1909

Thomas Edison films include printed sheets of "suggestions for music", mainly from the classical repertoire. The suggestions would be for sheet music which could be purchased and/or tunes improvised form memory by silent film accompanists. [J.I.M. 12/96, p. 39]

Sam Fox Publishing of Cleveland, Ohio began its long involvement in supplying library music, in the form of sheet music folio books of motion picture music. [J.I.M. 12/96, p. 39] Among the contributors to this book which had compositions named for the type of screen action, are John Stepan Zamecnik. [S.D. Public Library.]

DeWolfe Publishers in London offer a sheet music library of original compositions to accompany silent films. [J.I.M. 12/96, p. 39]

Guiseppe Becce sets up a sheet music library called "Kinothek" in Berlin, Germany to aid silent film accompanists.Among the composers who write for it are Hans May, who later contributes to the Harmonic Library of recorded music in the 1940s. [J.I.M. 12/96, p. 39] Another contributor was Hungarian-born Sandor Totis (aka: Alexander Laszlo), who started his own production music libraries in the US in the early 1950s. [Laszlo Collection, UWYO]

1928

The Brunswick Record Company in the US begins to produce the first "Mood Accompaniment Library" of 495 discs on 10" and 12" 78rpm singles. Although the discs were of standard classical works and popular tunes of the day, suggestions were made for their use in accompanying films and theatre productions. [J.I.M. 12/96, p. 39]

The Columbia Record Company in London publishes a catalog which includes suggestions for which of its (mainly classical) recordings might be used for various incidental music situations of early films. Subsequent editions are also published in 1931. [J.I.M. 12/96, p. 39]

Two music publishers in England: Bosworth and Boosey & Hawkes begin creating records of compositions from their catalog which more closely reflect the realistic needs of radio drama and film production. These are generally considered to be the first true "Mood Music" libraries. Although they include some classical works, what sets them apart is that they also have original pieces from the publisher's catalog from the pen of those composers who become known later for their "Light Music" talents. [J.I.M. 12/96, p. 39]

The Boosey & Hawkes Recorded Music library was founded in London by publishing partner Ralph Hawkes. Already a respected publisher of serious and light music works by Edward Elgar and Gustav Holst, the Boosey & Hawkes company was able to offer many fine compositions from its catalog, as well as original works by such light music composers as Frederic Curzon, Trevor Duncan, Edward White, Cyril Watters, and Eugene Cines.

Prior to WW II, their first "BH series" of disks suffered from inferior pressings. After the War, many sides were re-pressed and/or re-recorded. 78 rpm singles were produced until 1978, when LPs were introduced. The subsidiary label, Cavendish, took over distribution of the library, with the advent of CDs. [J.I.M. 3/97, pp. 34 - 41.]

Teddy Holmes sets up a recorded music library for Chappell Publishers in London, for theatrical films, newsreels, and radio broadcasting. The first sides have a 1942 copyright date. Chappell is destined to become one of the largest and most prestigious sources of Mood Music. Although the library includes a "classical" series and a "dance music" series, its first Mood Music series includes original compositions by film and Light Music composers: Charles Williams, Eric Coates, Hadyn Wood, Edward German, Clive Richardson and Cecil Milner, and later Robert Farnon, among others. In its first five years from 1941 - 1946, the "Chappell Recorded Music Library" offers approximately 100 discs of original Mood Music. The 78rpm format lasts until 1969, when LPs are introduced. The Bruton label issues library material on CDs these days. [J.I.M. 12/96, pp. 43 - 59.]

It is believed that W. Paxton and Company began selling recordings in 1941 from their London headquarters, although the exact origins of the Paxton Library is still being investigated. Early composers included Granville Bantock, Walter Collins, C. King Palmer, Edward Carmer, Frederick Charrosin, Peter Yorke, Ronald Hanmer, Dennis Berry (under various pseudonyms including Peter Dennis), and Dolf van der Linden. During the period when library music was prevented from being recorded in Britain due to a Musician's Union ban, many recordings were made by the Dutch Metropole Orchestra directed by Dolf van der Linden. Latter-day CDs including re-issues appeared on the Atmosphere label owned by the Novellos. [J.I.M. 12/97, pp. 25 - 29.]

