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Music for Martians: Schillinger's Two Tonics and Harmony of Fourths in Leigh
Steven's Score for War of the Worlds (1953)

Article · June 2009

DOI: 10.1558/jfm.v1i4.395

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The Journal of Film Music
Volume 1, Number 4, Pages 395–438
EDITORIAL ESSAY
ISSN 1087-7142 Copyright © 2006
The International Film Music Society, Inc.

Music for Martians: Schillinger’s Two Tonics and

Harmony of Fourths in Leith Stevens’ Score for
War of the Worlds (1953)†
william h. rosar
No one would have believed . . . that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than
man’s. . . . Yet across the gulf of space . . . intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious
eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.
—H.G. Wells, War of the Worlds
Höene Wronsky defined music as the “Corporealization of the intelligence which is in sounds.” [This] led me toward
spatial music and to thinking of sound as moving tone-bodies in space . . . and to conceive of sounds as living matter.
—Edgard Varèse, 1960
But do you suppose that he would ever have enquired into or learned what he fancied that he knew, though he was
really ignorant of it, until he had fallen into perplexity under the idea that he did not know, and had desired to know?
—Socrates to Meno in Plato, Meno

A
fter seeing Steven
Spielberg’s remake of
War of the Worlds on the
4th of July weekend 2005, an old
friend who sat with me during
the screening commented on how
effective John Williams’ score for
it was, and that it reminded her
of film noir scores. An interesting
coincidence, I thought, as many
years earlier I had been struck by
how passages in Leith Stevens’
score for Paramount’s War of the
Worlds (1953) reminded me of
“crime drama music,” music for
gangster or detective movies. Why
should Stevens and Williams write
music for a science fiction film in
a style evocative of another film
genre? The moment of perplexity
prompting my question, however,
occurred long after I made the
initial observation about Stevens’
score, and only after my thinking
had been influenced by film theory
in terms of genre conventions and
iconography.
†  The author dedicates this paper to the memory
of his dear friend, Thelma Anita von Schlundt
(nee Christiansen), a good listener in so many
ways, who long ago made him aware that quartal
Film theorist Patrick Lucanio
in his Them or Us: Archetypal
Interpretations of Fifties Alien
Invasion Films views what he calls
the “alien invasion film” that
is commonly lumped under the
heading of “monster movies” as
being a subgenre of science fiction:
“The alien invasion film depicts
humanity at the mercy of either
malevolent or benign rational
(albeit alien) forces.” Writes
Lucanio, “These forces can be of
extraterrestrial or terrestrial origin.
Narrative that is concerned with
invasion from outer space or inner
earth I call the classical text,”
with H. G. Wells’ novel War of the
Worlds (published in 1898) being
its prototype. “The classical text
harmony was the subject of a chapter entitled
“Chords by Fourths” in Vincent Persichetti’s
textbook, Twentieth-Century Harmony (New York:
W.W. Norton, 1961).
  In philosophy the phrase “moment of
perplexity” (or “moment of aporia”) alludes
to the dialog between Socrates and Meno in
Plato’s Meno, in which Socrates demonstrates
to Meno using a geometrical problem how it is
that through perplexity one becomes aware of
one’s own ignorance, and that this often leads
to inquiry and thus knowledge. See Dialogues of
Plato, trans. Benjamin Jowett, Bantam Classics
(New York: Bantam Books, 1986), 211.
tells of a sighting,” Lucanio notes,
“usually by the hero (though in
many instances the observer is a
secondary character), of an unusual
occurrence, either a spacecraft
landing or a mysterious thing
of unexplained origin prowling
the countryside.” Coincidently,
Lucanio observes that “[T]he
alien invasion genre is like the
detective story in that much of
the narrative is taken up by the
hero’s pursuit of a solution to a
perplexing problem [italics added].
The difference is that the alien
invasion genre concentrates not
so much on finding the who or
what as on finding the means to
overcome the who or what.”
As Randall Larson’s 1985
monograph Musique Fantastique:
A Survey of Film Music in the
Fantastic Cinema attests, along
with horror, and fantasy, science
fiction films have always provided
composers a fertile opportunity to
experiment musically with “weird
  Patrick Lucanio, Them or Us: Archetypal
Interpretations of Fifties Alien Invasion Films
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987),
16-25.
396    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
sound.” Because their musical
“experiments” are justifiable by the
subject matter of the films studio
“front offices” have not rejected
them as being too avant garde or
“high brow” for the average movie
audience, but even welcomed
them. The science fiction films of
the 1950s are unique musically
in one respect because they are
virtually the only films of any
film genre in that period to have
a distinct instrumental sonority
associated with them—that of
the theremin—even though that
instrument had been previously
used in suspense thrillers, most
notably by Miklós Rózsa in his
scores for Spellbound and The
Lost Weekend (both produced by
Paramount and released in 1945).
The use of the theremin was
actually part of a larger trend in
film music orchestration that
UCLA musicologist Robert U.
Nelson observed in the mid-
1940s: “An important factor
in current orchestration is the
advent of electric and electronic
instruments, among them the
Theremin, the Novachord, the
Hammond organ, the vibraphone,
and the electric violin, guitar, and
‘cello. Of these, the vibraphone,
the Novachord, and the Hammond
organ are used so consistently as to
become stock-in-trade adjuncts.”
Specifically commenting on the
use of the theremin, he noted:
[T]he film public as a whole
was apparently unacquainted
with it, for when it appeared in
Spellbound many people confused
it with singing voices. This was
a natural mistake, inasmuch as
  For a far ranging historical and critical essay
on the theremin and its use in film music, see
James Wierzbicki, “Weird Vibrations: How the
Theremin Gave Musical Voice to Hollywood’s
Extraterrestrial ‘Others,’” Journal of Popular Film &
Television 30 (2002), 125-35; see also his Louis and
Bebe Barrons’s Forbidden Planet: A Film Score Guide
(Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2005).
  Robert U. Nelson, “Film Music: Color or Line?”
Hollywood Quarterly 2 (1946), 59, 62.
a wordless chorus, like that in
the Vision Scene from The Song
of Bernadette [1943], sounds
much like a Theremin. Since
the overnight sensation of the
Theremin in Spellbound and
The Lost Weekend, it has been
used in other films, and Max
Steiner has even effected its
synthetic orchestral counterpart
by means of dissonant string
chords, played by tremolo, in
The Beast with Five Fingers [1946].
One difficulty, of course, which
attends the use of distinctive
sounds such as those of the
Theremin is that they quickly
pall. In actual practice, overbold
color and cliché soon become
synonymous.
Apparently, though, Hollywood
did not think the theremin had
become clichéd by 1950. Starting
with Rocketship X-M (Lippert,
1951) in which Ferde Grofé used
it for an ethereal effect evoking
outer space and Mars, subsequent
sci-fi film scores featured the
theremin specifically in association
with space aliens, perhaps most
memorably Tiomkin’s score for The
Thing from Another World (RKO,
1951), Herrmann’s for The Day the
Earth Stood Still (Fox, 1951), and
the multiply-authored score for It
Came from Outer Space (Universal-
International, 1953), scored by
Herman Stein, Henry Mancini,
and Irving Gertz. And yet Patrick
Lucanio notes that despite the close
association of the theremin with
fifties sci-fi films it was actually
used in relatively few of them.
Long considered a classic
in the sci-fi film genre, War of
the Worlds (1953) was the third
sci-fi film produced by George
Pal. Paramount had originally
purchased the rights from H.G.
Wells in 1925 as a possible film
vehicle for Cecil B. DeMille.
The studio later offered it to
  Ibid., 62.
  Patrick Lucanio, Personal communication to
the author, 25 September 2005.
Sergei Eisenstein to direct when
he visited the studio in 1930.
When Pal chose to produce it for
Paramount he called upon Barré
Lyndon to write the screenplay and
Byron Haskin to direct. The film
went into production in January
1952. In April, some five months
before the film was scored, Don
Hartman, then head of production
at Paramount, approached Pal
regarding the score: “I ran Gone
with the Wind Saturday night to see
what made the picture what it is.
Not the least of its great qualities is
the magnificent, dramatic score. It
enchanced [sic] the drama beyond
comprehension. You need to take
real great care in the dubbing and
scoring of War of the Worlds as it
will add immeasurably to your
picture. In simple words, it needs a
very great score.”  Pal agreed: “We
are aware of the importance of the
score for War of the Worlds and at
your earliest convenience I would
like to sit down with you and Lou
Lipstone to decide upon the best
possible composer for this job.”
  For extensive film production history on War of
the Worlds, see Steve Ruben, “War of the Worlds,”
Cinefantastique 5 (Spring 1977), 4-17, 34-46.
  Interoffice memo from Don Hartman to
George Pal, 8 April 1952. I am indebted to
Eldridge Walker, former head of Music Clearance
in the Music Department at Paramount Studios,
for making available to me music correspondence
files pertaining to War of the Worlds. The
conductor part for the score and documents
relating to recording it are preserved in the
Paramount Music Department library.
  Interoffice memo from George Pal to Don
Hartman, April 8, 1952. Louis Lipstone was
then head of Paramount’s Music Department.
Stevens’ sketches for War of the Worlds are not in
the Western Historical Manuscript Collection
(hereafter abbreviated as WHMC), of the
University of Missouri-Kansas City, in which the
sketches for most of his scores are preserved.
There is reason to believe that he did not have
the War sketches in his possession at the time
of his death in 1970 because they are not listed
on the inventory of items accompanying the
bequest of his papers to UMKC. Instead there
is only a photocopy of the orchestration (the
full score) by George Parrish, which Stevens
must have obtained from Paramount some
time after he scored the film. It was unusual
for Stevens to have the orchestrations for his
scores, as they were kept by the studios, except
in the case of independent productions such as
Destination Moon.

