Epic Sound: Music in Postwar Hollywood Biblical Films [Paperback]

Lavish musical soundtracks contributed a special grandeur to the new widescreen, stereophonic sound movie experience of postwar biblical epics such asSamson and Delilah, Ben-Hur, andQuo Vadis. InEpic Sound, Stephen C. Meyer shows how music was utilized for various effects, sometimes serving as a vehicle for narrative plot and at times complicating biblical and cinematic interpretation. In this way, the soundscapes of these films reflected the ideological and aesthetic tensions within the genre, and more generally, within postwar American society. By examining key biblical films, Meyer adeptly engages musicology with film studies to explore cinematic interpretations of the Bible during the 1940s through the 1960s.

Stephen C. Meyer is Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Music Histories at Syracuse University. He is author ofCarl Maria von Weber and the Search for a German Opera(IUP, 2003).

Meyer's clear and articulate study promises to be a welcome addition to the reading list of anyone interested not just in film but in mid-century music history.

Epic Sound is a major contribution to the field of film music studies and ought to be widely read by musicologists with an interest in film. Really, it ought to be read by film scholars as well: although the depth of Meyer's engagement with the music is felt on almost every page, this is also a powerfully sustained exploration of the biblical epic as a film genre.

This is a well-researched and thorough book examining what the author finds to be a unique facet of film music of the late 1940s and early 1950s  its use, sometimes to glorious excess, in the biblical epics of postwar Hollywood.

Stephen C. Meyer provides detailed, historically grounded research into the music of post-Second World War biblical epics. 4/1/16

An ambitious and fascinating book.

Acknowledgements
Note to Readers
Introduction
1. A Biblical Story, folS+