By JASON COMERFORD

Composer Franz Waxman was one of several European immigrants working steadily in film music from the 1930s onward whose work, ironically or not, came to define the classic Hollywood sound. Waxman made a big splash with his very first American assignment: 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein. James Whale’s sequel to his 1931 original is a genuine film classic, spiked with satirical wit and dark romanticism, and Waxman’s dynamic music gives it a grandly theatrical charge, no more so than in its climactic moments. The ten-minute “The Creation” cue is the score’s keystone: Waxman’s three primary themes are nimbly interwoven over a steady, lumbering drumbeat, the music accelerating to operatic heights as Elsa Lanchester’s newborn Bride rejects her prospective suitor – to disastrous results.

Waxman’s score helped define the sleek, atmospheric style of a spate of Universal horror releases that followed in Bride’s wake, including entries in the Dracula, Wolf Man, and Invisible Man series. Bride of Frankenstein was a critical and commercial success, and Waxman went on to continue a long and fruitful musical career; he later won Oscars for Sunset Boulevard and A Place in the Sun, and his “Carmen Fantasie,” based on themes from Bizet’s Carmen ballet, continues to be a popular part of the concert-hall repertoire.

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