A
musical prodigy, Missouri-
born Leith Stevens,
whose middle name was
Amadeus, was an avid reader
of sci‑fi pulp magazines while
pursuing his musical studies.10
Stylistically the two most formative
influences on Stevens’ musical
thinking were probably George
Gershwin and Joseph Schillinger,
with whom both he and Gershwin
studied in the 1930s.11 Looking
back in 1969 Stevens remarked,
“Studying with [Schillinger] was
the most exciting part of my life.”12
After a career in radio music that
started at CBS Radio in New York
in 1929, War of the Worlds was
the twenty-fourth film for which
he composed music. Undoubtedly
because he had scored Pal’s
previous three films, two of them
sci-fi films, Destination Moon and
When Worlds Collide, and had
just scored Paramount’s Atomic
City (starring Gene Barry), he was
given the assignment. By early
June, Stevens was already slated to
score the film. After delays in post-
production Stevens eventually had
ten weeks to compose and record
the score, starting September 3,
1952 and completing his work
November 15, 1952.13
10  Notes by the author from an unrecorded
conversation with Stevens’ sister, Zolona Stevens
Moss, July 1982. For a biographical essay on
Leith Stevens, see Mark Brill, “Leith Stevens:
Piano Prodigy—Jazz Band Conductor—Composer
for Radio, Films, and Television,” in this issue.
Unfortunately Stevens died a few years prior
to the time I commenced my research on
his music, so I never had the opportunity of
interviewing him.
11  See James Clifford Hamilton, “Leith Stevens:
A Critical Analysis of His Works.” (DMA diss.,
University of Missouri-Kansas City, 1976), 148.
12  Harvey Siders, “Leith Stevens,” BMI Magazine
(June 1969), 18.
13  A Paramount memo dated 10 June 1952
concerning “Corrected Main Title Billing” for War
of the Worlds indicates that Stevens had already
negotiated to receive sole screen credit for “Music
Score” on the upper half of the card. This memo
is preserved in the production files for War of the
Worlds at the Margaret Herrick Library, Special
Collections, of the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, CA. An undated
note from William Stinson in the Paramount
Music Department Music Department legal file
indicates Stevens’ start and finish dates on War of
His approach to scoring War
of the Worlds grows directly out
of his treatment of the previous
two Pal sci-fi films he had scored.
The style of his scores for these
films, which has a contemporary
late-‘40s-1950s feel to it (that is,
“contemporary” by Hollywood
standards), is primarily melodic
(or motivic) but at the same time
relies heavily on musical color,
featuring a variety of unusual or
novel orchestral effects. In some
instances Stevens reuses musical
ideas from one score to the next,
varies them slightly, or develops
them, as shall be discussed below.
Later pioneering the use of
the Moog synthesizer in some
of his TV scores, Stevens was
certainly aware of the theremin
by the time he scored War of the
Worlds. In a 1970 interview he
remarked, “I wrote some things
for the Theremin—mostly in
the ‘hearts-and-flowers’ vein
that became so common for that
instrument. The Theremin may
not have been an earthshaking
instrument in itself, but it proved
once and for all that electronic
music was a possibility.”14 In the
proseminar that Stevens taught
on film scoring at UCLA in the
1960s he specifically commented
on Miklós Rózsa’s use of the
theremin in Spellbound:
the Worlds, tallying that he was on the picture for
10 weeks and 3 days, a total of 630 hours.
14  “Stevens Combines Voltage and Music,” Los
Angeles Herald-Examiner (31 January 1970). He
used the Moog synthesizer in episodes he scored
of the TV shows Judd for the Defense and Land of the
Giants (both 1968). See also Brill, “Leith Stevens,”
317, 319. Only a year before his death, Stevens’
expressed a summation of his views on the
future electronic music: “There is no doubt that
orchestras and musicians will continue producing
music as in the past. But electronic music will be
used to add new dimensions, colors and textures
to the music. It will add the sounds of today, such
as that of fast airplanes, the orbiting of the earth,
and weather satellite. If a new opera were written
involving astronauts, electronic music would add
an important dimension when combined with the
traditional music of an orchestra.” Morley Gillan,
“Music,” in “California Living,” Los Angeles Herald-
Examiner (15 June 1969), 9.
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   397
[It] was used . . . to create a
feeling of mental turmoil that
was so important to the dramatic
situation there. The theremin
also has many different colors
that can be used, and in this
picture they used the one that
had the broadest pattern. The
sound of the instrument was
like several string instruments
rather than a solo string
instrument. It can produce
a much more individual and
striking sound than was used in
that film. Miklós Rózsa worked
with the instrument so that it
would blend as much as it can
blend with the orchestra. They
had to spend a great deal of
time selecting the particular
colors that they used with the
instrument. You can tune it with
dials so that you get a certain
sound out of it. But its most
valuable contribution was that it
was a sound that had not been
exploited, and therefore it was
immediately accepted by the
audience as representing mental
turmoil.
Stevens also offered an
opinion about the use of
instruments such as the
theremin in relationship to the
conventional acoustic orchestra:
[Y]ou don’t necessarily need
to go outside the orchestra
to make new sounds that the
audience will identify with your
particular dramatic problem.
An orchestra is an instrument.
It’s like having a hundred hands
and instruments that can make
all the sound in the world. It’s
just a question of deciding what
particular color will best typify
the particular thing that you
want to say and get the proper
result with your audience.15
Whether sounding like a
wordless chorus or group of
strings, using the theremin as
musical gimmickry to characterize
space aliens as some of his
colleagues did might not have
15  See Leith Stevens, “Film Scoring: The
UCLA Lectures,” The Journal of Film Music, this
issue, 358.
398    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
been Stevens’ preference, since
he stressed the use of melodic
ideas in characterization. Already
in 1940, relative to his music for
Big Town, the CBS radio program
about the exploits of a hard-
hitting newspaper man, Stevens
was talking about his use of
themes as “character music”
(or “characterization music”),
acknowledging a debt to Wagner’s
leitmotif technique in this
regard.16 Stevens’ quasi-Wagnerian
conception was represented in
the press as if it was something
new to radio and film, rather than
being well established (in scoring
films, since the silent days). For
example, “Characterization music,”
the press reported, was “a new
technique of heightening dramatic
action of a movie or a radio story
as illustrations of books clarify the
descriptions or scenes of action,”
[and] that it was “being perfected
in Hollywood.” Perhaps the most
interesting idea is that of a theme
being associated with a specific
scene, rather like an aria is with its
scene in an opera, so that in this
context “characterization” refers
to the character of scenes, rather
than to the dramatis personae:
16  “Leith Stevens would be the first to
acknowledge that many important composers
have carried the interpretation and delineation
of character to tremendous lengths in great
music. Richard Wagner was probably the greatest
master of this art of portraying each individual
in music. In fact, Wagner seldom referred to his
masterpieces as ‘operas.’ He called them ‘music-
dramas.’ Ironically, he often considered himself
first a dramatist and poet—illuminating what he
had to say with some of the most interpretative
and psychological music ever written. Many
famous overtures in music convey a clear
picture of the heroes of operas to which these
overtures are attached. Listen to Wagner’s ‘Flying
Dutchman’ overture, and you obtain a perfect
picture of the reckless, driving, frustrated sea
captain who finally finds salvation in the love of
a woman.” Hollister Noble, “Character Music:
Leith Stevens Creates Music That Makes Scenery
for What Is Unseen,” Radio Life (17 November
1940). A number of newspaper and magazine
articles cited here are from Leith Stevens’
papers in the WHMC. Some of the items in his
scrapbooks are lacking page numbers.
Leith Stevens, who has been
musical director of Big Town,
the Edward G. Robinson radio
show over CBS, since it started
five years ago [c. 1937], has a
theory that music should not
serve merely for background
purposes. He believes music
should be employed to express
the character of a scene and its
emotional implications.
The conductor hit upon the
idea for characterization music
while attending Metropolitan
Opera productions in New
York. “It occurred to me,” he
recalls, “that in the minds of
the public certain great arias
or overtures are automatically
associated with famous scenes
expressing powerful emotions.
In Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde’
the great underlying theme is
undying love. Wagner in writing
the overture vividly expressed
that emotion and throughout
the opera the same strains
are prevalent. The listener,
hearing them, immediately
realizes the potency of the
situation and recognize the
conflict of the characters.”
Other good examples of the
characterization principle, Steven
says, are the gypsy abandon and
mad jealousy of Bizet’s Carmen,
the tragic fatherly love of Verdi’s
Rigoletto, and the soul’s battle
against evil in Gounod’s Faust.
“This is the theory I’m
endeavoring to apply to Big
Town, Stevens explains.17
[Stevens] carefully studies the
script of a show in order to
get the dramatic “feel” of the
story and its characters. Then
he arranges a score which he
hopes embodies these emotional
elements. He may stress some
instrument for he believes that
there is a different musical
instrument for nearly every
emotion. “Characterization
music’ stems from the theory of
illustrating a book or magazine
story,” explains Stevens. “The
17  “Music Backgronnd [sic] in “Films Again
Argued,” The Press-Telegram [Long Beach, CA] (5
April 1942).
author, of course, puts the
words and phrases together,
but the artist, through his
illustrations, helps to clarify
the description and scenes of
action. In a broad sense, that’s
what I hope to derive from
my music for Big Town.”18
If anything this clearly
documents how Stevens saw his
own approach as growing out of
the tradition of theater music,
namely, grand opera and Wagner’s
music-dramas, though it was
not confined to the leitmotif
technique. Bernard Herrmann,
an erstwhile colleague of his at
CBS Radio in New York, who
had been instrumental in getting
him his first film assignment in
Hollywood, Syncopation (RKO,
1940), was of much the same
mind: “I don’t believe that the
leitmotif is the only way of writing
a film score, because I think
you can do it using the operatic
principles of Verdi where each
number is separate and not derived
from the others. They are only
derived from the emotional content
or the decorative effects of a given
moment.”19 Significantly, though,
Arnold Schoenberg felt that as a
result of the exigencies of theatrical
depiction in opera tonality itself
had been eroded, something that
obviously held implications for
future developments in music, such
as the technique of film scoring:
Richard Wagner’s harmony
had promoted a change in
the logic and constructive
power of harmony. One of its
consequences was the so-called
impressionistic use of harmonies,
especially practiced by Debussy.
His harmonies, without
constructive meaning, often
served the coloristic purpose
of expressing moods and
18  Citizen-News [Hollywood, CA] (16 April 1942).
19  Bernard Herrmann, “The Colour of the Music:
An Interview with Bernard Herrmann,” Sight and
Sound 41 (Winter 1971-72), 37.

pictures. Moods and pictures,
though extramusical, thus
became constructive elements,
incorporated in the musical
functions; they produced a sort
of emotional comprehensibility.
In this way, tonality was already
dethroned in practice, if not in
theory.20
In Schoenberg’s view then,
with Wagner, composition came to
include not just musical content but
extramusical “moods and pictures”
associated with it as well, the
result being a musicodramatic art,
perhaps the main precursor to film
scoring practice. It was essentially
what Stevens taught in his film
scoring course, here speaking of
the relative importance of melodic
invention over instrumental color:
Don’t depend on certain
instrumental colors to define
the characters. Instead, use a
musical phrase. Always try to
work with a melodic line that
will serve the purpose of the
story you are trying to sell,
the message you are trying
to convey to the audience. In
some cases, I want it to be the
melody that tells the story. The
melody must characterize your
situation, your person, your
mood, your color, your texture,
your quality, whatever it is we’re
dealing with in a particular
situation. Only then do we add
to it the orchestral devices and
techniques of composition—
counterpoint, harmonization,
etc.—which will further
enhance it.21
20  From Schoenberg’s 1907 essay, “Composition
with Twelve Tones,” quoted in William W.
Austin, Music in the 20th Century (New York: W.W.
Norton, 1966), 216.
21  In his course at UCLA Stevens stressed the
importance of characterization in film scoring:
“Make a brief description of the characters.
Analyze their reaction to situations, delve into
the background, the history, the character of a
person. Discuss the characters with the director
and producer to find out more about them.
What do they know of these characters? Devote
time to find what kind of story is being told
from as many people as possible. Get as many
viewpoints as possible. This music is analytical
because the composer must decide what kind of
people these are. All of the information he can
get about the characters that are involved, and
what they are doing and why, will be helpful to
In addition to its obvious
relevance to using the theremin,
another reason Stevens did not
use it in his scores in general
is because of certain problems
in using solo instruments
for purposes of musical
characterization. As he explained:
Orchestral techniques are
also used to affect audience
psychology. When you have a
very dramatic scene, try not
to use individual instrumental
colors. For example, don’t use
an English horn solo or trumpet
solo or a flute solo. Single
instruments assume too much
of a personality. Use mixtures,
which seem less intrusive on the
scene itself. You might use an
English horn with an alto flute
and a harp. This will not take
on the quality of a solo with
orchestral accompaniment.
Using a solo instrument in
a dramatic scene might be
effective if there is a third
character not seen on the
screen, and this solo instrument
took the responsibility of
reminding the audience of this
third character. But if there
is no such third character the
solo instrument will become a
personality of its own and it will
be confusing to the audience. It
will become a kind of strength
which will take part in the
dramatic situation. So modify
these strong individual colors by
mixing them with other colors.22
Of course neither Destination
Moon nor When Worlds Collide had
space aliens in them to musically
portray and, because of that, and
him in determining exactly the texture, quality,
expression of music that is to be written for these
scenes.” Stevens, “Film Scoring,” 347. By an
interesting coincidence Nelson (“Film Music”)
strongly argued the musicodramatic value of
a linear approach as opposed to the largely
coloristic one that dominated much Hollywood
film music. One glaring omission in Nelson’s
pleadings, though, is any discussion of the use
of the “big theme” in scores that, as much as
musical color, was employed throughout most of
the Hollywood “Golden Age,” the period in which
he wrote his article.
22  Stevens, “Film Scoring,” 354.
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   399
Stevens’ opinion that the theremin
did not blend well with the
orchestra, he probably would not
have chosen to use it. Nonetheless
his remarks clearly show that he
had a keen ear for instrumental
color, a predilection he shared
with Herrmann, who once said
that “Each film can create its
own variety of musical color.”23
Stevens held the same view:
Don’t be tempted into the trap
of using only a few of the devices
that are possible in this category,
because every dramatic situation
that you come upon is slightly
different from any other, and
the particular color that you use
with one would not necessarily
fit another. So try to analyze
the emotional values that are
involved and try to come up with
the color that will particularly
identify that situation.24
It may be that a coloristic
approach in radio was in the air
during the 1930s and ‘40s, but
it was something evidently well
established in Hollywood film
scoring practice of the same
period. Nelson observed in the
mid-1940s that film music was
“overwhelmingly coloristic in its
intention and effect” and provides
an enlightening explanation
of the reasons for this:
[C]olor is immediate in its effect,
unlike thematic development,
which makes definite time
demands; infinitely flexible,
color can be turned on and off
as easily as water from a tap.
Moreover, color is easier to
achieve than musical design—an
important consideration when
a composer writes against
time. Finally, color is readily
understood by even the
23  Herrmann quoted in E. Todd Fiegel, “Bernard
Herrmann as Musical Colorist: A Musicodramatic
Analysis of His Score for The Day the Earth Stood
Still,” The Journal of Film Music 1 (2/3) (Fall/
Winter 2003), 185.
24  Stevens, “Film Scoring,” 358.
400    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
least musically trained film
audience.25
Destination Moon was based
on Robert Heinlein’s novel
Rocketship Galileo. Heinlein in
collaboration with Alford “Rip”
Van Ronkel wrote the screenplay
and the film was directed by Irving
Pichel. In discussing the place of
Destination Moon in the history of
scores for science fiction films,
Randall Larson notes: “A film
that attempted to emulate much
of the mood of Destination Moon
was Rocketship X-M (1950). While
released a few weeks before George
Pal’s picture, Rocketship X-M had
actually started production later;
it was, in fact, a hurried attempt
by Lippert studios to cash in on
the publicity surrounding Pal’s
venture.”26 So in scoring Destination
Moon Stevens was not influenced
by the scores of Grofé, Tiomkin,
and Herrmann that were actually
composed after his. Some of the
music in Destination Moon Stevens
composed while the film was
being shot, and at least one scene
was edited to fit his music.27 At
about the time Stevens scored the
film a short profile was published
about him that recorded some of
his thinking about the score.
When Stevens was called in, he
first thought that with a story of
this type, looking into the future
and with so many stretches of
uninterrupted music, it would
be the perfect spot for a wildly
25  Nelson, 55.
26  Randall D. Larson, Musique Fantastique:
A Survey of Film Music in the Fantastic Cinema
(Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1985), 80. Even
the fact that a crew member plays harmonica
on board the rocketship appears in both films!
Surely that can be no coincidence. A date stamp
on Stevens’ preliminary sketches indicates that
he was composing the music already in December
1949. All of Stevens sketches, the orchestrator’s
score, and a complete recording of the music
track on transcription discs for Destination Moon,
are preserved with his papers in the WHMC.
27  Stevens claimed to have written the cue “On
the Moon” before the film was shot. See Stevens,
“Film Scoring,” 361.
atonal score—a musician’s score.
But as time went on, it became
evident that if he was going
to get any audience reaction
through the music, or any
emotional result, he would have
to abandon that idea and try to
create the unreal effects with
strange orchestral color [italics
added].
Some interesting results were
achieved by first recording the
entire music, then re-recording
certain portions through the
Sonovox. This was especially
effective with the woodwinds,
creating a weird, hollow, yet
musical sound. Aside from the
Sonovox, no technical tricks
were used. During the flight
of the rocket ship, as it bursts
through restraining chains of
gravity and is in space, where
everything is weightless (there is
no “up”, no “down”—things just
float about) Stevens used divisi
strings, all playing in fourths.
(Can you picture yourself
floating about in Space with the
fiddles fiddlin’ in fourths!?)28
The Sonovox, which was a sort
of early sound processor, altered
the woodwind timbre and tonal
character without appreciably
altering pitches. Strings playing
fourths can also be seen as a
kind of musical color. While it
is evident that Stevens sought to
portray outer space, the experience
of weightlessness, and the lunar
landscape all primarily through
musical color, in later years he
boasted that the score was “largely
polytonal.”29 However, even a
cursory analysis of the music
does not bear this out, though
Nelson, for one, pointed out that
polyharmony was a device being
28  June Starr, “Movie Music Makers,” Life with
Music (May-June 1950).
29  Remarks made by Stevens in a recorded
lecture at the University of Missouri, Kansas City,
March 13, 1969, incorporated into Stevens, “Film
Scoring,” 351. Cf. Siders: “[In Destination Moon]
he brought into play polytonality and electronic
sounds.” (Siders, “Leith Stevens,” 18). Unless
Siders is alluding to the Sonovox, there are no
“electronic sounds” in Stevens’ score.
used by Stevens’ Hollywood
colleagues in the 1940s.30
What Stevens may have
had in mind saying this was his
use of a melodic and harmonic
device formulated by Schillinger,
namely, the use of two tonics, a
principle in Schillinger’s view
akin to polytonality. 31 The editors
of The Schillinger System of Musical
Composition note that “Schillinger’s
concept of Polytonal is somewhat
different from the conventional
use of the term to describe music
in which different keys are used
simultaneously.”32 To adequately
explain Schillinger’s two tonics
within the theoretical framework
of his pseudo-mathematical
“system” would entail a lengthy
excursus that, among other
things, would require defining
a number of his theoretical
terms and idiosyncratic use of
conventional ones. For example,
in Schillinger’s system a “tonic” is
an “axis-point” in a “symmetrical
system” such that “tonics serve
as root tones of the structures
evolving in simultaneity and
continuity.” He also explains that
“simultaneity . . . produces chord
structures [and] continuity . . . produces
the individual pitch-scales of one
compound symmetric scale and
also the progression of roots of the
chord sequences.” The Schillinger
System editors immodestly state,
30  Nelson mentions the use of polyharmony by
Adolph Deutsch, Hugo Friedhofer, Gail Kubik,
Franz Waxman, and David Raksin (“Film Music,”
61-62).
31  Stevens studied with Schillinger in New York
from 1932-35 after he was already working at
CBS Radio in New York City. Rather than writing
on a blackboard when teaching his students
(whom he taught individually), apparently it was
Schillinger’s procedure to sit with the student
and write voluminous notes on paper in pencil
illustrating the principles of his “system.” The
notes from Stevens’ sessions with Schillinger
consist of some 320 unpaginated pages that
include exercises that Stevens completed, and
a number of paginated Schillinger tables and
graphs in ink, all preserved in Stevens’ papers
in the WHMC. Some of the notes are written on
Columbia Broadcasting System music paper.
32  The Schillinger System of Musical Composition
(New York: Carl Fischer), vol. 2, Glossary, 1620.