Capitol Records in Hollywood begins a "Capitol Transcription Service" to supply radio series with music. Its discs includes artists such as "Louis Castelucci and the Capitol Band" performing the march "Bombasto" by O.J. Farrar. (This was a march used on local and network radio in the late 1940s as a sports theme, for example.) The "Capitol Transcription Service" library was a predecessor to the "Capitol 'Q' Series" Library, and the "Hi-Q" Libraries which followed.

From their New York offices, two publishing companies - Thomas J. Valentino and Emil Ascher - begin representing European recorded music libraries, as sole selling agents for their libraries in the United States.Sometimes they changed the names of library cues, so that uses can be tracked for obtaining performance royalties via US licensing agencies ASCAP and BMI. Valentino's catalog even went so far as to create their own label called "Major Mood Music", which did not identify which libraries it was re-cycling. These libraries included Chappell and Parry Mood Music. Emil Ascher's catalog included the names of the European sources -- Harmonic, Conroy, Ring Music, FDH (Francis, Day and Hunter), Impress, JW (Jacob Weinberger) Theme Music, Keith Prowse, and Ruthanne. He also distributed the New York label Video Moods owned by Mort and Everett Ascher. In time Emil Ascher got out of the library business, and so Thomas J. Valentino absorbed some of the labels Ascher used to represent. [1960-1970s catalogs of Major Records and Emil Ascher Inc.]

The "Lone Ranger" radio series in the US becomes one of the first filmed series for the new medium of Television. The US Musician's union under the stern mandate of autocratic president James Petrillo, demands a second payment for recording and re-use of cues equal to its live performance rate, which is not practical for fledgling TV producers.

This spurs music directors and editors to think of ways to obtain music for the new medium of TV, that will skirt this restriction. In the US, a period of "runaway production" begins whereby cues are recorded outside the US, at "dark sessions" where union players play for lower scale at a non-union session, or cues are re-cycled from old motion picture scores. This means that US libraries are often created by forner music editors and composers, rather than traditional music publishers, as was the case with the European libraries.

For example, "The Lone Ranger" radio series had used a small library of cues which had been performed live, usually from classical sources but including a few B-picture film cues from the Republic Pictures stock library which were composed by Cy Feuer, William Lava, and others.

To re-use these cues in the filmed "Lone Ranger" TV series, caused nervous producers to commission slight re-arrangements of these same melodies by NBC staff arranger Ben Bonnell, and re-recordings in Mexico City under the baton of Daniel Perez Casteñeda, who also arranged the classical excerpts for the orchestra. So these are the versions and recordings which became familiar to the TV viewer. [Liner notes to the CD "Music From The Lone Ranger" and the book, "The Mystery of The Masked Man's Music", 1987, by Reginald M. Jones, Jr.]

David Chudnow, who was to later start one of the first large-scale TV Music Services - MUTEL ("Music For Television") - was the music editor for the "Lone Ranger" TV series. [Book "TV's Biggest Hits", 1996, by Jon Burlingame.]

The "Guild-Universal Library" PA (Production Aids) series is created for the Armed Forces Radio Service by enterprising composer/publisher Alexander Laszlo. [Laszlo Collection, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming at Laramie.] Hungarian-born Laszlo had been a European piano prodigy and composer of music for chamber ensembles under his birth name Sandor Totis; he also wrote for German silent films and European sound film scores. He emigrated to the US in 1938 where he taught music in Chicago, then he moved to New York state, and finally settled in Hollywood. [ASCAP Biographical Dictionary, 1966.]

Laszlo scored his first US picture -- a Charlie Chan film, "The Chinese Cat" -- released by Monogram Pictures in 1944. Although music director Edward Kay was credited, it was Laszlo's who actually composed the cues. [Laszlo Collection, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming at Laramie. Catalog of Copyright Entries for Motion Pictures 1940 - 1949, US Library of Congress.]

His "Guild-Universal" library of musical Production Aids for the Armed Forces Radio Service, consisted of recycled cues which Laszlo composed for European pictures before he came to the US. [correspondence with author/producer Paul Mandell, Brooklyn, NY.]

It is possible that the opening theme for the US TV series "Racket Squad" may have come from one of Laszlo's early European pictures via this "Guild-Universal" library of Production Aids, and may have been one of a series of cues Laszlo licensed to David Chudnow's MUTEL library as well. However, nothing in Laszlo's business files points to a particular cue, despite an exhaustive search.

