Elmer Bernstein: #1 film music composer?

Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004) was born in New York, son of a Jewish dad who was a high-school music teacher in the Austrian Empire and mum was Jewish Ukrainian. He was educated at the Walden School NY and at New York Uni. He then went to Juilliard School of Music due to America's C20th great composer, Aaron Copland, wanting his protege Bernstein to go there. Elmer was no relative of Leonard Bernstein (1918-90), but they were friends & colleagues.

Elmer Bernstein Collection, 2010,

Amazon

Yet it was as a dancer that Bernstein began his working life, doubling as a concert pianist when the opportunities arose. At the same time he tried to earn a living as a painter and was also a small-time actor.

In WW2 he served in the U.S Army Air Force with Major Glenn Miller, arranging for Miller's famous Army Air Force Band and composing scores for military radio broadcasts. Luckily this led to the first serious compositions of his career.

In 1950 he began writing film music, and in 1952, he was demonstrating the drama and originality that later marked his works. These early works had included scores for new, growing United Nations radio programmes, tv and industrial documentaries. In Hollywood his first film was Saturday's Hero (1951), a university football film. After completing his film assignments, the composer became another in a long list of liberal professionals who Senator Joseph McCarthy saw a threat to the American way of life due to alleged Communist leanings. It was the time of the Red Scare and Bernstein's important thinking threatened his career activities in the mid 1950s. His scores then were for largely unremarkable films, and only one tv series was famous: Gunsmoke (1955)!

But he re-established his reputation with the very jazzy score for The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). The Frank Sinatra movie came that year as the rather less notable The View From Pompey's Head (1955), yet that film was just as significant in Elmer’s career. And he proved his versatility with his stir-ring music for The Ten Commandments (1956), one of the films where the music was more thrilling than the action. The album was an outstanding success, and his favourite project ever. Bernstein’s other notable scores included those for the Tony Curtis classic Sweet Smell of Success (1957) with Burt Lancaster, Some Came Running (1958) and Walk on the Wild Side (1962). The 1962-3 period was particularly notable and appropriately, in 1963-9 Bernstein worked as vice president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

The composer created these scores during a career that produced some of Hollywood’s most memorable film music. His original scores for films ranged over a wide variety of styles, with jazz, light musical comedies and especially westerns. He had such skill for the Western genre that over 15 years he wrote 6 scores starring John Wayne eg True Grit (1969) and The Shootist (1976).

violinist Isaac Stern, conductor Henri Temianka, composer Johnny Green 

with Elmer Bernstein, 1980

Bernstein adapted the style of his music to mirror the action of each particular film, and his scores were often seen as more notable than the films themselves. His works were viewed by many critics as great examples of contemporary music which was why Hollywood nominated him for an Oscar 14 times!! Yet he won only one Oscar for the sound-track score of Julie Andrews film Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). Nominations included the scores for Sinatra’s film The Man With The Golden Arm (1955), Summer and Smoke (1961), the film of Harper Lee's novel To Kill A Mockingbird (1966), Hawaii (1966) and Return of the Seven (1966). That the 12 months included not just To Kill a Mockingbird, but also Hud (1963) starring Paul Newman, the film that consolidated Steve McQueen's stardom.

The Chosen (1981), which could have become as a concert work, blended into the music style of the Hassidic tradition, presumably for Bernstein’s Brooklyn audience’s sake. Elmer's score was matched by great performances by Robby Benson, Barry Miller, Maximillian Schell and Rod Steiger.

I didn’t know the scores Bernstein wrote for two Broadway musicals, How Now, Dow Jones 1967 and Merlin (1983). Nor did I know his later films including Cape Fear (1991), The Grifters (1990) and Devil in a Blue Dress (1995). Readers should be able to check these out, if interested.

Bernstein was married twice, first to Pearl Glusman 1965, then to Eve Adamson; there were 4 children and 5 grandchildren. Elmer's son Peter Bernstein wrote Elmer Bernstein, Film Composer, revealing dad’s life from an intimate, behind-the-scenes perspective. Elmer had the drive needed to succeed in the very competitive Hollywood industry. In a busy career in 54 years, his many landmark scores were recognisable and loved everywhere.

He composed works for symphony orchestras, scores for tv programmes and the documentary The Making of the President 1960 won an Emmy Award. In 1974 he published Elmer Bernstein Film Music Collection, Animal House in 1978, Airplane! in 1980, box-office smash Ghostbusters 1984 and My Left Foot 1989.