Example 1: Two Tonics (Schillinger)
In the treble a major triad formed on on tonic root (C) alternates with one formed on the other (F). The two tonics (C and F)
are indicated in square brackets in the bass. The bar line before the last chord indicates where the pattern repeats (an octave
higher). The “symmetric” scale shown (today called the octatonic scale) results from taking the top notes of each triad in the chord
progression on two tonics. The last pitch in parenthesis marks the point at which the scale repeats an octave higher.
“These symmetric scales and
the symmetric harmony derived
therefrom are of the utmost
importance in modern and future
music; they constitute one of
the most brilliant theoretical
and practical discoveries of
the Schillinger System.” 33
Suffice to say that with respect
to the principle of “two tonics”
as it functions in Schillinger’s
“Symmetric System of Harmony,”
the octave is divided into two
equal parts each with its own
“tonic.” Three tonics result from
dividing the octave into three
equal parts, four tonics into
four equal parts, etc. Thus in
Schillinger’s conception, each of
these symmetric subdivisions of
the octave has its own “tonic.” An
octave with two tonics would mean
that the first tonic and the second
tonic are a tritone apart (as the
tritone is the interval that exactly
divides the octave in half).34
In linear terms, the use of “two
tonics” yields lines that alternate
at the interval of a tritone.
Harmonically, two tonics yield
tritone-related progressions, in
which the roots of chords alternate
33  Ibid., vol. 1, 148.
34  See ibid., Book 4, “Special Theory of
Harmony,” 396: “The Symmetric System of
Harmony (Type III).”
in tritones (see Example 1).35
Schillinger also showed how
symmetric scales can be extracted
from the top voice—or any voice—
in chord progressions on two
tonics. He claimed that one such
symmetrical scale, today known as
the “diminished scale,” or octatonic
scale, had been discovered by the
Arabs in the seventh century.
Called Zer ef Kend (“string of
pearls”) its consists of a half step,
whole step, half step pattern,
resembling a string of pearls in
which a large bead alternates with
a small one.36 Indeed, composer-
35  The example of two tonics is adapted from
Stevens’ Schillinger notes.
36  In Stevens’ Schillinger notes, next to the
music notation for the symmetric scale derived
from two tonics in question, is a little doodle of
what appears to be a string of pearls, above it the
words “Arabs in VII cen[tury]” and “zerefkend.”
The corresponding published discussion of “Zer
ef Kend” is in the Schillinger System, vol. 1, 152.
Schillinger apparently assumed, however, that
Zer ef Kend was a scale of equal temperament,
which it is not (I thank Thomas Mathieson of
Indiana University for his posting about this 3
October 2005 on the American Musicological
Society listserv [AMS-L@listserv.indiana.edu]).
Also transliterated as Zirafkand, the scale is not
of equal temperament and properly should not be
equated, as Schillinger does, with the diminished
or octatonic scale independently and much later
discovered by Rimsky-Korsakov that can be
heard, for example, in his operas Kashchei and
Mlada (though already anticipated by Bellini,
so Schillinger claims). Schillinger explains
how symmetric scales can be extracted from
symmetric harmony in “The Symmetric System
of Harmony,” Schillinger System, vol. 1, chapter 5,
396ff. See also Richard Taruskin, “Chernomor
to Kashchei: Harmonic Sorcery; Or, Stravinsky’s
‘Angle,’” Journal of the American Musicological
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   401
orchestrator Dave Torbett who
orchestrated Destination Moon
related that Stevens claimed to
use an Arabic scale in the score,
which may explain why some of
the melodic material has a faintly
Middle Eastern flavor, even though
it is not clearly octatonic.37
A colorful harmonic device,
Stevens used progressions on
two tonics already in his score
for the screen adaptation of the
Arthur Miller play All My Sons
(Universal-International, 1948).
Dave Torbett went so far as to
say that two tonics was one of
the few Schillinger devices he
and Stevens actually used.38 It
Society 38 (1985), 72-142, in which Taruskin
traces and documents how Rimsky-Korsakov
discovered the scale in Liszt’s music.
37  Torbett said that when Stevens was running
behind while composing Destination Moon he
gave George Pal as the reason that he was using
an “Arabic scale” in what he was writing. Dave
Torbett, Notes from unrecorded phone interview
by the author 4 September 1983.
38  Torbett, who was a Schillinger pupil himself,
and worked as Stevens’ orchestrator from
1938-1952, said that more than anything else,
Schillinger was a “good salesman,” and that while
his system made “great talk,” it wasn’t very useful
in actual practice, in spite of Schillinger’s claim,
as Torbett put it, that it was “the ideal remedy
to a composer who had written himself out”
(see Schillinger, vol. 1, 195n). What they learned
from Schillinger was just “straight music,” not
his system, Torbett said. This is partly belied by
the fact that Stevens’ Schillinger notes consisting
of some hundreds of pages are more-or-less
identical to the contents of the The Schillinger
System textbooks. Perhaps this is to be explained
if Schillinger first talked in terms of his theories,
but then explained its actual application in more
402    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
Example 2: “Building Montage” from Destination Moon
is used throughout Destination
Moon in various ways, especially
in association with the rocketship
and space flight. Early in the score
“Building Montage”39 introduces
tremolando chords in the violins
and violas that alternate rapidly
between A flat and D major as
we see a model of the rocketship
soon to be built.40 Like many such
traditional musical terms (or vice versa). Torbett
also said that whereas Nathan Van Cleave was
Schillinger’s “prize pupil,” he and Stevens used
the system “very little.” Torbett said they would
try to use the system when possible, though. He
didn’t think Stevens studied with Schillinger
very long, and that at the time (the 1930s) it
was “fashionable” to study with him. In spite of
this, Torbett said that his style and Stevens’ were
so similar that they could hardly be told apart.
He thought this was because they both studied
with Schillinger and because they had worked so
closely together. Torbett, ibid. Informally certain
film and TV composers over the years have
told me that they, too, had used “two tonics,”
including Fred Steiner (who undoubtedly learned
of it from his mentor at CBS Radio, Nathan Van
Cleave) and Eddy Lawrence Manson, who learned
of it from Columbia Studios composer, George
Duning (Duning, however, was not a Schillinger
pupil). It would seem that “two tonics” was a
Schillinger “trick” that caught on in radio and
film music.
39  Titles given in quotation marks are cue titles
from Stevens’ sketches or conductor parts.
40  Coincidently, in his main title for All My Sons
(mm. 9-11) Stevens alternates D major and A flat
major chords. Hamilton discusses Stevens’ use of
tritone-related progressions in the cue “Trouble
devices the use of tremolando
string chords played for dramatic
suspense in film music dates from
the silent film period and has its
roots in theatrical melodrama
and opera before that (and, of
course, this score was, after all,
composed only twenty years after
the end of the silent era).41 As the
scene changes to show the actual
rocketship under construction,
Stevens has a dramatic glissando
alternating between the same
two chords, culminating in a tutti
crescendo of the chords tremolandi
(see Example 2). The colorful
effect of alternating chords a
tritone apart has an exhilarating
almost breathless quality about it,
Brewing,” though without reference to two tonics
or it being a Schillinger device. He also points
out that in the dramatic context of the scene
the melodic and harmonic use of the tritone
is to “give the effect of imminent danger” (for
his discussion, see Hamilton, “Leith Stevens,”
34‑36). A copy of the conductor part for All My
Sons is preserved in the WHMC.
41  Born in 1909, among Stevens’ musical
activities was playing piano in a local silent
movie theater. So both by virtue of his musicality,
early musical education, and actual experience,
Stevens was likely familiar with silent film
accompaniment practice already in his youth. See
Siders, “Leith Stevens,” 18.
perhaps intended to reflect both
the excitement of the rocketship
project and something of the awe
and wonder of the rocketship
itself as an engineering feat.42
“Goodbye” is heard as the
astronauts rush to go up in the
gantry elevator to board the
rocketship, and Stevens once
more has an ascending chord
progression on two tonics, the
strings again playing tremolando,
with an overall effect that, in
its upward movement, both
Mickey-Mouses the elevator
rising and enhances the suspense
of last-minute complications
surrounding the rocket launch.43
42  Other film composers had discovered tritone-
related progressions and used them to good
effect already in the 1930s, notably Bernhard
Kaun, who used them in laboratory sequences
bringing the dead back to life in his scores for
the Warner Bros. horror films The Walking Dead
(1936), starring Boris Karloff, and Return of Dr. X
(1938), starring Humphrey Bogart (Bogart’s only
horror film). It is hard to believe that Hans Salter
and Frank Skinner did not borrow this effect
from Kaun in scoring the laboratory sequences in
Universal’s Man Made Monster (1941), starring Lon
Chaney, Jr.
43  The progression on two tonics in “Goodbye”
is very similar to one that also uses tremolando
strings accompanying a scene with a car pursuit
in All My Sons (“My Son Forgive Me,” mm. 7-9).

