Copland on Hollywood

This chapter provides a critical discussion on Copland’s writings about film music, particularly the lecture he delivered at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) but also in his other publications, such as his book What to Listen for in Music and his articles in the popular press. In the MoMA lecture, a reflection of Copland’s initial experiences in Hollywood composing the score for Lewis Milestone’s film Of Mice and Men, he provides a critical assessment of Hollywood’s industrial enterprise and contemporary film composers such as Max Steiner, George Antheil, Ernst Toch, Warner Jansen, and Alfred Newman. Copland’s later writings present a synthesized and theoretic approach to the varied functions of music in film that became influential in subsequent film music scholarship.