Alexander Laszlo creates a second library in Hollywood called "Structural Music" which he marketed primarily to low-budget TV series producers. For "Structural Music", he used an architectural analogy to explain the roles of various cues. For example, he called an Opening Theme an "Arch", a transitional bridge a "Frame", and a Closing Theme a "Dome", etc. For the first few volumes, he even tries a complicated coding system in three dimensions of emotion - for identifying happy, serious, and mechanical moods. But all of this may have been a marketing gimmick, since he dropped the complicated coding system after a few volumes.

Laszlo provided about 1200 cuts in 38 Volumes of "Structural Music", which were copyrighted between 1950 - 1960. Over half of the library consists of re-cycled cues from his scores to more than 50 US films, beginning with the "Charlie Chan" film "The Chinese Cat" in 1944, a couple of "Joe Palooka" films, some naval adventures, some industrial films, and his latter-day science fiction films (including "Night of the Blood Beast"), as well as Laszlo's cues for the radio/TV series "This Is Your Life". [Laszlo Collection, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming at Laramie.]

This author has worked for several years, comparing video airchecks with manuscript scores, and going through the composer's business files to identify which cuts in Laszlo's "Structural Music" library were used as Main and End Credits themes for 25 TV series, including: "Beulah", "Trouble With Father/Stu Erwin Show", "Dupont Cavalcade of America", "Rocky Jones - Space Ranger", "My Little Margie", "Waterfront", "The Lone Wolf", "Dr. Hudson's Secret Journal" and "The Adventures of Kit Carson." Hundreds more US TV series of the 1950s and 1960s used the library for tracking behind episodes.

Emil Ascher was a pianist, organist and small orchestra leader born in Hamburg, Germany in 1859. He studied with Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner at the Leipzig Conservatory. In 1879 at the age of 20 he started Emil Ascher music publishing in Germany. He composed, arranged and published sheet music which was profitable in the 19th century before radio and records.

In 1889, at age 30, he moved to New York City. At first he wrote and arranged music for other publishers. But within a few years he incorporated his own music publishing company at 1155 Broadway. In addition to his own compositions for piano, violin, band and orchestra he published a series of "Student Orchestra Books" for school ensembles containing arrangements of public domain works and some original pieces. To make his books stand apart from the competition (circa 1916) his arrangements were advertised as playable by a variable-sized group that could include such "modern" instruments as the mandolin and the saxophone (or not.)

Ascher had two sons -- Adolph and Morton -- who learned music and worked with their father to build up the business. They published works arranged for piano and wind band, mostly from Classical sources, older standard songs, folk tunes, hymns, negro spirituals, and Operas.

In 1922 father and founder Emil Ascher passed away at 63, leaving his sons to run the company. Adolph and Morton continued to expand in areas that had been successful but became aware of new opportunities. For example, in 1926 NBC had established the first national radio network. So in the early 1930's Emil Ascher Inc. published band arrangements of two marches that were theme songs for "Cities Service Concerts" and for the program "Cavalcade of America".

During the late 1930s another area came to the attention of the Ascher brothers -- that of organ music. Many programs on network radio featured organists who not only entertained by playing songs, but provided the background for dramatic shows and daily soap operas. Many of these radio program themes were composed by the organists.

The Ascher brothers made deals with all the major network organists to handle their publishing (and collect ASCAP performance royalties as their publisher.) They also created a series of folio books for amateur organists written by the famous network organists with titles like "Serial Moods (a collection of 54 dramatic cues for radio shows) by John Gart." Such folio books contained simple mood pieces that people could play at home, and not actual network theme songs heard on the air.

In the mid-1940's the company had seen the way music publishers such as Chappell in Great Britain and others in Europe created new divisions of their publishing companies to produce recorded music libraries of "Mood Music" -- Themes and Backgrounds, what we would call "Production Music" today -- to license to film, radio and television producers in lieu of hiring composers and musicians.

The Ascher brothers decided to get in on this "action" -- to make deals to represent these overseas libraries in the U.S. -- marketing and licensing their music tracks to the many producers of films, radio and TV programs here. Over the next 35 years Emil Ascher, Inc. would become (in their words) "the largest music house in the U.S." by virtue of their building up the library of tracks they represented.

In an article in Broadcasting Magazine in May, 1967, president Morton Ascher said they had over 2,000 disks containing 200 hours of music available. By 1970 press releases upped that estimate to 400 hours of music.