Once in space the astronauts
go for a space walk to check an
antenna on the outside of the
rocketship that has not deployed.
Like a traditional movie misterioso,
“Out in Space” begins in a hushed
way, as if expressing fear of the
unknown, with violas and cellos
playing tremolando and ponticello
as the hatchway of the rocketship
slowly opens revealing bright
shining stars against the blackness
of outer space.44 Here Stevens
introduces a novel variation on
his use of “two tonics.” This
passage is undoubtedly what the
writer quoted above described as
“floating about in Space with the
fiddles fiddlin’ in fourths,” because
rather than major chords playing
on two tonics, here the strings
play fourth chords, or quartal chords,
as they are also called (in quartal
harmony chords are constructed
on the interval of the fourth,
rather than on thirds as in tertian
harmony). This passage is of purely
musical interest not only because
quartal harmony was by then a
harmonic device well established
in twentieth century music, and
associated particularly with the
music of Schoenberg, Hindemith,
and Bartók, but because Stevens’
fourth chords alternate in different
inversions of three-note fourth
chords. With the exception of
Hindemith, most composers in
Stevens’ day who used fourth
chords moved them in root
position (thus in parallel motion).45
As a result, Stevens’ quartal
harmony has a distinctive sound
largely attributable to the greater
harmonic interest (or variety)
achieved by using inversions.46
44  Cf. All My Sons where Stevens uses the
traditional tremolando strings for a misterioso
effect in “I’m Not Worrying” (mm. 1-2) and with
the addition of ponticello in “Chris Doubts”
(mm. 1-6).
45  Cf. “Grablegung” in Hindemith’s Mathis der
Maler symphony.
46  For a discussion of the question of chord
inversions in quartal harmony, see Adrianne
It seems likely that Stevens
utilized Schillinger’s formulation of
quartal harmony in the Schillinger
System, where it is called the
“harmony of fourths,” and in
which explicit reference is made to
the prior use of fourth chords by
Scriabin, Ravel, and Hindemith.47
However, in his formulation
Schillinger constructs fourth
chords using the superposition of
a perfect fourth and an augmented
fourth, whereas Stevens uses only
chords built of perfect fourths.
Inexplicably, though, in the context
of other principles in his “General
Theory of Harmony,” Schillinger
uses as illustrations of three-part
harmony chords constructed of
perfect fourths.48 Stevens alternates
not only between different
inversions of fourth chords, but
the roots of the chords move in
tritones following the principle of
two tonics. Schillinger does not
combine two tonics with quartal
harmony in the System, so this
could be seen as an innovation
on Stevens’ part, though it could
also be construed as using another
Schillinger principle, namely, what
he called geometrical expansion.
Thus, for example, geometrically
expanding the intervals of the
diatonic scale into a non-diatonic
scale consists of increasing the
value of p, in which p defines the
Marie Auvil, “A Survey of the Evolution and Use
of Quartal and Quintal Sonorities” (PhD diss.,
The University of Rochester, Eastman School
of Music, 1974), 1-15. Cf. “Chords by Fourths,”
Vincent Persichetti, Twentieth-Century Harmony
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1961), 95.
47  In Schillinger’s text, “The Harmony of
Fourths,” formulations for inversions and
voice leading of fourths chords are presented.
According to George Parrish, who orchestrated
War of the Worlds (and thought it a highly effective
score), Stevens’ use of quartal harmony indeed
came from Schillinger, and noted that at that
time Stevens was still very much under the
influence of the Schillinger system (though this
would seem to contradict Torbett’s statement
that he and Stevens used “the system” relatively
little). George Parrish, Notes from an unrecorded
telephone conversation with the author, 23
January 1975.
48  Schillinger. vol. 2, 945 & 1108; cf. also chords
built on perfect fourths as illustrations of his
“General Theory of Directional Units,” 1181.
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   403
pitch interval or what is traditionally
called a scale step. The editors of
the System note: “The process . . .
is one of extending the semitone to
a full [whole] tone, or more. Thus
c–d–e–f–g would become c–e–g#–
a#–d. The unit of measurement
may be extended so that p, instead
of equaling 2p, equals 3p, 4p, 5p,
etc.” Schillinger saw geometric
expansion as being analogous to
linear visual design changing one
system of proportions into another,
for example, in which a figure of
a round face is changed to that of
an elongated face.49 Thus he notes
that by increasing the intervals of
the diatonic scale five-fold, or 5p,
the “expansion is characteristic of
the modern school which utilizes
the interval of the 4th—such as
Hindemith, Berg, Krenek, etc.”50
Stevens actually used a quartal
structure in the first music he
composed for a film, Syncopation
(RKO, 1940). It is heard near the
beginning of his jazzy “American
Rhapsodie,” a concert piece he
subsequently extracted from the
score, in which he has a brass
“pyramid of fourths” reminiscent
of the famous example in the
opening bars of Schoenberg’s First
Chamber Symphony.51 Coincidently,
he also used two tonics in the
“Rhapsodie,” so already in his first
film he had used both harmonic
devices.52 He used them again in
his second film, All My Sons, but
did not combine them. Though
there are four- and even five-
note fourth chords in the score,
Stevens used them only in root
49  Schillinger, vol. 2, 208n and 209.
50  Ibid., 211.
51  See mm. 6 of Stevens’ “American Rhapsodie,”
the autograph score for which is preserved in the
WHMC. Unlike Schoenberg, though, Stevens
starts off with a fifth, then stacks five fourths
above it in the pyramid, the same number of
fourths Schoenberg uses in his.
52  On the section of his sketch marked “A
Development” in “American Rhapsodie” Stevens
notes “Move str[ings] in 2nd tonic with Bass,”
and a measure later, he notes that there be a
“two tonic Harp gliss[ando],” both presumably
instructions to his orchestrator, Dave Torbett.
404    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
position—as “color chords”—which
invariably either resolved to tertian
chords, or else resolved from
stacks of fourths that contained a
tertian interval to a fully quartal
chord and back. 53 Whether derived
from Schillinger’s formulation
of quartal harmony or geometric
expansion—or even independently
through experimenting on his
own—it is possible that this
was an innovation with him
that developed in course of
scoring Destination Moon.
In “Out in Space,” Stevens
has his fourth chords playing a
harmonic ostinato in tremolando
strings, and over that, a glittery
rising and falling glissando figure
in the woodwinds, doubled by
harp, celesta, and Glockenspiel,
what seems to be a bit of tone
painting to correspond with the
scintillating appearance of the
stars. A relatively small musical
detail (though an effective
one) it has a striking similarity
to a glissando figure in “The
Montagues and Capulets” from
Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet.54
53  See especially “Chris and Annie,” mm. 2-4,
and “Hello Kate,” mm. 34-54, in All My Sons.
In “Hello Kate” some of the fourth chords are
so-called “right hand fourths,” a term that refers
to the use in jazz piano of three-note fourth
chords played by right hand but typically over
a perfect fifth in the bass (see Ludmila Ulehla,
Contemporary Harmony: Romanticism through the
Twelve-Tone Row, New York: The Free Press, 1966,
383-84). However Stevens has his right hand
fourths over a single pedal tone. Though there
are sporadic illustrations of single vertical stacks
of fourths in Stevens’ Schillinger notes, the
“harmony of fourths” as a topic is not covered
and, according to Torbett, Stevens did not own
the textbooks (Dave Torbett, Recorded interview
by the author, 6 November 1983). How then
would Stevens have become acquainted with
Schillinger’s rather unique “harmony of fourths”
formulation? Since it appears Stevens first used
quartal inversions in Destination Moon, perhaps
he found the Schillinger chapter in Torbett’s
copy of the books. However an inventory of
Stevens’ personal library preserved at the
WHMC indicates that at some point he evidently
did acquire both Schillinger volumes, and
correspondence in his papers shows that at one
point he purchased an extra copy for his office at
Paramount Studios.
54  In his personal record collection in possession
of Zolona Stevens Moss, Stevens had a recording
of the second suite from Prokofiev’s Romeo
and Juliet, as recorded under the baton of the
The glissando is followed in
turn by a soaring string figure in
octaves played by muted violins
as the crew steps out through the
open hatchway. Rising portamento
a minor seventh the string figure
seems to echo the overall shape of
the glissando more melodiously.
Combined, these elements have
an ethereal quality that, with the
shivering string tremolos serve to
evoke the mystery of outer space,
the empty void through which the
rocketship is traveling thousands
of miles an hour, and with the
rolling glittery glissando and
string figure, a graceful floating
“spacey” quality (Example 3a).
Seen from outside the
rocketship the crew appears
upside down showing that they
are weightless and are only able to
stand and walk on the rocketship’s
hull because of magnetic boots
they are wearing. The metallic
surface of the rocketship is bathed
in blue light with a bright field
of stars visible behind the crew.
Underscoring this sight is a 10-note
“skyscraper” fourth chord in the
upper register played by divided
strings and high muted trumpets,
with an arching octave figure in the
bass below it. Though conceivably
echoing in the lower register
the shape of the previous string
figure, this arching octave figure is
slightly clumsy, even a little goofy-
sounding, Mickey-Mousing as it
does, each of the crewmen coming
out of the hatchway, leaning
forward as they emerge so that
they are standing perpendicular
to the position in which had been
standing inside the rocketship.
The octave figure accentuates this
composer conducting the Moscow Philharmonic
Orchestra (Polydor Vox PLP 6060). However it
is not clear whether this recording was issued
before or after Stevens composed Destination
Moon. If after, there is nothing to say he had not
heard the music any time following its premiere
in 1937 when Stevens was still at CBS radio in
New York. Zolona Stevens Moss, Letter to the
author, 1 November 1980.
odd repositioning of going from
one vertical position to another
one because of the lack of gravity.
Mid-range brass then doubles
several notes of the skyscraper
chord over which a pentatonic
melody is played by flute and oboe
in octaves, doubled with parallel
chords played by Glockenspiel,
xylophone, harp, and celesta.
The sight of the crewmen
upside down accompanied by the
rising figure in the bass with its
ungraceful leaps and the funky
orchestral combination playing
the melodic line has a somewhat
comical quality, again musically
reminiscent of Prokofiev or
Shostakovich (or both), perhaps
epitomized by quacking trumpets
with Harmon mutes that play the
previous arching figure in the
upper register. The combination
of brass playing the big quartal
chord with the tintinnabulating
percussion has a cool, hollow, even
metallic quality that synesthetically
chimes with the blue steely sheen of
the rocketship’s hull. At the same
time the whole orchestral texture,
swelling with a crescendo, has an
open, attenuated, rarified quality.55
In large part thanks to Stevens’
scoring, the dramatic effect shifts
in the course of about a minute
from the mysterious and ethereal
to the otherworldly, the beatific,
the euphoric. This would probably
not occur without the music,
because visually the firmament
is rather flat-looking and is not
shown in a very wide angle relative
to the rocketship in this scene.
The music imparts not just mood
qualities but spatial qualities to
the visuals—specifically a sense
of depth, such that there would
be no feeling of the vastness of
55  OED defines this sense of the verb chime as
“to accord harmoniously, harmonize, agree,” and
gives as a textual citation for it a passage from
Dickens’ Barn. Rudge lvii, “There was a freshness
in the sound . . . which chimed exactly with his
mood.”

Example 3a: “Out in Space” from Destination Moon
outer space without the music
in this scene. For that matter
the scene plays rather slowly
without the music, there being
little or no sense of wonder or
suspense. With his music Stevens
was thus not duplicating what
is on the screen but was instead
enhancing or adding qualities
not present at all (Example 3b).
The tremolando chords and
soaring string line in Example
3a are reprised as the crew turn
and look back at Earth. The
commander, Jim Barnes (played
by John Archer), says to another
member of the crew, Joe Sweeney
(played by Dick Wesson), “How
do you feel now, Joe?” He replies,
“Weird! Thousands of miles an
hour and not a breeze.” Barnes
then exclaims, “Ah, it’s more
beautiful than I ever dreamed.
I’ll never be able to describe it
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   405
to anyone.”56 Yet the mixture of
weirdness and otherworldly beauty
has already been captured in the
music by this point, effectively
creating atmosphere where
there is literally no atmosphere,
chiming with the vast expanse
of space dotted with stars.
56  Dialogue quoted from the three George
Pal sci-fi films, Destination Moon, When Worlds
Collide, and War of the Worlds, are the author’s
transcriptions of it from listening to the films.
406    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
Example 3b: “Out in Space” from Destination Moon
Moving on to accomplish their
mission to service the exterior
antenna, one crewman accidentally
loses his mooring to the rocketship
and floats away from it in “They
Are Safe.” To rescue him Jim
Barnes asks via radio one of the
crewman inside to bring him an
oxygen tank. Quickly opening and
then closing the value on the tank
he uses the bursts of oxygen from
the tank to propel himself over to
the stranded man and brings him
back safely to the hull. Visually the
bursts from the oxygen tank are
rather unimpressive, so Stevens
emphasized each burst with
staccato brass chords of various
kinds, including both parallel
3-note fifth (“quintal”) chords
ascending chromatically and at one
point parallel fourth chords also
ascending chromatically.57 (Stevens
had used parallel quintal chords as
early as 1939 in his score for the
57  This was a technical slip on the part of the
storytellers: The oxygen bursts should have been
invisible, there being no atmosphere to render
them visible against the blackness of outer space.
CBS Columbia Workshop radio
drama, “John Brown’s Body.”58)
Curiously, between the quintal
and quartal progressions Stevens
has a brief slow progression in
brass consisting of (1) two major
chords on two tonics (2) a single
fourth chord in root position, and
concluding with (3) a major chord
on the second of the two tonics.
Though perhaps only coincidence
this simple progression might
be interpreted as reflecting the
58  “John Brown’s Body” aired July 20, 1939.
There is an aircheck recording of it in the
WHMC.

state of Stevens’ musical thinking
previously in All My Sons (i.e.,
about a year earlier) in that it
juxtaposes tertian chords in
different inversions with a single
root position quartal chord. He has
juxtaposed literally side by side the
elements that he combines for the
quartal version of two tonics in
“Out in Space.” In “They Are Safe”
the two triads are in root position
and second inversion, respectively
(C major and F major), and the
fourth chord is in root position, as
is the brief progression of fourth
chords that follows it 17 bars later.
It is only one conceptual step
then to combining the inversions
used in two tonics with inverting
fourth chords for that purpose.
This it raises the question of
whether the cue was written before
or after “Out in Space” given
that in “They Are Safe” Stevens
uses fourth chords only in root
position. If written before “Out in
Space,” these passages represent
an intermediate stage in Stevens’
musical thinking that anticipates
the quartal version of two tonics.59
It is known that Stevens did not
always compose cues in film order,
so herein may lie the explanation
of why this cue follows “Out in
Space,” yet in terms of musical
content, may represent an earlier
stage in Stevens’ musical thinking.
He does not use parallel fourth
chords again in the score.60
59  See in Destination Moon, “They Are Safe,”
mm.1, 5, and 11 (progressions of parallel quintal
chords), mm. 9-10 (progression including triads
on two tonics, andone fourth chord), and m. 27
(progression of parallel fourth chords). Though
there is a preliminary sketch for the beginning
part of “Out in Space,” there is none for “They
Are Safe.” This could be interpreted to mean
that while he was scoring the film Stevens felt
the need to make a preliminary sketch of “Out in
Space” before actually writing the cue to timed
footage, and thus that he was experimenting
with the quartal version of two tonics as a device.
Other preliminary sketches contain passages
featuring quintal chords in the strings moving in
contrary motion (not unlike the slow movement
“night music” in Bartok’s 2nd piano concerto), but
these passages seem not to be in the final score.
60  “Your score should be planned as an entity, as
a complete unit so that it will have a beginning, a
With “Escape from the Moon,”
the penultimate cue in the score,
the crew secures the rocketship
for a somewhat perilous launch
to return to Earth. At one point
Stevens actually juxtaposes the
tertian version of two tonics and
the quartal version within a space
of three measures (see Example 4),
documenting the kinship
between the tertian and quartal
progressions on two tonics. As the
rocketship blasts off in “End Title,”
though, Stevens again has the
quartal version ascending briskly
in tremolando strings, recalling
“Out in Space” (Example 5).
Clearly the quartal version
of progressions on two tonics in
these cues has quite a different
feeling from the tertian version
in earlier cues. It has a thrilling
quality like the tertian version, but
also a kind of coldness. Musicians
sometimes speak of the fourth
middle, and an end. Do not think of it as cue #1,
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and up to however many you have.
Know where you’re going with every part of the
score before you start to write. Know everything
about the picture—where it will end, where you
will have music. Do the longest cue first, for
variance of material, and also to provide material
and themes for extraction. If you write something
early in the picture, then also write something
at the end and in the middle. I usually write the
end of the film first. If you start to write at the
beginning of the picture and you write straight
on through without ever knowing where you are
going, you will keep modifying your material
to such an extent that by the time you get to
the end of it, it will hardly be recognizable
compared to the first reel. If you work on the
score as a whole this will not happen. You will
have planned your departures from the norm
and your developmental techniques will then
come at the right places in the score rather than
indiscriminately throughout. If, for example,
you are working with a piece of material that
you are gradually changing, don’t just say to
yourself, ‘Well, that’s the next cue, I’ll use
that here.’ Look through your picture, and see
if perhaps somewhere else it will fit better. It
may be that you will find some simpler version
of your thematic material that you should use
early in the picture, and use what you may have
started with as your original pattern a third of
the way through, because that’s where its normal
development would set in. In other words, this is
not just haphazard writing of music to fit scenes.
The score must make musical sense from one end
to the other. It must develop logically and should
not depart so far over the length of the picture
that you lose identity with the original. Be
careful on that point. It is most important.” Leith
Stevens, “Film Scoring,” 351.
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   407
and fifth as “cold” or “empty”
harmonic intervals in contrast
to the “warmth” of thirds and
sixths. The cold and empty quality
of the fourths is only reinforced
in the passages played by strings
tremolandi and ponticello.
It should be noted, too, that
Stevens does not use broken
chords in the progressions based
on two tonics, whether tertian
or quartal, but confines the
harmonic texture to block chords,
though sometimes as a harmonic
background to thematic material.
For that matter he does not offer
an obviously “two-tonic” melody,
either tertian or quartal, even a
simple one that might merely trace
the outline of the chords. When
he is not using chord progressions
on two tonics homophonically
(homorythmically), Stevens
uses them as a chordal
background to his themes.
W
hile Destination Moon
was still in production
George Pal wanted to
buy the rights to the popular 1932
sci-fi novel When Worlds Collide by
Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer.
But as with War of the Worlds,
Paramount had acquired the
rights to it in the 1930s as another
possible vehicle for Cecil B.
DeMille. Ironically, Paramount had
passed on producing Destination
Moon when Pal originally tried to
interest the studio in producing it.
After it proved successful at the
box office, Paramount approached
Pal to produce a sci-fi film. Having
already scored Pal’s previous two
films Leith Stevens was asked to
score When Worlds Collide.61
The musical language of
Stevens’ score for When Worlds
Collide is similar to Destination
Moon, but much more highly
61  Gail Morgan Hickman, The Films of George Pal.
South Brunswick: A. S. Barnes, 1977, 47.
408    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC

Example 4: “Escape from the Moon” from Destination Moon

Example 5: “End Title” from Destination Moon

charged and forceful, undoubtedly
in response to a story that depicts,
as it does, the end of the world:
An astronomer in South America
reports that a star called Bellus is
on a collision course with Earth.
Bellus has a planet orbiting it
called Zyra that that will pass in
close proximity to Earth before
Bellus then collides with it.62
62  For an analysis of Stevens’ score for When
Worlds Collide as relates his musicodramatic style,
see Hamilton, “An Analysis and an Evaluation of
the Relationship between the Film Score and the
Psychological Implications of the Screenplay as
Exemplified in the Motion Picture When Worlds
Collide, with Additional Analyses of Three Other
Works,” Leith Stevens, 85-129.
The film, directed by Rudolph
Maté from a screenplay by Sidney
Boehm, is introduced with a
written foreword in the form of
pages from the Book of Genesis
about Noah’s Flood, replete with
a wordless “heavenly” chorus,
courtesy of Mr. Stevens. The film
is thus a modern day Noah’s ark

Example 6: “Bellus, Zyra and the D.A.” from When Worlds Collide
story about the tremendous effort
to build a spaceship in time so that
a small group of Earthlings may
safely reach Zyra to colonize it
before Bellus collides with Earth.
Much of Stevens’ score is based on
a faintly Middle Eastern-sounding
theme he calls simply “Bellus
and Zyra,” a melodic idea that
employs two tonics. It consists of
two parts, the first part starting on
one tonic, the second part echoing
it a “second tonic” a tritone
above it. Stevens uses different
versions of the theme as a unifying
element throughout the score.
The story opens as an
American courier pilot, Dave
Randall (played by Richard Derr),
flies astronomical data about Bellus
and Zyra from the observatory in
South America back to the U.S.
Upon receiving it, astronomer Dr.
Hendron (played by Larry Keating)
orders that the data be given to
“D.A.” “Bellus, Zyra and the D.A.”
begins in low strings and winds
and has a slightly foreboding
quality, the storytellers presumably
wanting the audience to believe,
as Dave Randall does in the film,
that “D.A.” refers to “District
Attorney.” Randall is soon relieved
as another scientist, Tony Drake
(played by Peter Hanson) tells
him with a wry smile that “D.A.”
actually stands for “differential
analyzer,” in reality the first analog
computer made by M.I.T. in the
1930s. The footage shown of the
differential analyzer working was
previously used in Destination Moon,
where it is supposedly performing
computations to minimize the
rocketship’s fuel consumption.63
In “Building Montage” Stevens
scored the brief shot of the “D.A.”
with a musical effect comprised of
notes played by two overlapping
parallel double octaves: The
first double octave is played by
pizzicato strings, harp, and piano.
The second double octave, a
fifth below the other, is played
by winds, xylophone, and piano,
with grace notes accenting it—this
over a sustained octave played
by low woodwinds, strings, and
timpani (see Example 6, m. 32).
63  Presumably stock footage was used of the
differential analyzer.
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   409
The musical effect is suggestive
of mechanical workings, what
in film music was by then called
“machine music,” that is, music
imitating the sounds and/or
movements of machines—a
parallel and largely unrelated
development to the machine
music movement in the 1920s
that produced such works as
Honegger’s Pacific 231, Antheil’s
Ballet Mechanique, Mosolov’s Iron
Foundary, Meytus’s Dnieper Dam,
and Carlos Chavez’s Horse Power.64
Resourcefully, for When Worlds
Collide Stevens reused this bit of
machine music in “Bellus, Zyra
and the D.A.,” when the “D.A.”
64  Representative examples of machine music
in early sound films include Herbert Stothart’s
“Ballet Mechanique” (also called “Mechanical
Ballet” or “Mechanical Episode”) in Madam
Satan (M-G-M, 1930), and sequences such
as the “Factory Music” by Franz Waxman in
Diamond Jim Brady (Universal, 1935), Stothart’s
music for the train scene “Suicide” in Anna
Karenina (M-G-M, 1935), and Sir Arthur Bliss’s
“Reconstruction” in Things to Come (Korda-U.A.,
1936). In his tenure as a staff composer and
arranger at Fox studios 1929-33, Hugo Friedhofer
was the resident specialist in writing machine
music, perhaps the most memorable being a
cue he wrote for Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round
(1934). Hugo Friedhofer, Notes from unrecorded
telephone conversation with the author, 8
December 1977.
410    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
is seen. Only in this instance
Stevens uses the melodic line
(such as it is) of the mechanical
“D.A.” music as the basis of the
whole cue, so that it is really a
development of that one brief
passage from “Building Montage”
in Destination Moon. One measure
after the “D.A.” music, as Dr.
Hendron’s daughter, Joyce, herself a
scientist (played by Barbara Rush)
studies the plot printed out from
the differential analyzer, Stevens
uses his quartal version of two
tonics from Destination Moon.65
He maintains something of the
mechanical flavor of the preceding
measures by having the pizzicato
strings doubling a progression of
fourth chords played by winds:
flutes, clarinets, and muted
horns.66 On top of the fourth
chords jazzy muted trumpets play
his Bellus and Zyra theme. As we
again see Joyce Hendron studying
the output from the differential
analyzer, the cue concludes
with the “D.A” music repeated,
followed by the first three chords
of the same quartal progression,
only this time for open horns
alone (see Example 6, m. 33).67
In this shot we do not actually
see the differential analyzer,
though we hear its music, thus
suggesting that it is just out of
view (this shot is actually the same
camera set up as the previous one
of Joyce studying the print out, it
being implied that the plotter she
is seated in front of is connected
65  Only a plotter is shown in the scene with
Joyce Hendron, not the whole differential
analyzer.
66  Stevens’ sketches for When Worlds Collide are
at the WHMC. Most of the cues are stamped
with a date, presumably the date Stevens finished
composing each one. The date for “Bellus, Zyra
and the D.A.” is April 21, 1951.
67  On the first leaf of his preliminary sketch
entitled “Bellus and Zyra themes” Stevens
actually notes at one point “superimpose full
theme in 2nd tonic in quarter [note]s (muted
br[ass]).” Perhaps it is no coincidence that
the pyramid of fourths in Stevens’ “American
Rhapsodie” from Syncopation also ascends
in triplets?
to the differential analyzer, as if
it is off camera). Thus Stevens’
little bit of machine music helps
the continuity in establishing that
Joyce is obtaining and studying the
output directly from the D.A. The
quartal progression functions as a
kind of cadence to the D.A. music
here, suggesting that perhaps in
Stevens’ mind, the fourth chords
have something in common with
the musical effects he employs
in the D.A. music. Already in All
My Sons there is a bit of machine
music (associated with a factory
in the film) and, significantly,
it is preceded by a passage in
which fourths on two tonics are
played by woodwinds.68 It could
readily be said of “Bellus, Zyra
and the D.A.” that the machine
music and fourth chords have
a cold quality, no doubt partly
attributable to the fact that the
D.A. music is comprised solely of
“open” intervals, just as fourth
chords are. Also perhaps as in part
of “Out in Space” in Destination
Moon scoring the fourth chords for
brass reflects an association on
Stevens’ part between brass and
metal, in this context with metal
machinery, the “D.A.” clearly being
made of metal gears, cogs, and
capstans. No doubt the mechanical
quality of the quartal progressions
in this association is partly
attributable to the measured and
orderly way in which the chords
invert back and forth, almost a
harmonic ostinato, and ostinati
being one of the characteristic
features of all machine music.
One of Schillinger’s general
principles is that of clockwise and
counterclockwise musical motion,
whether in rhythmic patterns
or chord progressions. Here
68  The cue in All My Sons containing fourths
on two tonics followed by machine music is
“I’m Not Worrying.” The fourths are actually
anticipated in a descending passage of minor
thirds alternating and with fourths played by
tremolando strings.
Stevens’ quartal progressions
alternate between clockwise and
counterclockwise chordal motion,
in accordance with Schillinger’s
formulation of quartal harmony.69
Stevens’ quartal progressions
seem at times to almost evoke a
sense of thinking and reasoning, if
it be only “cold ratiocination,” as
the phrase goes. In this regard
Helmholtz wrote of how in his
opinion music seems to be able
to express “frames of mind”
more than it does feelings (his
remarks are confined to melody):
In English the phrase out of
tune, unstrung, and in German,
stimmung, literally tuning,
are transferred from music
to mental states. The words
are meant to denote those
peculiarities of mental condition
which are capable of musical
representation. I think we
might appropriately define
gemüthsstimmung, or mental tune,
as representing that general
character temporarily shewn by
the motion of our conceptions,
and correspondingly impressed
on the motions of our body
and voice. Our thoughts may
move fast or slowly, may wander
about restlessly and aimlessly in
anxious excitement, or may keep
a determinate aim distinctly
and energetically in view; they
may lounge about without care
or effort in pleasant fancies,
or, driven back by some sad
memories, may return slowly
and heavily from the spot with
short weak steps. All this may
be imitated and expressed by
the melodic motion of the tones,
and the listener may thus receive
a more perfect and impressive
69  More generally, the most rudimentary
applications of Schillinger’s quasi-mathematical
principles tend to produce music that has a
stilted, mechanical quality. But in the hands
of a talented and skilled composer such as
Stevens, the Schillinger techniques are just tools,
the means to an end, and one dictated not by
Schillinger principles or rules but ultimately
by intuition and judgment, i.e., what “sounds
good.” As Dave Torbett noted, he and Stevens
both tried to use the Schillinger system in their
film writing, as he put it, “when possible,” but
in reality used it “very little,” because as he said,
though it made “great talk,” it wasn’t very useful
in actual practice. Torbett, Unrecorded interview.