Later in life, Elmer gained cult status among British football fans when his familiar old theme for The Great Escape (1963) was adopted by them and shared at matches. It became a symbol of unity and defiance, for me as well as for the soccer fans. Having written the scores for 200+ films, Elmer Bernstein was one of Hollywood's most prolific composers. He was also one of the small group of outstanding musicians who devoted their careers to the cinema. His roster included some of the most memorable film themes ever written, particularly scores for The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape. Both have been reworked into concert suites. He passed in 2004 at 82.

Some movie scores that Bernstein wrote

hamlette

The American Film Industry ranked Elmer Bernstein's score for The Magnificent Seven (1960) as the 8th greatest US film score and To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) as the 17th greatest US score for all time.

Boyd art dynasty of women - Shoalhaven

The Boyd art dynasty began with the marriage of Emma Minnie à Beckett & Arthur Merric Boyd in 1886. Both were already noted painters before their marriage. Their son Merric Boyd married artist Doris Gough in 1915 and their 5 children became artists: Lucy, Arthur, Guy, David, Mary. 

Arthur Boyd, Sleeping Bride, 1957

Queensland Art Gallery

Bundanon, the historic, handsome stone homestead 1866 on the Shoalhaven River is near Nowra on NSW’s south coast. It was sold by the Mackenzies to art dealer Frank McDonald. In 1971 McDonald invited Arthur & Yvonne Boyd to visit Bundanon where the couple fell in love with the area. Arthur and Yvonne Boyd’s deep connection to Bundanon shaped its legacy as a place of artistic inspiration. They purchased the property, making it home. Arthur’s studio offered a look at his artistic process, surrounded by the Shoalhaven landscape that clearly influenced his work. Their generosity ensured Bundanon would continue to inspire future generations, showcasing the Boyd family’s life and art, an Australia cultural landmark.

Bundanon, Shoalhaven

Arthur Boyd (1920–99) was dominant in Australian art history. He painted religious figures in the Australian landscape and white gums on the Shoalhaven River. While he was clearly one of Australia's most famous artists, his legacy runs beyond his work. In 1993, Arthur and Yvonne gave their 1000 hectares of bush and parkland to the public. They formed the Bundanon Trust in 1993 and Arthur's precious $43m collection was housed in new gallery.

Today it hosts his historic homestead, studio and art gallery including a collection of 1,200+ works by Arthur, his family and other artists, including Sidney Nolan and Brett Whiteley. The new exhibition tells Arthur’s story, the women in his family who encouraged him to become an artist and were artists themselves, as well as the generations of Boyd women artists. This survey of five generations of women artists is The Hidden Line: Art of the Boyd Women, open now at Bundanon Art Museum until mid Feb 2026.

A jug by Doris Boyd née Gough, Arthur's mother, was the first she ever made in 1915, at the Melbourne studio workshop shared with her husband, William Merric Boyd. See her painting style really translated from painting to ceramic, gesturing to watercolour and oil works by Doris that hang on the gallery wall. Often Doris worked with Merric on related pots: Merric made them from clay while she painted them, and then the couple took them to sell. To distinguish between ceramics painted by Merric or Doris, look for a Boyd blue or a Merric crazy handle. It drew attention to how Doris influenced and cultivated her son Arthur as a painter. She really helped him to be an artist; he thanked mum for her mentoring, care and financial support.

Emma Minnie Boyd née a' Beckett, Arthur's grandmother, was an artist who often painted watercolour landscapes. Supported by her mother, she also painted narrative and religious paintings, in watercolour and oil, and exhibited in London's Royal Academy. But the thrills from this c1914 watercolour demonstrated the experimentation and forward-thinking of the Boyd women. It had what she described as delicacy of colour and was packed with tiny details, like an abstract. This would be her working out something, almost privately. It was a study of how to look and see; to use watercolour and look at the landscape painted en plein air.

Yet "female" Emma Boyd wasn't allowed to join the Box Hill artists, including Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton, as they camped on outer Melbourne from the mid-1880s, painting rural landscapes. We think of en plein air painting as a European tradition, but it was the most obvious thing to do in Australia. The weather was good enough to sit outside, but also to show who Australians were. Exactly how the family all painted the works!

Melbourne Tram by Yvonne Boyd, 1944

Bundanon

Yvonne nee Lennie Boyd painted Melbourne Tram in 1944, the year before she married Arthur. They had met in drawing class 4 years earlier and later, Yvonne became Arthur's business manager and had their 3 children. In 1944 Yvonne was part of the tradition of Australian artists, including Albert Tucker, Sidney Nolan and Charles Blackman who used their art to illustrate the impact of the war. But rather than painting returned soldiers like Arthur did, Yvonne depicted the effect of the war on the people at home in Australia: immediate and domestic. 