As their licensing business grew they opened a West Coast office in Hollywood with the name "Regent Recorded Music, Inc." They advertised that the music could be licensed for "Radio, Television, Audio-Visual, Industrial and Educational productions."

The libraries they represented in the U.S. at various times included:

• Amphonic
• B M P Co. [owned by Josef Weinberger]
• Boosey & Hawkes
• Brull
• Bruton
• Conroy
• Euro
• Freesound
• Harrose [composed by Harry Lubin]
• Impress [div. of Josef Weinberger]
• Josef Weinberger [aka: "JW Theme Music"]
• KPM [from "Keith Prowse Music Publishers"]
• MPI
• Omnimusic
• Parry Music
• Regency
• Ring Music [Frankfort, Germany]
• Sonoton
• Standard Music
• Studio G
• Studio One
• Themes International
• Ultra Music Services (UMS) [composed by William Loose & Emil Cadkin]

Although Emil Ascher Inc. was successful in distributing libraries owned by others, at the same time they were building their representation business, the company decided to create their own "in house" music library in the mid-50's named "Video Moods." Copyright records show eight folios of compositions registered between 1955 -- 1961 that appear to be written for this library.

Video Moods drew on an international pool of production and "mood music" composers from Europe, Canada and even a few in the U.S. The U.S. Composers of course had to use various pseudonyms to avoid conflicts with other employers. For example, Ward Sills was the pseudonym of Wladimir Selinsky who wrote for "Kraft Theatre" among other popular TV series. Another contributor was named "John Marion", a pseudonym of John Marion Gart, an organist and composer for a number of network soap operas.

One curious name that is seen frequently on Video Moods discs is "F. Mahl." Franz Mahl was a pseudonym used by the founder Emil Ascher as far back as the early 1900's for arrangements he did, to distinguish between himself as the credited composer; It's even possible that "Mahl" was a family name since another pseudonym he used during that same period was "Ascher-Mahl". In the Catalogs of Copyright Entries for that time, both "Franz Mahl" and "Ascher-Mahl" have cross references explaining they were pseudonyms of Emil Ascher himself.

As mentioned previously the father and founder Emil Ascher passed away in 1922. So by the mid-50's -- when Video Moods was being created -- his sons Adolph Ascher and Morton Ascher were running the company, and grandson Everett Ascher was doing some composing as well. At one point Everett used the pseudonym "Frank Morton" in Copyright filings. His father Morton Ascher is listed as a "compiler" and "arranger" of some of the folios that were registered for use as Themes, Moods and/or Backgrounds for Video.

So the names "Emil Ascher" or "Franz Mahl" (or "F. Mahl" as it appeared on the Video Moods disks) would have been used to collect ASCAP performance royalties for the company, on tracks written by various ghost writers who wrote on a "work-for-hire" basis.

Some researchers and other sources mention George S. Chase, a prolific New York-based composer, who worked for U.S. and European libraries at the time, who may have been one of those contributing on a "work-for-hire" basis.

Video Moods included an eclectic catalog of cues -- even a few nice Opens and Closes used for News Themes in the U.S. (One in particular was used for a local San Diego News Theme and was known to this author.)

[Liner Notes of the soundtrack CD "Plan 9 from Outer Space" by Paul Mandell revealed that...] Some of the Video Moods suspense cues ended up tracked into the infamous Ed Wood feature film, "Plan 9 From Outer Space."

Several film composers provide small "libraries" of cues for a few specific TV series. Albert Glasser re-records cues from his "Cisco Kid" motion pictures in France, to supply a library of tracks for the "Cisco Kid" TV series. He also provides a library for the series "Big Town" which may have been recorded in dark sessions in L.A or in Tokyo [correspondence with composer Glasser in the 1980s.] Irving Gertz recycles some of his film cues for the early medium of Television, becoming an early supplier of TV music to "Kit Carson" and other shows. [correspondence with author/producer Paul Mandell, Brooklyn, NY.]

MUTEL ("Music For Television") Music Service is created by David Chudnow, former music editor for Republic and Monogram Pictures. It is probable that many of the cues in MUTEL originated in "stock tracking libraries" Chudnow had assembled for B-pictures for film studios like Monogram and Hal Roach on which he was "Music Supervisor" or Music Editor. Chudnow created MUTEL in part because of the US Musician's Union ban on recording cues for TV tracking, and part as a way to market his pre-existing "stock" cue library.