image of the ‘tune’ of another
person’s mind, than by any other
means, except perhaps by a very
perfect dramatic representation
of the way in which such a
person really spoke and acted.70
Apropos of this is an aesthetic
idea published in 1818 by the
Polish mathematician-philosopher,
Hoëne-Wronski (1776-1853) that
greatly inspired Edgard Varèse:
“Music is the corporealization
of intelligence in sounds” (La
musique . . . est . . . la corporification
de l’intelligence dans les sons).”71
Varèse said that this “definition
of music,” as he called it, started
him thinking of music “as
spatial—as bodies of intelligent
sounds moving freely in space. . . .”
Apparently Hoëne-Wronski’s use
of the word “corporification”
suggested to Varèse the idea
that musical sonorities are quite
literally corporeal, Tonkörper
(“tone bodies”), as Varèse said
in a German interview, and that
such tone bodies are, in his
conception, intelligent.72 Hoëne-
70  Hermann von Helmholtz, On the Sensations of
Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music,
ed. and trans. Alexander J. Ellis (New York:
Dover Books, 1954), 250-51.
71  See Anne Florence Parks, Freedom, Form,
and Process in Varèse: A Study of Varèse’s
Musical Ideas, Their Sources, Their Development,
and Their Use in His Works. Ph.D. diss., Cornell
University, 1974, 16-17. Parks notes that Varèse
first discovered Hoëne-Wronski’s definition of
music (or what Varèse evidently construed as
such) quoted in a nineteenth century harmony
treatise by Camille Durutte, Esthétique Musicale:
Résumé Élémentaire de la Technie Harmonique et
Complément de cette Technie Suivie de l’Exposé de la Loi
de l’Enchaînement dans la Mélodie, dans l’Harmonie et
dans leur Concords (Paris, Gauthier-Villars, 1876),
vii. Varèse invariably misquoted Hoëne-Wronski
as saying that music was “la corporification
de l’intelligence qui est [italics added] dans les
sons” (the corporealization of the intelligence
which is [italics added] in sounds), rather than
“la corporification de l’intelligence dans les sons
(Music is the corporealization of intelligence in
sounds).” But as noted above in the text, Varèse’s
misquotation accurately represented Hoëne-
Wronski’s meaning.
72  Contrary to Varèse’s view, Helmholtz was of
the opinion that it was the very incorporeality of
music that made it unique as an artistic medium:
“The incorporeal material of tones is much
more adapted for the following of motion, than
any corporeal material however light. Graceful
rapidity, grave procession, quiet advance, wild
Wronski, a neo-Pythagorean
whose thinking anticipates
Schillinger’s in some ways, himself
postulated the existence of a
“true rhythm, that is, a regular
concourse of vibrations; a rhythm
which, by the manifestation
of a sort of intelligence in
inert nature, is generally an
aesthetic object, an object of
taste, as is proved by the general
philosophy of the beautiful.”73
In the context of Stevens’
quartal harmony, though, the
intelligence embodied in the
musical sonorities—or, rather, the
semblance of a kind of rudimentary
intelligent behavior in them—is as
noted a cool dispassionate one,
perhaps similar to that exhibited
by the simplest forms of artificial
intelligence. But Stevens was almost
certainly striving intentionally
for a mechanical clockwork-like
effect with his quartal chord
progressions that, somehow,
simulates a feeling of logic and
intelligence, more than exhibiting
logic and intelligence as such.
leaping, all these different characters of motion
and a thousand others in the most varied
combinations and degrees, can be represented
by successions of tones. [T]he motion of tone
surpasses all motion of corporeal masses in
the delicacy and ease with which is can receive
and imitates the most varied descriptions of
expression.” Helmholtz, Sensations of Tone, 251.
73  “. . . un véritable rhythme, c’est-à-dire
sur un concours régulier dans les vibrations;
rhythme qui, par la manifestation d’une
espèce d’intelligence dans la nature inerte, est
généralement un objet esthétique, un objet du
goût, comme cea est prouvé par la philosophie
générale du beau.” Charles Henry, Wronski et
l’esthétique musicale (Paris: A. Hermann, 1887),
13. The author is indebted to Joscelyn Godwin
for his expert English translation of the passage.
Parks (Freedom, Form, and Process in Varèse)
and Bristiger argue that Varèse misunderstood
Hoëne-Wronski, and that by “intelligence”
Hoëne-Wronski was only referring to the
intelligence of a composer being corporealized
in sound through music. But it is clear from
Hoëne-Wronski’s own words that he believed the
intelligence in question to be actually present in
“inert nature” (ostensibly a form of panpsychism)
though he does not refer to that metaphysical
doctrine per se. Cf. Michal Bristiger, “Webern e
Bach, Varèse e Hoëne Wronski: radici romantiche
del pensiero musicale di due musicisti moderni,”
in Antonino Fiorenza ed., Comporre arcano. Webern
e Varèse poli della musica moderno (Palermo: Sellerio,
1985), 46-49.
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   411
Perhaps “intelligent design” might
be a more neutral description, with
fewer metaphysical connotations.
A
nother apocalyptic sci-
fi epic like When Worlds
Collide, much of Stevens’
scoring of War of the Worlds is again
Sturm und Drang, only here the
apocalyptic situation is brought
about by an alien invasion. As
in his previous two sci-fi scores
the only electric or electronic
instruments Stevens employs
are Novachord and vibraphone,
though he achieves a number of
unusual effects with conventional
instruments. What is striking
about the score is its mostly very
sober character. There is nothing
fanciful about it, and at times it
has an almost mundane quality.
Stevens ostensibly scored the film
much as he might have scored a
contemporary drama of its day,
no doubt because Pal was striving
for a sense of intense realism. Pal
would later recall:
The three of us [Pal, Lyndon, and
Haskin] decided that we should
do as much as we could to make
the audience feel that they’re
actually witnessing an attack
and that the Martians are really
here. Of course they are going to
see a movie—they know it’s only
make-believe, but nevertheless,
I think we did capture in a small
way the realism of an actual
attack. [Haskin and I] decided
that we would never show the
point-of-view of the Martians
despite the pleas of the front
office which kept demanding
that we shoot something of how
they see us. Throughout the
film, we held to that concept.74
The score is more moody and
subdued than Destination Moon and
When Worlds Collide, though that
may be partly attributable to the
relatively low level at which much
74  Pal quoted in Ruben, 9.
412    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
of the music was dubbed rather
than musical dynamics. In spite
of the high emotions and terror
that are captured in the music in
certain scenes, there is almost
a sense of Wagner’s “endless
melody.” Though there are only
two melodies that are actually
associated with characters, the
score is surprisingly melodic, the
melodies often being modal or
of a non-Western flavor. Some
melodies are used to score whole
scenes and are heard only once,
harking back again to Stevens’
days in radio and his melodic
approach to “characterizing” or
“illustrating” scenes. There is a
prevailing sense to the score as if
it were just one long sad melody,
exemplified by the sound of muted
strings, embodying the desperation
and futility of humanity’s fight
against the insuperable power of
the Martians.75 This adds a certain
weight and depth to what is mostly
an action-oriented film, bringing
out or even adding qualities not
otherwise present. In spite of being
dubbed relatively low, the score
apparently caught the attention
of the press. Weekly Variety noted
that the “Leith Stevens music score
heightens the frightening mood
that grips the story unfoldment,”
and The Hollywood Reporter
commented that “the powerful
music score by Leith Stevens [went]
toward making ‘War of the Worlds’
a genuine emotional experience.”76
Both are certainly true.
75  In addition to the “muted” quality of much of
the score coming from Stevens’ predilection for
muted strings and the fact that a good deal of the
music is intentionally soft, a decision must have
been made relatively late in dubbing to have the
dubbing level of the score less “hot” on the whole
than the scores to the previous two Pal films.
But this “muted” quality adds a certain mystique
to the score at the same time, because there is
often a sense of indistinct musical motion that
has an unsettling quality because it is not clearly
discerned.
76  Weekly Variety, 4 March 53; Milton Luban,
“War of the Worlds. Terrific Box Office Attraction,”
The Hollywood Reporter, 2 March 1953.
Influenced by Orson Welles’
famous 1938 radio dramatization
of the novel that starts with a radio
news bulletin, the film begins
with a black and white newsreel
showing footage of the two world
wars.77 Appropriate to a newsreel
the main title music begins with
Paramount’s own newsreel logo
“Signature” fanfare by Elsie
Janis and Jack King, abruptly
followed with a martial-sounding
polyrhythmic passage for two tenor
drums by Stevens, as the narrator
(Paul Frees, who famously imitated
Orson Welles) briefly recounts
the history of warfare in the
twentieth century.78 But soon the
audience realizes that this is not a
newsreel at all when the narrator
exclaims “And now fought with the
terrible weapons of super science,
menacing all mankind and every
creature on Earth comes The War
of the Worlds!” and a title card rises
up to fill the screen in red military-
style lettering against a black
background. For a dramatic effect
Stevens actually wrote and made a
preliminary recording his “Prelude”
for piano so that the lettering in
the screen credits could flash in
synchronization with accents in the
music (mainly cymbal swooshes).79
Over a single sforzando triple-
octave ff in the orchestra, Stevens
echoes the triplet fanfare that
begins the Janis-King signature
with a triplet of brass fourth
77  In this connection the idea of starting War of
the Worlds with newsreel footage might have been
partly been inspired by Citizen Kane (RKO, 1941)
as well, that uses newsreel footage for narrative
purposes.
78  For a reproduction of the opening bars of the
War of the Worlds main title (“Prelude”), see Brill,
“Leith Stevens,” 376. The tenor drum “dialog”
makes use of Schillinger’s technique of rhythmic
permutation.
79  A Paramount memo from “Osborne” dated 22
September 1952 with the subject line “WAR OF
THE WORLD * MAIN TITLE” states: “Can not
shoot until Friday, Sep 26. Composer is writing
music to cover; going to make piano tracks which
will be turned over to Douglas, Cutter, and he
will scratch film, and will have to shoot from
that. Track will not be ready before Thursday.”
The memo is preserved in the production files for
War of the Worlds at the Herrick Library.
chords—the same progression
that concludes “Bellus, Zyra and
the D.A.” in When Worlds Collide
(Example 6, m. 33). Bravura
jazzy cross rhythms comprise the
orchestral fabric of a tour de force
main title (“Prelude”). It reminds
this writer a little of stylized movie
“jungle dance” music—perhaps
even for a stage number in a film
musical—conceivably Stevens’
answer to Holst’s “Mars, the
Bringer of War” in The Planets,
but with melodic shades of
Stravinsky’s Firebird and harmonic
shades of Le Sacre as well.
The first “big theme”
Stevens wrote for the main title
is an agitated one and not very
tuneful. Though apparently
recorded it was not liked by
the front office. So keeping
the orchestral accompaniment
for it he substituted another
simpler and more melodious
theme, even though his first
theme is featured throughout
the score and the replacement
main theme is heard in only
one sequence.80 It is perhaps no
accident that the new theme
somewhat resembles the main
theme for the 1940 mad-scientist
horror film Dr. Cyclops—another
Paramount film (scored by
Albert Hay Malotte, Ernst Toch,
and Gerard Carbonara), and it
seems a reasonable supposition
that Stevens was asked to
write something like it.
After Stevens’ theme has
been stated by strings in double
octaves, the strings soar fff into
the high register playing triads
based mainly on two tonics over a
pedal bass in the lowest register.
“Floating” triads such as these
80  Stevens’ first main title theme is initially
heard in the release version of the film in
“Martian Machine” (at m. 11) and more fully
in the next cue, “Attempted Communication”
(at m. 10). The replacement main theme is only
heard one other time near the end of the film in
“Evacuation.”

readily recall the “exotic” music
in countless Hollywood “Golden
Age” film scores that imitated
“Rome-Palermo” in Ibert’s Escales
(Ports of Call). Ibert’s tone painting
served as the model for musically
depicting “exotic” locales ranging
from Latin and South America to
the Mediterranean to the tropics or
South Sea isles, evoking the sight
of palm trees, azure blue skies or
seas, hot sun, and sultry humid
climates. (Perhaps not coincidently
Marlin Skiles who scored Flight to
Mars for Monogram the previous
year claimed that his was the first
score to portray Mars musically
in an “exotic” way. The “Mars
theme” in the score also seems
to imitate “Rome-Palermo” or
perhaps other imitations of it.)81
It was George Pal’s idea that
the film begin with scenes of the
planets with a voiceover narration
using H.G. Wells’ words from the
first few pages of the novel. For
this purpose screenwriter Barré
Lyndon suggested that his English
actor friend Sir Cedric Hardwicke
would be a good choice for the
cultured voice of H. G. Wells.82
The music for this sequence,
“Introduction,” is based on a
single melodic idea, another one
of Stevens’ faintly Middle-Eastern-
sounding melodies like ones in
Destination Moon and When Worlds
Collide. Though the melody itself
has a slightly weird and foreboding
quality it provides a figural basis
for tone painting, as Stevens plainly
seeks to suggest in the orchestra
the remote and forbidding
character of the other planets. The
fundamentally melodic approach
recalls Stevens’ advice to his
students, quoted above, about
first and foremost using a melodic
idea to portray a character and
81  Marlin Skiles, Unrecorded conversation with
the author, c. 1978.
82  Ruben, 16.
only then employing the other
elements of music supportively.
The melody is first stated in
winds doubled an octave and a fifth
higher as we see the red planet
Mars in outer space.83 His choice of
instrumental timbre and orchestral
effects in which the melody is set
include “descriptive” picturesque
musical devices that one might
expect to hear in film travelogue
music, or, in theatrical films of the
day, music to portray the bleakness
and desolation of wilderness,
the vast expanse of prairie, or
bleak deserts in Westerns, with
its sparseness and prominent use
of double-reeds.84 An immediate
precursor to this, though, is a
long cue entitled “On the Moon”
in Destination Moon to accompany
a largely silent panoramic
view of the lunar surface.85
More than the American West
the far greater vastness of outer
space is at once suggested by a
high sustained quintal chord in
violin harmonics. A small cluster
pulses in viola harmonics, muted
trumpets, harp, and vibraphone,
as if a signal or call from outer
space, with its echoing quality
suggestive of the vast distances in
interplanetary space. A pedal tone
in the bass seems to partly fill the
83  The musical examples from War of the Worlds
are based on the conductor part for the score
preserved in the Paramount Studios Music
Department library. Doubling a line an octave
and a fifth higher was one of Stevens’ favorite
orchestral effects. On his sketches he called it
“quint” or “quint effect.” For a discussion of how
this effect and other doublings are based on the
overtone series, see Stevens, “Film Scoring,” 356.
84  For example, cf. “Narration and Opening”
in Friedhofer’s score for Broken Arrow (Fox,
1950) with its open string texture and lonely
clarinet melody heard as U.S. Army scout Tom
Jeffords (played by James Stewart) is seen on
horseback riding through Apache territory in
the Arizona desert, only to come upon a badly
wounded Apache boy whom he helps. In the
score Friedhofer’s stark quartal harmony is often
associated with the Apache’s might and stoic
bravery. See William H. Rosar, “Broken Arrow:
The Score” [biographical essay and music notes],
Broken Arrow, CD, Brigham Young University Film
Music Archives Production, FMA-HF105.
85  The relationship between the string line and
fourth chords recalls at moments “Out in Space”
in Destination Moon.
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   413
musical void, and also adds a sense
of portent, as a brooding ostinato-
like figure seems to grow out it,
over which the melody is stated
again, this time doubled a fourth
higher with parallel fourth chords
in high muted violins. The narrator
explains how the Martians have
considered each planet in the solar
system for possible habitation. As
we see in succession the hostile
environments of Saturn, Jupiter,
and Mercury, the melody is at last
stated solemnly in an expansive
quartal adagio, above the quartal
harmony an elegiac obbligato for
muted violins in double octaves
that both suggests an inversion
of the cue’s melody and recalls
a similar recurring motif in the
slow movement of Shostakovich’s
5th symphony (see Example 7).86
Ultimately it was “Only our
own warm Earth,” the narrator
tells us, that “was green with
vegetation, bright with water, and
possessed a cloudy atmosphere
eloquent of fertility” that the
Martians selected for their new
home. As Earth comes into view
we hear Stevens’ melody one last
time over a throbbing ostinato
in the bass. Here the melody is
harmonized in high divided strings,
playing molto vibrato parallel
chords of the major seventh
with augmented fifth which,
in this context, seem to chime
with the narrator’s description
of Earth, as if it were an Eden to
the Martians. It also recalls again
Ibert, an eerie ominous version
of “Rome-Palermo,” suggesting
just the opposite qualities of Mars
(the narrator has noted that the
temperature at night on Mars
drops well below zero, and one of
the characters later in the story
86  The similarity to Shostakovich may be no
coincidence, as Stevens clearly imitated the
opening bars of the first movement of the
Fifth symphony in the “Building Montage” in
Destination Moon; see Brill, “Leith Stevens,” 318.
414    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
Example 7: “Introduction” from War of the Worlds
remarks that “sunlight on Mars is
about half as strong as we get it”).87
87  A good early example of Hollywood South
Sea Isle music with high string chords, more-
or-less à la Ibert, is the “earth theme” in Alfred
Newman’s score for Hurricane (Goldwyn, 1937).
He uses the same texture for a desert scene in
Gunga Din (RKO, 1939). Though he does not
mention “Rome-Palermo,” Oscar Levant noted
in writing about Hollywood film music of the
1930s, “For Spanish things the treatment is
generally influenced by Debussy’s ‘Iberia’ or the
Arbos orchestration of Albeniz’s ‘Triana.’ After
a time the boys got hold of a few Villa-Lobos
records. They did all right with those, too. The
Spanish port of call in Ibert’s ‘Escales’ has not
been overlooked, either.” See Levant, A Smattering
of Ignorance (Garden City, NY: Garden City
Publishing Co., 1942), 122. Victor Young’s main
theme for For Whom the Bell Tolls (Paramount,
The film action begins with a
summer meteor shower in rural
Southern California. The first
meteor sighted comes down in
some hills and ignites a brush
fire. The U.S. Forestry Service
1943) often features high strings reminiscent
of “Rome-Palermo.” A veritable caricature of
“Rome-Palermo” can be heard in Ernest Gold’s
score for It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (U.A.,
1963) in “The Big W,” in which a suitcase filled
with stolen loot is known to be buried under
palm trees overlooking the ocean. The palm
trees, shown in bright sunlight swaying in the
breeze against a blue sky, form the letter “W.” To
emphasize the dreamy effect Gold has a chorus
singing the words “The Big W.”
promptly dispatches a fire truck
to the site. Stevens’ cue “The
Thing” underscores the emergency
with traditional movie “hurry”
music, with runs in the upper
strings and woodwinds. At the
scene the smoldering and still
glowing meteor looms up in the
foreground having apparently come
to rest after skidding along the
ground. Around it are a number
of small fires which Stevens
“catches” musically with trills in
the strings ascending in melodic