Tessa Perceval (1947-), daughter of John Perceval & Mary Boyd, painted professionally since 1965 and was also included in the display. Celia Perceval (1949-) also developed her inspiration for art from her Perceval parents and their close artistic circle, including the Boyds and Nolans. In a lifestyle of en plein air painting, Celia focused upon the coastal bushlands of Australia. Heavily textured with exuberant colours, she showed harsh Australian wilderness with a dense, expressive brush.

Celia Perceval, River Gums, 1980

askART

The last descendant discussed here is Hermia née Lloyd-Jones (1931–2000), who married David Boyd in 1948, was an artist, writer and a Boyd dynasty member. Hermia was an Australian artist and writer worked together with David in Italy, England and France, before closing their last pottery workshop outside Melbourne in 1968. Then they focused instead on their individual practices: Hermia on etching and sculpture; David on painting.

Lucy Boyd Beck

Orpheus & Euridice, c1975

Bundanon Collection

lyrical Russian artist: Isaac Levitan

Lithuanian Isaac Ilyich Levitan (1860-1900) was born in Kovensky Province, into a poor but well-educated Jewish family. His fat­her was a rabbi and foreign language teacher, but financ­ially struggled to support his wife and four children. Thank you to Tretyakov Gallery Magazine for a series of excellent essays.

 Tsar Al­exander III (reigned 1881–1894) strengthened the Pale of Settlement Laws and en­sured the removal of all Jewish people living in large cities in Russia, especially Moscow, St Peters­burg and Kiev. Clearly life for many Russian Jews in the late 1800s was miserable, including for the Levitans. So the family wanted to move to Moscow… but Moscow was not within the Pale!!

Autumn Day Sokolniki 1879

Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Still, Isaac and his brother’s artistic interests were en­cour­ag­ed and both boys enrolled in Moscow’s School of Painting, Sculp­ture and Archit­ecture - Adolf in 1871 and Isaac in 1873. Sadly the children lost mum in 1875 and dad in 1877. Isaac was left penniless and homeless, sleeping either with relatives or in the Moscow Art School’s classrooms. Fortunately the School waived the rest of his tuit­ion fees.

His best teacher took him on as an apprent­ice, to provide monetary aid. Alexei Savrasov (1830–1897) was a patient teacher who headed the Landscape Dept at the Moscow School of Painting. He was also arguably the most expressive of the Russian landscape painters of the later C19th.

Another inspiration was Savrasov’s suc­cess­or Vasily Polen­ov (1844-1927), whose serene lyrical land­scapes rubbed off on the young Levitan. During his ten years at the Art School, Lev­itan was a regular visitor at Polenov’s country house. There he drew, painted and developed warm friendships.

Golden Autumn Slobodka, 1889
State Russian Museum, St Petersburg

Other key influences on Levitan’s style included the Rus­sian teacher Vasily Perov (1834–82), French painters of the Bar­b­­izon school of landscape painting, and poetic classical real­ist Camille Corot (1796-1875).  Examine eg Autumn Day Sokolniki 1879 where a woman was walking care­free in the country side near Moscow. Levitan’s attitude towards nature was akin to the works of Anton Chekhov, who had become his friend. Autumn Day Sokolniki, painted at 19, was bought by famous philanthropist-art coll­ector Pavel Tretyakov.

Autumn Landscape with Church, 1890
State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

One of Levitan’s pastels featured beautiful autumn yellows against a dull backdrop of greys and other weak colours. The Autumn Landscape, painted in 1890, showed the church in the background. It was bought by Pavel Tretyakov.

Of course Levitan’s passion for poetry and music were very important. Plus throughout his short life he was prone to depression. Out of these complex ex­periences, Levit­an’s "mood landscapes" took on a poetic and em­otional quality. 

Levitan first showed his work at an exhibition with Moscow’s Itinerant Wanderers, re­ceiving his first recognit­ion from the press. By 1884 the Wander­ers had offered Levitan full membership in their group, so he could exhibit regularly.

Even though Savrasov was fired as a lecturer due to his alcoh­ol­ism, Levitan continued to seek his advice. In 1883, Levitan was ready to graduate and expected to receive a first-class hon­our for one of his best landscape paintings. The diploma did not come but later Levitan began teaching landscape painting at the Moscow School of Painting.

