Mischa Spoliansky's 'Saint Joan,' and More

Mischa Spoliansky

The Russian-born composer Mischa Spoliansky (1898-1985) has made a few appearances here, but this is the first post entirely devoted to one of his scores, and its a good one - music for the 1957 film of Shaw's Saint Joan.

In addition to the music from that film, I have two other Spoliansky posts that may be of interest: one involves Patrice Munsel songs from the 1954 Melba biopic, the other a fascinating set of songs Spoliansky wrote for Paul Robeson. Details follow.

Saint Joan

LP cover, based on Saul Bass' title design

The George Bernard Shaw play Saint Joan was first produced in 1923, but it wasn't turned into a film for more than three decades. An earlier film on the same subject, 1948's Joan of Arc with Ingrid Bergman, was based not on Shaw but on a Maxwell Anderson drama.

Producer-director Otto Preminger cast the unknown Jean Seberg in the title role of Saint Joan, claiming to have tested the absurd total of 18,000 people for the role. In the end, neither the film nor the actor (or screenwriter Graham Greene) won favor with the critics, although the production is more highly regarded these days. Seberg confessed, "I have two memories of Saint Joan. The first was being burned at the stake in the picture. The second was being burned at the stake by the critics. The latter hurt more."

Lobby card

Seberg had the misfortune of beginning her career in a role that had been championed on the stage by such famed actors as Sybil Thorndike, Katharine Cornell and Uta Hagen. When Preminger was filming Seberg, Siobhán McKenna was appearing as Saint Joan in a New York production of Shaw's play. (McKenna can be heard in an LP adaptation available on Internet Archive.)

Despite this critical drubbing, Seberg did go on to star in several noted films, including Preminger's Bonjour Tristesse in 1958 (Georges Auric's score for this film is available here) and Godard's Breathless in 1960.

The download includes any number of production photos and other ephemera from Saint Joan. I am particularly fond of the publicity photo below of Richard Widmark as the Dauphin, looking devious and addled, as Widmark's characters were wont to look.

Richard Widmark in scheming mode

Saint Joan featured a superior score by Spoliansky, who had been resident in England since the mid-30s. (The production was mounted at Shepperton Studios, near London.) The composer, born in Russia, had migrated to Germany in 1914. He achieved some renown as a songwriter and pianist in Berlin, then moved on to England upon the accession of the Nazis.

Spoliansky was a gifted melodist; his Saint Joan music is testimony to his facility. At least on the evidence presented by the LP, he spends little time with the thunderous scoring then characteristic of period epics, and makes no effort to simulate 15th century music. Any "antique" touches are contributed by harpsichord and organ music that would be more at home in the 17th century than the 15th.

Despite these anachronisms, Spoliansky's work - starting with the gorgeous theme music - is entirely enjoyable, and the sound is excellent mono. I believe this is still the single most extended example of his film music available. A 2009 Spoliansky compilation from Chandos consists of bits and pieces from many films; from this score, it includes only the Toccatina for organ.

On this LP, the organist for the Toccatina is the famed George Thalben-Ball (identified by Capitol as H. Thalben-Ball). That piece is thought to have been recorded in his Temple Church.

Spoliansky's Songs for Paul Robeson

Shortly after Spoliansky moved to London, Alexander Korda commissioned him to provide music for an adaptation of Edgar Wallace's Sanders of the River. The composer wrote four superb songs for the magnificent Paul Robeson, one of the film's leads.

HMV issued the songs on 78 in 1935, and I've newly added them to my singles blog, where you can read more about the production and Robeson's denunciation of the final film as colonialist propaganda.

Spoliansky's Songs for Melba

RCA Victor's 10-inch LP of music for Melba, Hollywood's fanciful story of Nellie Melba's life, has been available on this site for many years. Strangely, RCA did not include any of Spoliansky's music on the album, even the titular "Melba Waltz." When I first posted the LP, added a copy of Victor Young's Decca recording of the waltz as a bonus.

Now, thanks to Internet Archive, I've discovered that RCA did record the "Melba Waltz" along with Spoliansky's "Is This the Beginning of Love?", but only issued them on a single, with Melba star Patrice Munsel as vocalist on both sides.

I've now added these songs to the Melba package, and revised and augmented the post otherwise. You can find it here.

More Spoliansky

Last year I prepared a expanded set of contemporary recordings of music for mid-century British films, building on an earlier post. That compilation included music from three Spoliansky scores: his "A Voice in the Night" from Wanted for Murder (one of the most effective of the many quasi-romantic film concertos of the period), along with his music from Idol of Paris and That Dangerous Age.

The set also encompasses music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Allan Gray, Lord Berners, Arthur Benjamin, Arnold Bax, William Alwyn and Richard Addinsell. It's available here.