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- Franz Waxman
The Pioneer Suite (1951)
- Fidelio Music Publishing (World)
- 2(I:bfl;II:pic).2(II:ca).3(III:bcl).1+cbn/4.3.3.1/timp.3perc/hp.pf(cel)/str
- 10 min 22 s
Programme Note
Movements
Red Mountain
Cimarron
The Indian Fighter
Note
Franz Waxman selected his music from three motion pictures with a common theme – the opening of the western frontier of the United States for settlement by pioneers in the last half of the 19th century.
The Pioneer Suite opens with music from William Dieterle/John Farrow’s Red Mountain (Paramount, 1951) and follows the Alan Ladd character through the stormy period following the Civil War. With a change in mood, the music from Cimarron (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1960), directed by Anthony Mann, is heard. Based on Edna Ferber’s novel, the film chronicles the settlement of the Oklahoma territory in 1889 (as portrayed on screen by Glenn Ford, Maria Schell, and Anne Baxter). The suite concludes with sweeping music from Andre De Toth’s The Indian Fighter (United Artists, 1955). In this western, the search for gold (by characters played by Kirk Douglas, Walter Matthau, and Elsa Martinelli) leads to peace among the untamed beauty of the far west.