Example 8: “The Thing” from War of the Worlds
Example 9: “The Thing” from War of the Worlds
fourths and a tritone. As the fire
crew and volunteers extinguish
the fires an animated progression
of brass fourth chords is heard
over the “hurry”-style woodwind
runs against a triple pedal: a trill
underneath the chords and one
above, with an octave pedal in the
bass that is an octave and a fourth
lower than the first fourth chord.
The quartal progression Stevens
uses is very similar to the ones
on two tonics in Destination Moon
and When Worlds Collide, almost
a development of his last use of
it, scored for brass, in “Bellus,
Zyra and the D.A.,” only here
more animated (see Example 8).
The quartal
progression is repeated
in woodwinds with a
tremolo pedal above it
as the head of the fire
crew reports by car radio
to his station, saying
as he looks over at the
meteor, “Can’t get near
enough to see it very
well—it’s too hot—but
it’s a whale of a size!” Low brass
growls a short sequence of fourth
chords, the same progression
as before, only an octave lower,
and over the same octave bass
pedal, here a fourth lower than
the first three-note fourth chord.
(In effect, the first fourth chord
forms a four-note fourth chord
with the pedal, though as the
chords move above it, only
every other chord is in a quartal
relationship to it.) This simple
device not only underlines the
massive size of the meteor but tells
the audience that it is not inert
rock as it appears, but something
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   415
sinister, even malevolent, a fact
not obvious from its appearance
alone. Merely by transposing
the fourth chords into the lower
register the progression takes on
an ominous quality, and establishes
an association between the fourth
chords and the meteor, rather
than just being a flashy chordal
figure punctuating the preceding
“hurry” music (see Example 9).
“Spectators” continues and
elaborates the growling fourth
chord pattern in the low register
as curious town folk gather to
view the meteor. This time the
pedal bass—again a fourth lower
that the first three-note fourth
chord—slowly pulsates in harp
and piano. Above it in tremolando
strings Stevens has a rising line
consisting of the bottom notes of
the fourth chords, adding a little
additional motion in the music to
reflect the stir in the crowd that
has gathered. This scalar obbligato
once more provides an example
of deriving scales from one of
416    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC

Example 10: “Spectators” from War of the Worlds

Example 11: “Radio Active” from War of the Worlds

the voices in progressions on two
tonics as Schillinger illustrated
(cf. Example 1), though in this
instance, of a quartal progression
on two tonics. The obbligato
culminates in an octave pedal
(again tremolando) for the duration
of the cue, creating a feeling of
light suspense (see Example 10).
“Radio Active” starts as one of
the townspeople strikes the side
of the meteor with a shovel and a
chunk of earth falls off exposing
a red hot surface underneath.
A quartal progression is again
intoned in low brass, in a sense
reiterating the potential threat of
this object. The first two three-
note fourth chords are based on
two tonics, but the bass comes in
a beat later than the first chord,
and a fourth below it. The bass
then drops a tritone so that the
second pitch in the bass is a
fourth lower that the root of the
fourth chord above it, but also
continues the pattern of tritone
movement in the bass. At this
point Stevens varies his three-note

fourth chord progression pattern
based on two tonics by making
the next chord a fourth lower
than the chord on the first tonic:
The tempo of chords is slightly
faster, more forceful, reflecting
the real and present danger in
the gully (Example 11). Clayton
Forrester (played by Gene Barry),
an astrophysicist from “Pacific
Tech” (Caltech fictionalized) who
happens to have been on a fishing
trip nearby arrives on the scene.
Then “boy meets girl”: Forrester
chats with Sylvia Van Buren
(played by Ann Robinson) who
teaches library science at USC. It
seems she knows all about him
having written her master’s thesis
on modern scientists. The idea of
having a “love interest” in the film
was that of Paramount production
chief, Don Hartman, who felt it
was a necessary box office draw.88
A Geiger counter Forrester has
with his gear indicates that the
meteor is radio active. Forrester
thinks aloud: “It’s difficult to
account for a reaction like that.
That meteor is either very light,
which is unheard of, or else it’s is
hollow somehow. If it were heavy
and solid it would have made a
tremendous crater when it landed.”
Forrester decides to stay in town
with the intention of returning to
the site to study the anomalous
meteor further after it has cooled.
The crowd disperses except
for three men which the local
Sheriff has deputized to keep
watch at the site should any new
fires start. Most of the town has
gone to a Saturday night square
dance at the Social Hall, including
Forrester. Before calling it a night
and going home themselves, the
three men give the meteor one
last look, shining a flashlight on
it. After a tranquil bit of nocturnal
“prairie music” with English horn
88  Ruben, 10.
against high divisi strings, “It’s
Moving” soon reminds us that
the meteor remains a potential
threat—though the men don’t yet
realize that—as we hear the low
fourth chords again, this time
reverting to two tonics, and played
by muted brass. At this point the
music fades out, apparently so that
what is next heard on the sound
track is clearly audible: the sound
of grinding metal. A small round
section atop the meteor begins to
slowly rotate, and we see that it is a
threaded metal cover turning. The
men realize that this is no meteor
and back away. One of them
exclaims that it is a bomb—“an
enemy sneak attack”—but another
responds, “Bombs don’t unscrew!”
As Stevens wrote it the cue was
to continue as the cover unscrews
and the men look on spellbound,
the score marked “mechanically”
for what amounts to a passage of
machine music, no doubt intended
to help suggest mechanical
workings inside the meteor, and
that what we are seeing is in reality
some sort of machine: Inside a
double pedal alternating between
a tritone and perfect fourth is an
ostinato of alternating fourths
and fifths. The orchestral texture
combining pizzicato strings
with muted brass recalls the
mechanical “D.A.” music from
Destination Moon, though more
closely resembles the texture of
another cue in that score entitled
“The Blockhouse” accompanying
a countdown for the launch of a
test rocket. Suggesting the final
seconds of the countdown by
musically imitating the ticking or
movements of a clock, the passage
begins with an octave trill pedal in
the violins over alternating major
seconds and major sevenths scored
for pizzicato strings, marimba (the
sound of major seconds seems
especially closely associated in
Stevens’ mind with mechanical
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   417
workings, already evidenced in his
“factory music” for All My Sons).
As the tempo gradually increases
Stevens introduces “open” intervals
into the mechanical effect as
well—fourths, fifths, and octaves—
and even a three-note fourth chord
played three times, all growing in
intensity until the rocket is fired,
at which point the music is lost
in the blast of the liftoff.89 With
the similar effect in “It’s Moving”
presumably the film makers felt
that the metal-grinding sound of
the cover turning might not be
heard over the music, or that the
sound effect alone was sufficient
to convey the impression that this
was not a meteor but a mechanical
device (see Example 12).
There is a whooshing sound
as the round cover falls away
on to the ground making a dull
clanking noise. Now visible is an
opening, glowing an orangish red
from within, the whoosh perhaps
the sound of air rushing into the
previously pressurized interior
that is now exposed to Earth’s
atmosphere. A metallic probe
slowly emerges from the hole like a
cobra out of a basket. Appropriately
enough it makes a metallic rattling
sound, rather like a rattlesnake.
Peering out of a ditch where
they have taken cover one of the
men suggests that there must be
someone inside, and another that
perhaps it contains men from Mars,
because Mars is at its closest point
to Earth, an occurrence that takes
place about every twenty years.
Originally Stevens had scored
the shot of the cover falling off
with fourth chords accented
with a rapid figure in harp and
piano. As the cobra-like probe
rises and slowly turns, apparently
surveying the surroundings,
Stevens introduced an ethereal
sounding melodic ostinato played
89  “The Blockhouse,” Destination Moon, mm.
10-15.
418    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
Example 12: “It’s Moving” from War of the Worlds
by Novachord, Stroh viola and
Stroh ‘cello, and tuned water
glasses, all playing in unison,
doubled by marimba an octave
lower (see Example 13).90
How he arrived at this peculiar
instrumental combination is
perhaps to be explained in terms
of his know-how in combining
the overtones of different musical
instruments to create new
timbres.91 Under it he has what
might be described as a slithering
serpent-like figure of rapid notes
in the strings, as if suggesting the
slinking motion of a snake. The
melodic ostinato is then taken up
by violas tremolandi doubled by
clarinets and English horn, then by
French horns, then trumpets, and
finally spelled out homophonically
in tutti quartal chords. Stevens
marks the score “with constant
pressure” as the three men naively
seek to show the aliens that they
are friendly by waving a white flag.
The “head” of the probe begins
to pulsate with orange light as it
slowly turns and points at the men.
90  This part was recorded separately and
the conductor part for it is only identified as
“Augment for 2E,” 2E being the number for “Heat
Ray Dispenser.”
91  See Stevens, “Film Scoring,” 356.
Example 13: “Heat Ray Dispenser” from War of the Worlds
Ostinato associated with the Martian probe.
There is a rapid upward quartal
progression on two tonics played by
strings tremolandi that is almost
identical to one which begins his
end title music in Destination Moon
as the rocketship blasts off from
the moon (Example 5). Here the
progression underscores the sight
of the serpentine probe pulsating
more rapidly, and culminates with
a single fourth chord sustained on
one tonic clashing rhythmically
with another below it on the
second tonic as the probe blasts
the men with blinding rays (see
Example 14). (This jarring sonority
might be construed as a quartal
version of the famous polychord
in Stravinsky’s Petrouchka,
the so-called “Petrouchka”
chord,” that juxtaposes two
major triads a tritone apart).
This cue was ultimately
dropped, again presumably in favor
of the sound effects associated
with the action of the probe
which, incidentally, were produced
by manipulating the sound of a
musical instrument—an electric
guitar. 92 The melodic ostinato
92  According to Ruben, the probe’s various
sounds were created in the Paramount sound
department: “The Paramount sound engineers
were by now [sic] well aware of the effect
achieved by electronic oscillation, the type of
‘music’ that would soon be featured so well
in MGM’s Forbidden Planet. The alien sounds
produced by the Martian war machines, the
sinister power surge and resulting enfilade, was
an effect achieved entirely by electric guitars.
[Gene] Garvin, [Howard] Beal, dubbing mixer
Dan Johnson . . . and Walter Oberst would
record the high pitched screeching and edit it
down, playing it backwards as well, adjusting
the volume and tone until they found the proper
effect. Meanwhile, in the oscillation room, a
carefully created panel of sound apparatus was
duplicating and perfecting alien sound-feedback.
Using these sound circuits, the engineers
perfected the spine tingling “Ping, ping, ping” of
the heat ray generator as it prepares to fire, the
steady “thump, thump” of the skeleton ray, the
searching sound of the electronic eye, and the
electronic whine of the crashing war machines.”
Ruben, 42. The decision to eliminate the cue
“Heat Ray Dispenser” must have been made
relatively late in post-production, as it appears

