Screen Gems

Composer Frank Lewin has released a collection of his film and TV music from the ’60s.

By: Anthony Stoeckert
   If you watched television in the 1960s, there’s a good chance you’ve heard the music of Frank Lewin. Before the industry headed out to California in the middle of that decade, Mr. Lewin wrote music for such shows as The Defenders and The Nurses. He also scored numerous feature films and documentaries.
   It’s easy to overlook music written for TV shows that are more than 40 years old, but Mr. Lewin, who was a professor of music at Yale and Columbia, is just as proud of his film and television work as the symphonies and opera he’s written. A collection of that music, Film Music, is now available through Albany Records.
   Mr. Lewin started out editing scores for The Defenders, using canned music from Europe. When that practice stopped because of union concerns, Mr. Lewin started writing original scores for the series. The producers then hired him to write the music for their new series, The Nurses.
   Writing music for a TV series takes more than writing a catchy theme song. Mr. Lewin wrote individual scores for each episode of those two series, and estimates he composed 130 scores over two years.
   "We had this wonderful opportunity of writing for two shows," Mr. Lewin says from his Princeton home. "We had recording sessions with the best musicians in New York. Sometimes, we recorded three shows at the same time; they were fairly long sessions. It was a wonderful time."
   What made it wonderful was the freedom he was given. Episodes would be sent to him on film and he made all the decisions regarding the music. That came from the nature of the TV business. By the time Mr. Lewin started writing the music, the producers were shooting the next episode.
   "I determined where the music should be and, of course, what it should be," he says. "And the great thing was, in that process, I started to experiment with unusual instruments." Those included a contrabass clarinet and a bass oboe — "things you don’t usually hear," he says. Other instruments that can be heard in his scores include a calliope (the instrument you hear on a carousal is run by steam, but Mr. Lewin used a vacuum cleaner to create the sound for a circus-themed scene) and an electrical sitar.
   "In New York, you open up a union book, you can find a player for almost any instrument," Mr. Lewin says. The freedom he was given and the musicians who were available with a phone call provided the musical equivalent of a great toy set.
   "Nobody told me what to do," he says. "It obviously worked, otherwise they would have canned me."
   When asked if there was a perception that music written for television and film might not be considered as worthy as other types of music, Mr. Lewin is quick to answer "no." To him, writing music is a craft and the scores he composed for television are an important part of his life.
   "To me, it’s an assignment," he says. "I pride myself in the fact that I never (took it lightly). I put everything into it."
   All these years later, the collected music has a flow to it, as if you’re listening to one continuous piece. That was the result of going through hours of music he keeps stored in his studio, selecting pieces and arranging them in a way that connected the previously unrelated selections together.
   The first disk of Film Music is comprised of "dramatic" scores written for films and television. The second represents music written for documentaries, which Mr. Lewin says is something quite different.
   "If you really come down to it, a dramatic film doesn’t need music," he says. "There are directors with whom I worked who only asked me to write music that comes directly from the screen, somebody playing in a band or something. They don’t believe in underscoring, which is sort of prompting the audience what to feel about a scene."
   Because many documentaries don’t have much sound to them, they require continuous music. Another challenge for Mr. Lewin was making the music flow for documentaries, in which images don’t always connect as smoothly as a narrative film.
   "Sometimes things are put next to each other that basically have no connection," Mr. Lewin says of scoring documentaries. "So the music’s job then is to sort of knit it together, so that the whole thing flows. The individual parts may be quite disparate."
   The true-life format also allowed for its share of experimentation. A film about a certain country offered the chance to use the nation’s folk music. Sometimes, instead of making standard music, Mr. Lewin created what can be better described as sounds to accompany the action on screen. This effect is heard on the fourth selection on the documentary disc, "Micro" which Mr. Lewin says, "sounds like machines making music."
   Something else that stands out about Film Music is the range of moods represented in its selections. When asked if it was difficult to write music for a happy scene if he was in a bad mood, Mr. Lewin laughs off the suggestion.
   "That’s one of the great fallacies, when people try to find in the music what might be the mood of the composer or his feelings or his tragedies or what have you," he says. "Writing music is an intellectual activity, I believe that very strongly. You have to think about it, you have to put down notes on paper, you have to have the orchestration. At that point, your own feelings do not enter into it. You’re trying to represent the feelings of the film, of the song, whatever the subject matter is. It’s an old story that you don’t have to be crucified in order to write Passion music."
   Mr. Lewin was born in Breslau, Germany, in 1925 in a household of music lovers. He attended a few operas with his father in Germany before Jews were prohibited from attending theater and opera.
   In 1938, his father was placed in a concentration camp. The family was able to get him out by arranging passage out of Germany. After spending a year in Cuba (an experience the teenage Mr. Lewin enjoyed) the family came to America. Mr. Lewin attended high school in New Rochelle, N.Y., and began playing in bands. He worked various jobs during the day and studied music at night before embarking on a professional career in composing and teaching.
   Since losing his eyesight about 10 years ago, Mr. Lewin has stopped writing and has devoted his time to cataloging his music by transferring the original tapes to digital. He also finished various projects, such as recording Burning Bright, his opera based on John Steinbeck’s novel and play.
   At 81, he continues to work. He’s finishing the recording of a viola concerto he wrote in 1965. The orchestra part was recorded some years ago in Bulgaria and the viola part was recently recorded, with Brett Deubner of the New Jersey Symphony playing the viola.
   That’s led to another project, recording a concerto he wrote for harmonica years ago. The piece was written for four-octave chromatic harmonica and was going to be recorded by John Sebastian, the classical harmonica player (also the father of the John Sebastian of The Lovin’ Spoonful fame). The piece was converted to viola concerto by Mr. Deubner, and Mr. Lewin expects it will be recorded soon.
   Mr. Lewin enjoys revisiting his old music, some of which he hasn’t heard in 40 years. "I listen and say, ‘Hey, that’s pretty good.’" He has no regrets about not being able to write anymore, and appreciates the opportunities he’s had.
   "I always wanted to write music," he says. "I’m lucky because not only did I know what I wanted to do but I was able to do it."
Film Music by Frank Lewin is available through Albany Records. For information,
call (518) 436-8814. On the Web: www.albanyrecords.com