 

Evening Church Bells 1892
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

In the mid 1880s Levitan’s finances improved. One of the best landscape artists among the progressive Itinerant Wand­erers, his main contribution to Russian art was atmos­pheric landscape, mastering colour and shade. Although the depiction of light was crucial to his com­pos­itions, Levitan was a realist rather than an Impress­ion­ist. 

Pastoral landscapes, human-free, were ch­aracteristic of his work. Though his late work displayed Impress­ionist elements, his palette was generally muted and Savrasovian. For examples of his landscapes, see Secluded Monastery 1890. The Road to Vladimir 1892 was a rare example of social hist­or­ical landscape and see evocative works like Evening Church Bells 1892, Golden Autumn 1895, Spring Flood 1897 and the small painting Reindeer 1895. All were bought by Pavel Tretyakov and are in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, a treasury of Russian fine art.

Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, 

GW2RU

Levit­an was interested in the writings of the new intellectual lumin­ar­ies, writing to Sergei Diaghilev that he lay for days in a forest and read pessimistic German philosopher Schopen­hauer. So we might have expected a hushed, almost melanch­olic reverie. Above the Eternal Peace 1894 showed the artist’s meditations about the transience of human being. Levit­an painted the infamous road, along which convicts were marched to Siberia.

Above Eternal Peace 1894
Tret­yakov Gal­lery

Levitan was an active participant in artistic life; he taught at the Moscow School of Painting, where had trained, was actively involved the Moscow Club of Lit­er­ature and Art, and exhibited regularly with the Munich Secession (1892).

Isaac Levitan’s career lasted for c20 years only, but within this short time he created more than other Rus­sian landscape painters. Levitan’s most famous late 1890s paint­ings include Even­ing on Volga, Spring High Water and others. Levitan did not join modern art and remained true to realism. See his quiet twi­lights, moon lit nights and sleeping villages eg Haystacks Twilight 1899 and Sunny Day 1898.

If his earlier works were intimate and lyrical, his mature art became philosophical, expressing his med­it­ation about man and the world. His last works were increas­ingly filled with light, reflecting tranquillity and the eternal beauty of his beloved Russian Motherland. These pictures were loved by the intellectuals of the time, for they rep­resented the purest specimen of the Russian mood landscape.

Levitan was single, though many women liked him. In 1900 he died at 39 and was buried in Moscow's old Jewish cemetery. He left 40 unfin­ished paintings and 300 sketches.

 

Reindeer 1895
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The Jewish population in Russia had grown to 5.6 million by the turn of the century, home of my own family. So I was always a Rus­s­ian tragic, now even more so. The work of Isaac Levitan belonged to the Golden Age of Russian culture, comparable with the works of such classics like Anton Chekhov, Pyotr Tchaik­ovsky and Kon­st­antin Stanislavsky. A Tel Aviv street was named after Isaac Lev­itan. Lots of his works, less known in Russia today, are now displayed in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

 

Isaac Levitan, photographed 1880s.

Smithfield Meat Market London. Keep!!

Thanks to Ted Geier for the amazing history of Smithfield Market, London. The first written record of a weekly live stock market was 1174. Thomas Becket’s clerk described the area as a smooth field where there was a weekly sale of fine cows horses, swine and huge oxen. Animals were walked to Smithfield, were fattened up and sold. The slaughtering would then take place inside the City walls, at Newgate Shambles or Eastcheap, but in the 1300s the slaughter of animals moved to Smithfield, next to the River Fleet. A 1327 charter issued by Edward II made Smithfield London’s oldest meat market.

St Barts Hospital opened in 1123, the world’s oldest hospital. Just next door to the market, it was an important resource (and NB St Bartholomew was the patron saint of butchers). And Smithfield was a popular with the public in the medieval period for football, wrestling, archery, jousting & executions. The Elms at Smithfield is London’s oldest execution site; William Braveheart Wallace being hanged in 1305; Wat Tyler, leader of 1381 Peasant Revolt, was beheaded there; and where hundreds of Protestants were burnt at the stake for Queen Mary I in 1555-8. So the City’s bloody past was largely state-imposed! Tyburn Tree was the infamous gallows spot, now called Marble Arch.

Jones designed a dead meat building to house all services under one roof

Facebook

Animals trotted to the site from the Midlands in the medieval era; by C16th, cattle and sheep drovers linked Wales and Scotland to Smithfield. As the city’s population grew over time, the market also grew. 2,000,000 sheep and 200,000 cows were annually taken to Smithfield by mid C19th, causing horrid noise, unsanitary & congested, filth over flowing into the surrounding lanes.