Often a cue was "modified" with small variations in the melody or orchestration before being sent off to Europe to be re-recorded so it could be "re-used" in Chudnow's libraries -- a token gesture to get around any objections to re-use with a minimum of effort. These variations were discovered by this author in comparing several THEMEs -- such as the original "Jack Benny THEME" by Mahlon Merrick, and a slight variation of it which appeared in the MUTEL and Capitol "Q" Service libraries.

His principal composers even before MUTEL were Herschel Burke Gilbert, Joseph Mullendore, Herb Taylor and Mahlon LeGrande Merrick, among others. Cues were re-cycled from B-pictures and other radio/TV series, possibly even European pictures. Original cues are recorded by a "40-piece French orchestra." [Book "TV's Biggest Hits", 1996, by Jon Burlingame, and other sources.]

Most likely the French orchestra was conducted by George Tzipine who got occassional scoring credits himself, but was more of a conductor than a composer [Documents provided by library music researcher Paul Mandell, Brooklyn, NY.]

The MUTEL scoring service provided both custom themes for such early TV series as "Adventures of Superman", and also a library of themes and cues for tracking episodes of many shows. Among the other US TV series which made much use of MUTEL were "Racket Squad", "Captain Midnight", "Man With a Camera", "Broken Arrow", "Annie Oakley", "Sky King", and "Ramar of the Jungle." [Book "TV's Biggest Hits", 1996, by Jon Burlingame.]

MUTEL music editor Leon Klatzkin often is credited as a composer, for the purpose of collecting royalties from the uses of MUTEL cues and themes. Klatzkin's name appears on ASCAP credits for "Superman", "My Hero", and "Racket Squad" TV themes, which were probably not written by him [correspondence with author/producer Paul Mandell, Brooklyn, NY.]

Some of the most popular themes from MUTEL were published in the form of sheet music and band arrangements published by David Gordon, whose Gordon Music also supplied TV tracks. Published themes included "Secret of the Silent Hills" (William Lava's theme for "Lassie"), "Man With a Badge March", and "Game of the Week March" by Joseph Mullendore (used for network sports and "Adventures of Rin Tin Tin").

The Omar Music Service is created by B-picture music supervisor Raoul Kraushaar. Primarily it is created to provide tracks to the "Lassie" TV series, but branches out into a few other shows including the TV series "The Thin Man" and "Northwest Passage." Ghost writers for this service include Republic Studios composers Dave Kahn and William Lava. Kraushaar had the habit of not crediting his writers. When Kraushaar saw the theme music for Lassie had become popular, he first allowed David Gordon to publish sheet music and orchestra arrangements of it under the title "Secret of the Silent Hills" (it had originally been a cue for an early Dr. Christian film by Lava.)

Not satisfied with retitling the theme, or letting Lava get credit, Kraushaar composed his own slight variation on Lava's melody, but with the same harmonic background, for the second season of the show, and called it "Lassie Theme", with himself as composer. This melody is surprisingly similar to "Secret of the Silent Hills" with only a slight variation. [Correspondence with production library music researcher Paul Mandell.]

David Chudnow licenses part of his MUTEL Music Service library to Capitol Special Products as "The Capitol 'Q' Series Library, marketed to broadcasters for live TV use. The cues are renamed again, this time identified only by number, as a THEME, MOOD, BRIDGE, etc. A series of 78rpm "audition disks" are created for the library, which was also provided on sound film and tape. [Capitol 'Q' Series catalog.]

Composer Den Berry sets up his own Conroy Music label in England. [J.I.M. 12/97, p. 27.]

Network Production Music is created by Tom Dinoto, owner of the US commercial jingle company "Tuesday Productions" in San Diego, California. Craig Everett Palmer is the principal composer of many of the successful early cuts, which feature string and French horns on top of a modern drum beat, with Timpani and brass accents.

One Craig Palmer composition -- entitled "Energy" -- practically defined the genre of 1980s production music. Early "Network" cues and themes often were used on TV network sports shows and syndicated US TV shows such as "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous", and behind national commercials. Network becomes a successful US-owned production music library for this style of music.

Carlin Production Music is born in the U.K. in September, 1988. The first Production Music album was released in November, 1988. [J.I.M. 12/96, p 60.]

[to be continued...]