Review | Cine-Symphonics Shine at the Santa Barbara Granada

In what may be a tradition in the making, the Santa Barbara Symphony (SBS) once again went to the movies, in the shadow of Oscar time. A year ago, we got a hearty meal of music by John Williams, sans film clips. Last weekend, the cinema theme was given a broader, more historically pitched perspective in a program of (mostly) Oscar-winning film scores from early in the very existence of film music, dubbed “An Oscar Celebration!”

This time out, to its great advantage, the screen above the Granada stage sprang to life with the film scenes, to which the composers created their handiwork. We had the specific sight-sound synthesis before eyes and ears to appreciate the dynamism of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s rousing orchestral intelligence for his work on The Adventures of Robin Hood, Max Steiner’s well-crafted tensions in Gone with the Wind’s burning of Atlanta scene, and Miklós Rózsa’s iconic tragic-heroic inventions for Ben-Hur.

Part of the special chemistry of this symphony performing film scores is personnel-centric: Many of its members are Los Angelenos who play film score sessions by day, and whose playing has literally been heard by millions in theaters and streaming everywhere. That said, we can safely report that none of the Symphony’s extant roster was around for film scoring gigs for the mostly 1930-1950s-era films in focus on this program.

In a genuine way, the program — crisply conducted by guest maestro Constantine Kitsopoulos — gave a rare and fascinating spotlight to the critical importance of music in cinema, and involved a certain reversal of roles, in which the music was elevated from the background to center stage, quite literally. For fans of film music (or should we say “music for films?”), we got a satisfying sense of evening up the score, so to speak.

With Rózsa’s stirring Ben-Hur score, for instance, music that tended to be obscured by sound effects and other distractions in the film was played in all its innate and upfront splendor onstage. The one on-screen piece came with Oscar Levant’s hilarious and gregarious scenes as soloist, conductor, and more, in Gershwin’s An American in Paris.

As a ripe and suitable endgame to the evening, the orchestra presented a four-scene segment from The Wizard of Oz, with its Herbert Stothart–composed score gaining intrigue in the illuminating flow of a live orchestral reading. Of particular interest was a surreally gymnastic scene cut from the film, with Ray Bolger’s elastic Scarecrow making some gravity-defying moves. The program’s moderator, the glitteringly outfitted Leslie Zemeckis, got a bit emotional in her introduction to the segment: “Santa Barbara has weathered many storms, and we feel blessed to live here. We can all relate to Dorothy when she says, ‘There’s no place like home.’”

The one film score on the program that was not kissed by an Oscar (a flagrant snubbing) was Bernard Herrmann’s classic score for Orson Welles’s masterpiece Citizen Kane, the greatest of all American films (says me). The music also has the distinction of standing up on its own as concert music apart from the visual element. At the Granada, the orchestra performed just the bookends of the film, the prelude and postlude regarding the meaning of “Rosebud,” with music of funereal, Wagnerian elegance. They don’t write ‘em like that anymore.