The livestock market was later seen as unsuitable in this location and in 1852, the Smithfield Market Removal Act was passed, prompting the live cattle market to be relocated to Islington. 3 years later, the Bartholomew Fair was closed for good. Having brought cloth trading and all manner of revelry to Smithfield since 1133, it became a threat to public order! A growing criticism brought Smithfield into contempt for all its noise and stink, especially when London’s under-ground transit system was extended to Farringdon in 1863!

Smithfield was home to ancient professional guilds. Worshipful Co. of Butchers was based at Bartholomew Close since starting in c975, its members often heavily involved in City politics, including opposing the Removal Act of 1852. The Butchers was the only old trade organisation to remain active; other Livery Companies lived on as charities.

And Smithfield has a central place in the history of animal welfare law. The Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act of 1822 aimed to prevent the cruel treatment of cattle. Often cited as the first piece of animal rights legislation in the world, it arose partly from animal abuse at Smithfield. Father Arthur Broome, who co-founded the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals-RSPCA 200 years ago, personally paid for market inspectors to monitor animal abuse.

The name Smithfield came from Smooth Field, the smooth grassy fields that once lay on the banks of the River Fleet. It was one of London’s lost rivers, that still flows underground beneath Farringdon Road. Note Charles Dickens described it thus: the ground was covered nearly ankle-deep with filth and mire; and a thick steam perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily above. Countrymen, butchers and drovers, mingled in a dense mass: drovers whistling, dogs barking, beasts bellowing, and hawkers shouting loudly.

Meat shops

The Conversation

Later Smithfield had no live animals so a state-of-the art New Market Building was needed. Horace Jones, City of London’s Architect and Surveyor, was commissioned to design it in 1866, and later he went on to design Billingsgate Market building, Leadenhall Market and then notably Tower Bridge. Billingsgate fish market, marked for closure in the same Corporation vote, will also stay.

Horace Jones' designed a wonderful entrance 

Building Design

The Victorian market he designed was functional AND beautiful, with its intricate and colourful design. The East and West market buildings were designed, opening in 1868. The design was state-of-the-art, using a lot of cast iron and glass to keep the market cool, crucial for meat and to maintain cleanliness. And revolutionary in that it was built over the first underground railway-line.

Metropolitan freight trains delivered meat into Jones’ huge basement of brick arches and iron girders. The meat was brought up to ground level for sale via hydraulic lift, or spiral ramp outside. It sits over a cross-section of 3 railway lines, one from the Chatham & Dover Railway, and one heading Eastwards. The impressive ramp leads down to the underground carpark below the rotunda. A Poultry Market structure followed in 1875 (and rebuilt post-fire in 1958) and the General Market building in 1883.

Meat rationing era which ended in 1954

Conversation

Smithfield Market was closed in WW2. The Government did not want crowds in buildings that were easily recognisable from the air. The decentralisation of meat stores ended to Smithfield’s trading and in 1942, the Poultry Market was damaged by a German bomb. In 1954 rationing on meat was lifted and Smithfield Market was back to normal. Meat then came from Australia, N.Zealand, Africa and Sth America, brought by rail via unloading bays underneath the building. The great displays of carcasses and the grand cast iron structure of Horace Jones’ building were restored. Lots of the businesses were still family run, often for generations. Visit the whole-sale meat market by day and admire the beautiful Victorian architecture. Or visit at 6.30am, at the end of the market’s very busy night activities.

In 2024 City of London Corporation voted to withdraw financial support for Smithfield Market, inspiring a petition to Protect Our Heritage and declarations in the British press that the soul of London will be butchered. At stake, defenders say, is a living legacy of meat trade that began there 1,000+ years ago, and the site of a rich seam of British history. But the market’s history was always one of change, involving shifts in justice, taste, hygiene and civic order.

The oldest meat and fish markets in London, now 850 years old, face permanent closure in 2028. Smithfield meat market, near St Paul's Cathedral, and Billingsgate fish market in Canary Wharf, are to be closed after the City of London Corporation voted to withdraw support. Work has already begun, turning this site into a new cultural and commercial hub, including the new permanent galleries of London Museum. Some of the disused buildings in the complex are already being restored.

Smithfield meat market’s Christmas Eve auction

ianvisits

The Christmas Eve sell-off dates back pre-refrigeration days when customers would buy as close to Christmas as possible. Meat dealers also needed to sell off everything before the Christmas shutdown. Enthusiastic customers can still pick up a fantastic financial deal each Christmas Eve.