You might also have heard one or more of the musicians in the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Opera Orchestra or Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The New Hollywood String Quartet, from left: Rafael Rishik, Andrew Shulman, Tereza Stanislav and Robert Brophy.

(Sam Muller)

The New Hollywood’s programming may not encompass the original quartet’s range, but it is nonetheless a mixed selection of pieces that have somewhat fallen by the wayside, such as Borodin’s Second String Quartet. The original quartet’s performances and swashbuckling recording of the Borodin surely caught the attention of L.A. director Edwin Lester. In 1953 Lester created and premiered the musical “Kismet,” which adapts parts of the Borodin quartet, for Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, before it went on to be a hit on Broadway.

Times have changed and the New Hollywood brings a more robust tone and more overt interaction to its effusive interpretation compared with the silken and playful Slatkin and crew, who were all Russian-trained players. Hugo Wolf’s short “Italian Serenade,” which opened the program, was here lush and Italianate, while on an early 1950s disc it dances more lightly.

The big work was César Franck’s Piano Quintet. Slatkin noted that the recording, released in 1955, didn’t sell well, probably thanks to the album cover’s saturnine painting of a composer that few would recognize. Slatkin also noted that his parents weren’t enamored of their performance, but then again, he explained that they were temperamentally ever ready to find fault.

That recording, which features his uncle, Victor Aller, a graceful pianist, is slow and commanding. Jean-Yves Thibaudet was the right guest in every way for the big-boned performance at the Huntington. He is a French pianist with a flair for German music, well suited for the Belgian French composer’s Wagner-inspired score.

Thibaudet is also a longtime L.A. resident and an especially versatile performer who happens to be featured on the new soundtrack recording of Dario Marianelli’s “Pride & Prejudice,” which tops Billboard’s classical and classical crossover charts. He and Slatkin also go back decades, having performed together and become such good friends that the conductor turned pages for him in the Franck.

Seeing the 80-year-old Slatkin onstage evoked a remarkable sense of history, reminiscent of the roots to L.A.’s musical openness that his parents represented. On my drive home Thursday, I couldn’t resist following the route Albert Einstein would have taken after practicing his violin when he lived a 12-minute bike ride away during his Caltech years — the time Slatkin’s parents were making music history at the studios. Like them, Einstein played with the L.A. Philharmonic (although invited once not because he was a good violinist but because he was Einstein).

The New Hollywood and Thibaudet made no effort to relive the past in Franck’s quintet. Instead, in their opulence and expressive explosiveness, they showed Hollywood how to produce a remake that’s magnificent.

In the meantime, Leonard Slatkin, who is a former music director of the L.A. Phil at the Hollywood Bowl, returns later this month to the venue where his parents met in 1935 at a Hollywood Bowl Symphony competition. He will conduct a July 24 program that includes a recent work by the next generation of Slatkins. His son, Daniel, is a film and television composer.

NEW YORK — Charles Strouse, the three-time Tony Award winner and Broadway master melody-maker who composed the music for “Annie,” “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Applause,” died Thursday. He was 96.

Strouse died at his home in New York City, his family said.

In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Strouse wrote more than a dozen Broadway musicals, as well as film scores and “Those Were the Days,” the theme song for the sitcom “All in the Family.”

Strouse turned out such popular — and catchy — show tunes as “Tomorrow,” the optimistic anthem from “Annie,” and the equally cheerful “Put on a Happy Face” from “Bye Bye Birdie,” his first Broadway success.

“I work every day. Activity — it’s a life force,” the New York-born composer told the Associated Press during an interview on the eve of his 80th birthday in 2008. “When you enjoy doing what you’re doing, which I do very much, I have something to get up for.”

Deep into his 90s, he visited tours of his shows and met casts. Jenn Thompson, who appeared in the first “Annie” as Pepper and directed a touring version of “Annie” in 2024, recalls Strouse coming to auditions and shedding a tear when a young girl sang “Tomorrow.” She said: “He’s so gorgeously generous and kind. He has always been that way.”

His Broadway career began in 1960 with “Bye Bye Birdie,” which Strouse wrote with lyricist Lee Adams and librettist Michael Stewart. “Birdie,” which starred Dick Van Dyke and Chita Rivera, told the tale of an Elvis Presley-like crooner named Conrad Birdie being drafted into the Army and its effect on one small Ohio town.

Strouse not only wrote the music, but he played piano at auditions while Edward Padula, the show’s neophyte producer, tried to attract financial backers for a production that would eventually cost $185,000.

“We never stopped giving auditions — and people never gave money at all. The idea of using rock ‘n’ roll — everybody was so turned off,” Strouse said.

Finally, Padula found Texas oilman L. Slade Brown. When he heard the score, he said, in a Texas twang, “I like those songs,” pushed Strouse aside and picked out the tune of “Put on a Happy Face” on the piano.

Brown then said, “How much do you fellas need?” and wrote out a check for $75,000 to cover the start of rehearsals. “Suddenly, the world turned Technicolor,” Strouse remembered.

The popularity of “Birdie” spawned a film (with Van Dyke, Janet Leigh and Ann-Margret) in 1963 and a television adaptation with Jason Alexander and Vanessa Williams in 1995.

Strouse and Adams gave several non-musical theater stars, including Sammy Davis Jr. and Lauren Bacall, stage successes for “Golden Boy” and “All About Eve,” respectively.

But it was “Annie” (1977) that proved to be Strouse’s most durable — and long-running — Broadway hit (over 2,300 performances). Chronicling the Depression-era adventures of the celebrated comic strip character Little Orphan Annie, the musical featured lyrics by Martin Charnin and a book by Thomas Meehan.

It starred Andrea McArdle as the red-haired moppet and Dorothy Loudon, who won a Tony for her riotous portrayal of mean Miss Hannigan, who ran the orphanage. The musical contained gems such as “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile” and “It’s the Hard Knock Life.”

The 1982 film version, which featured Carol Burnett in Loudon’s role, was not nearly as popular or well-received. A stage sequel called “Annie Warbucks” ran off-Broadway in 1993. The show was revived on Broadway in 2012 and made into a film starring Quvenzhané Wallis in 2014. NBC put a version on network TV in 2021 called “Annie Live!”

Strouse and Charnin, who both won Grammy Awards for the “Annie” cast album, found shards of their work included in Jay-Z’s 1998 Grammy-winning album “Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life.”

“Tomorrow” has been heard on soundtracks from “Shrek 2″ to “Dave” to “You’ve Got Mail.” In 2016, Lukas Graham used parts of the chorus from “Annie” for his “Mama Said” hit.

Strouse had his share of flops, too, including two shows — “A Broadway Musical” (1978) and “Dance a Little Closer,” a 1983 musical written with Alan Jay Lerner, that closed after one performance. Among his other less-than-successful musicals were “All-American” (1962), starring Ray Bolger, “It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman” (1966), directed by Harold Prince, and “Bring Back Birdie” (1981), a sequel to “Bye Bye Birdie.”

Among Strouse’s film scores were the music for “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) and “The Night They Raided Minsky’s” (1968).

Theater beckoned when he and Adams got a chance in the early 1950s to write songs for weekly revues at an Adirondacks summer camp called Green Mansions. Such camps were the training ground for dozens of performers and writers.

“I would write a song and I would orchestrate it and copy the parts,” he said in the AP interview. “And rehearsal was the next day at nine, so at four in the morning, I am crossing the lake with the parts still wet. I just loved it. I never was happier.”

His wife, Barbara, died in 2023. He is survived by four children, Ben, Nick, Victoria and William.

Kennedy writes for the Associated Press.