Example 14: “Heat Ray Dispenser” from War of the Worlds
associated with the probe is,
however, heard in the film several
minutes later in “Get the Military,”
the scene in which Forrester
returns to the site of the meteor
only to find that the three men
have been disintegrated, and
that all that remains of them
are ashes in the shape of their
outlines on the ground. The
ostinato is heard as Forrester
and the Sheriff see the probe
looming overhead and frantically
take cover, narrowly escaping
being blasted by the Martian
ray. As another meteor streaks
across the sky, Forester says to
the Sheriff grimly, “You’d better
get word to the military. You’re
going to need them out here.”
A strong association now
exists between brass fourth chords
and the meteor machine, if not
the Martians. This use of music
directly relates to one of the basic
concepts of film scoring as Stevens
taught it: “You try to use music
when you want to keep reminding
the audience of an element that is
not present on the screen. This may
be another person, or an emotional
on the ASCAP cue sheet for the film, dated
March 20, 1953. The last ten bars of the cue can
be heard at the end of the trailer for the film,
with the two final bars of the end title spliced
on to provide an ending on a big major chord.
Eliminating the second half of “It’s Moving”
must have been done earlier, as the timing given
on the cue sheet corresponds to the duration of
the music in the release version of the film (= 49
seconds).
value that one of the characters is
concealing from another. We want
to remind the audience of that.”93
Thus far in the film the
Martians themselves have not
actually been seen, only evidence
of the awesome destructive power
of their war technology. In writing
music for radio drama Stevens
spoke of what music can do when
listeners must depend upon their
imagination to visualize a scene
solely on the basis of what they
hear: “[T]he character of a man
or woman can be beautifully
delineated in music. I can’t tell you
through music what a man looks
like or what a woman is wearing.
But in a very few bars of carefully
composed music I can give you
a pretty clear idea of what kind
of person you’re listening to.”94
What then has Stevens told us
up to this point about the unseen
beings operating the cobra-like
heat ray dispenser? He established
almost immediately with just a
few chords that the meteor is not
a neutral object—certainly not
something benign—but rather, that
it is something menacing, and not
just because it is hot and that one
might get burned touching it. Its
destructive potential is not even
known when Forrester discovers
that the meteor is radioactive.
93  Stevens, “Film Scoring,” 347.
94  Noble, n.p.
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   419
Musically and dramatically the
strength of Martian’s power only
becomes explicit in the final
pages of “Heat Ray Dispenser”
with the rigid progression of
fourth chords spelling out the
melodic ostinato associated
with the Martian machine.
In his 1964 history of the
movie villain, The Bad Guy,
William K. Everson categorizes
most space aliens as being
in the category he calls “The
Monsters,” one category among
twenty other kinds of villain:
[I]n the wake of the atomic
age, with the realization that
interplanetary travel was
becoming a distinct possibility,
came the realization that other
planets could produce monsters
too—and that these could either
invade earth en masse (as in one
of the best of the science-fiction
films, War of the Worlds) or arrive
singly, as stowaways on rocket
ships from earth that had made
a successful round-trip. The bulk
of these outer-space monsters
were nightmares of modern art,
human vegetables, “things” with
giant eyes and long talons, and,
in many cases, just huge blobs
of self-enlarging jelly or slime.
Earth-people tended to take
them in their stride, and, when
one of the first of them arrived
in Universal’s It Came from Outer
Space, the townspeople knew
exactly what to do. Grabbing the
same lighted torches, the same
extras (or their descendants)
420    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
that had chased the Frankenstein
monster through the countryside
for the previous quarter of a
century, now set out to destroy
the one-eyed blob—which,
like the Frankenstein monster,
would probably have been quite
harmless and even sociable if
left alone!95
Clearly Stevens is musically
portraying the Martians as
menacing villains, even though
they have not been seen. Already in
the silent days there were different
“types” of villains that called for
different types of “villain music”
as Erno Rapeé characterized in his
Encyclopedia of Picture Music (1925):
The Villain ordinarily can easily
be represented by any Agitato
of which there are thousands.
Distinction should be made
between sneaky, boisterous,
crafty, powerful and evil-minded
villains. A crafty villain who
does not exhibit any physical
activity in the course of the
picture can be easily described
by a dissonant chord being
held tremolo and very soft. If
the Villain happens to be of
the brute type who indulges
in lots of physical activities, a
fast moving number would be
more apt. Sometimes you have
a villain whose power to do evil
is mighty but he achieves his
evil deeds without any physical
activities in which case chords
slow and heavy should be proper
synchronization.96
Obviously the last kind of
villain characterizes the Martians,
at least what we know of them
up to this point in the film, so
Stevens’ use of fourth chords
in low brass, indeed “slow and
heavy,” is in keeping with that
type of villain. The use of low
95  William K. Everson, The Bad Guy: A Pictorial
History of the Movie Villain (New York: The Citadel
Press, 1964), 110. Apparently Everson forgets that
the Frankenstein monster was given the brain of
a criminal, unbeknownst to his creator, Henry
Frankenstein.
96  Rapeé, Encyclopedia of Music for Pictures (New
York: Belwin, 1925), 14.
brass has also long been associated
with horror. In his textbook
Music Scoring for Motion Pictures &
Television, film and TV composer
Marlin Skiles lists the following
instrumental timbres as being tried
and true for horror: “Contrabass
clarinet, Contrabassoon, Tuba,
Low trombones, Electronic
instruments (effects), Piano
(low, bass clef), French horns
(low register, stopped), Tympani,
Bass drum.”97 Even Stevens’
use of pedals in these passages
is significant. Nelson observed
of this device in the mid-1940s
that “[T]he long, sustained
tone or pedal is the trademark
of current film underscoring,
whenever a scene has elements
of the macabre, or of suspense
or confusion. Traditionally in
the bass part, with chords above
it, the pedal tone is frequently
placed by film composers in a high
register for dramatic effect.”98 As
noted, Stevens uses pedals both
above and below his chords.
Thus with very simple musical
means Stevens has quickly
characterized the Martians as
being powerful villains even
though we have not seen them.
Once the “meteor” becomes
animated when the cover unscrews
and the probe emerges, Stevens
was at pains to musically underline
the mechanical nature of the
object, using the monotonous but
slightly eerie melodic ostinato in
Example 13. At first the machine
music consists of separate musical
97  Skiles lists the instrumental timbres and
their filmic associations in a table entitled
“Mood Categories and Associated Instruments.”
For “Science Fiction” he lists the following:
“Moog synthesizer, Yahama organ, Female
soprano voice, Vibraphone (haze effects), Many
percussion effects, Strings (harmonics) and
Flute (high register),” whereas for “Horror”:
Contrabass clarinet, Contrabassoon, Tuba, Low
trombones, Electronic instruments (effects),
Piano (low, bass clef), French horns (low register,
stopped), Tympani, Bass drum.” Marlin Skiles,
Music Scoring for TV & Motion Pictures (Blue Ridge
Summit, PA: Tab Books, 1976), 70.
98  Nelson, 59.
ideas from his use of fourth chords
that, in the first few cues, only
connote an ominous presence.
Unfortunately for the sake of
musicodramatic continuity the only
cue in which Stevens musically
combines machine music with
quartal harmony, thereby telling
us that the Martians and their
technology constitute a single
cold and calculating menace, was
not used (“Heat Ray Dispenser”).
In spite of that, the “coolness”
of the quartal harmony alone in
association with the Martians and
their machines corresponds well
to H.G. Wells’ characterization
of the invaders from the red
planet as “intellects vast and
cool and unsympathetic.” Once
again, as in the “D.A.” music
in When Worlds Collide we see
a kinship or association in
Stevens’ mind between machine
music and quartal harmony.
The U.S. Marines arrive on the
scene and surround the gully at a
strategic distance, as other Martian
meteor machines descend from the
skies all over the world. At dawn
some troops bring in a canon and
aim it at the gully, which is now
glowing with a strange green light.
“Martian Machine” begins with
a slow slightly foreboding modal
melody played by cellos, above it
a high sustained tremolo chord in
muted strings, below it an octave
pedal in the bass. Clearly “suspense
music,” as if a reminder of the
Martian threat, two brief quartal
progressions on two tonics are
heard mezzo piano in the trombones
and tremolando violas. It is
significant that the progressions
are heard as we see the marines
looking towards the gully, as if
reflecting their apprehensions
at what they are looking at and
thinking about. Momentarily there
is a whirring noise coming from
the gully that rapidly grows louder.
As one of the troops says quietly,

“There’s something moving in
the gully,” the melodic ostinato
from “Heat Ray Dispenser”
returns and for the first time we
see a Martian war machine rising
slowly out of the gully. A largely
metallic hull shaped like a Manta
Ray, it has a pulsating melon-
colored green nose and tips.99
The first confrontation between
the military and the Martians
proves futile due to the power
of their ray and a protective
electromagnetic shield that protects
their war machines from the
military’s assault on them. While
the Martian war machines are seen
roaming the Earth reeking havoc
and destruction, the Martians
themselves are eventually seen only
very briefly in two scenes. The first
time they are seen is fifty minutes
into the film—almost two thirds
99  It was Paramount art director Albert Nozaki’s
idea to make the Martian war machine resemble
a Manta Ray. Ruben, 16.
Example 15: “Surrounded” from War of the Worlds
of the way through the film—
though the first of their meteor
machines is seen within the first
five minutes, three quarters of an
hour earlier. Yet Stevens musically
sustains a sense of their malevolent
and deadly presence virtually
throughout the entire film.
During the military’s
unsuccessful engagement with
the Martians, Forrester and Sylvia
escape in a small prop plane. Flying
low because there are fighter jets
flying overhead the plane hits
a tree top and Forrester crash
lands it. Running for cover in an
orange grove they jump into an
irrigation ditch, barely escaping
an onslaught from Martian war
machines nearby. Clutching each
other for dear life Sylvia ends up
sleeping in Forrester’s arms while
he keeps watch. Come daybreak,
Forrester is still surveying the
surroundings, as “Southwest of
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   421
Corona, Pt. 2” begins. Marked
pocato [sic] molto sostenuto a lonely
Phrygian-sounding melody scored
for alto flute, bassoon, and rolled
marimba plays mezzo piano against
a somber sustained minor chord in
low strings and brass.100 The sound
of distant explosions seem to echo
in recurring syncopated major
and minor seconds on clarinets
and harp. Looking down at Sylvia
sleeping peacefully, Forester
smiles and gently awakens her.
The score is marked here “with
great tenderness,” and a dreamy
teneramente variation on the melody
is played and harmonized by
divisi muted strings. It recalls the
second theme of Ravel’s “Pavane
pour une infante défunte.”101
One is half expecting romance
100  Presumably “pocato” is a misspelling of
posato, meaning “sedate, dignified.”
101  The similarity to the Ravel passage may be
no coincidence, as he used virtually the same
melodic phrase and harmony in a cue for All My
Sons (“It’s Not True, Pt. 1,” mm. 1-4).
422    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
to blossom at this moment, but
it doesn’t, Sylvia bolting upright
once she remembers where she
is and what is going on around
her. Commenting on this scene
many years later, Ann Robinson
remarked, “It’s so funny,
everybody always thought there
was a romantic interest between
Clayton and Sylvia, and there
wasn’t. The poor fellow was stuck
with me. [The Martians] blow
up my city, they kill my uncle,
they burn everybody up, we run
for our lives, we crash in a plane,
and he’s just draggin’ me along,
trying to protect me. There was
affection—I had written my
thesis on [Forrester], so therefore
I had a crush on [him].”102
Finding shelter in an
abandoned farm house they are not
safe for long, as another Martian
meteor machine comes down and
plows into the side of the house.
Forrester is knocked out as he tries
to cover Sylvia from the impact.
Regaining consciousness he peers
outside and sees the Martian
machine next to the house. A
chordal version of the earlier
melodic ostinato is heard, here
featuring a progression of one of
Stevens’ favorite “color chords”:
a major triad + added eleventh
(also a favorite of Gershwin’s). The
machine sends out another kind
of probe, this one also attached
to a long serpentine neck. The
probe is ostensibly an electric eye
and comes through a window.
After surveying the interior it
withdraws. A moment later Sylvia
notices something scurry by in
the dark outside the window.
“I think it was one of them!”
she cries, as there is a slithery
descending progression of fourth
chords on two tonics played by
102  Transcribed from Gene Barry and Ann
Robinson, “Commentary,” War of the Worlds,
DVD, directed by Byron Haskin (Hollywood, CA:
Paramount Home Video, 2005).
strings tremolandi, very much like
the end title in Destination Moon
(compare Examples 5 and 15).
To satisfy his scientific curiosity
Forrester is intent on getting a
look at the Martians. Suddenly
the Martian electric eye reappears
through a hole in the roof. Sylvia
turns and comes face to face
with it. Forrester whirls around
and, grabbing an axe, chops
off its “head.” The decapitated
tube withdraws making a sound
something like a vacuum cleaner.
The music heard over this is very
similar to the serpentine figure
in “Heat Ray Dispenser,” and is
faintly Middle Eastern-sounding.
A strange shadow appears on the
wall and fourth chords played
softly by stopped horns tell us who
it is: Sylvia flinches as a three-
fingered alien hand clutches her
shoulder. A dissonant “shock”
chord in the orchestra heralds a
prominent progression of fourth
chords in the brass middle register.
Forrester shines a flashlight on
the Martian to better see that it
is a short hideous cyclops with a
huge head covered with throbbing
veins, its shape, arms and hands
resembling somewhat those of
a frog, as one newspaper review
commented when the film was
released.103 Accompanying a close-
up of the Martian covering its
single tri-colored eye is a sforzando
four-note fourth chord in the bass
(the lowest note doubled an octave
lower) with a short triplet run of
high tremolando strings playing the
now familiar quartal progression
on two tonics, which is echoed in
double-octave brass in the middle
register. It is virtually a retrograde
paraphrase of the passage
heard when Sylvia glimpses the
103  “New Martian Invasion is Seen in ‘War of
Worlds,’ Which Bows at Mayfair,” review of War
of the Worlds, directed by Byron Haskin, New York
Times, August 14, 1953.
Martian outside the window
(compare Examples 15 and 16).
Reflexively Forrester hurls a
beam that strikes the Martian
and sends it squealing out of the
house. Gathering up the “head”
of the electric eye probe in his
jacket along with a scarf that has
Martian blood on it, Forrester and
Sylvia hastily flee for their lives.
Moments later a Martian machine
blasts the farm house into oblivion,
accompanied by a forceful series of
brass fourth chords on two tonics.
Forrester and Sylvia make
their way to Pacific Tech with
the “head” of the electronic eye
and sample of Martian blood
to show his colleagues. One of
them, Dr. Duprey (played by Ann
Codee), exclaims as we see their
blood cells through a microscope,
“I don’t remember ever seeing
blood crystals as anemic as these.
They may be mental giants, but
by our standards, physically,
they must be very primitive,” as
stopped horns play a few fourth
chords in “Clayton & Sylvia
Arrive with Eye,” as if musically
reflecting her description of
them. In the shooting script for
the film the phrase “physically
degenerate” rather than “very
primitive” is used.104
Amidst the confusion and
mayhem in the mobbed city streets
Sylvia and Forrester are separated.
Forrester remembers her relating
how as a child she was once lost
and found refuge in a church.
Almost in a daze from exhaustion
Forrester goes from church to
church the city searching for her.
In the first church he comes to the
congregation is singing the hymn
“Now Thank We All Our God,”
but Sylvia is not there. Finding
her in the next church he goes
104  War of the Worlds. Screenplay by Barré
Lyndon. White Paper [shooting script], 18
December 1951, Scene #223. All script drafts
for the Pal production of War of the Worlds are
preserved in the Herrick Library.

Example 16: “Martian Men” from War of the Worlds
to they embrace and clutch each
other for safety. In Barré Lyndon’s
treatment, at Don Hartman’s
behest there was indeed romance
at this point between Forrester and
Sylvia: “They fly into each other’s
arms. Love is where you find it
and they know they have found
it.”105 But this seemed preposterous
to George Pal: “[T]hey forced
on me this ridiculous story of a
scientist going on a fishing trip,
meeting a girl and then after
only one evening, he begins this
tremendous search for her, from
church to church.”106 But by the
time the screenplay was in its final
form there was at most tender
feelings between the two, or as
Ann Robinson put it, “affection.”
A Martian war machine outside
the church blasts one of the stain
glass windows, filling the air with
debris that rains down on Forrester
and Sylvia as they hold each other
tightly. Moments later the machine
105  Barré Lyndon’s treatment is quoted in
Ruben, 14.
106  George Pal, quoted in Ruben, 10.
inexplicably begins to list and
crashes into the side of a nearby
building. The minister continues to
address the stunned congregation
as the dust settles. The thunderous
explosions caused by the Martian
war machines suddenly cease.
While the minister speaks,
Forrester and Sylvia and the
others in the church cautiously
make their way to the door. Softly
under the murmuring voices of the
apprehensive crowd the winds and
timpani play octaves in a dirge-like
dotted rhythm over which Stevens’
first main theme is played by
strings, intertwined contrapuntally
with a solo muted ‘cello playing the
teneramente theme. As we see the
crashed Martian machine outside
the church we hear again the long
progression of fourth chords with
the rising and falling obbligato
played by muted violins in double
octaves heard in “Introduction.”
A hatchway slowly opens on the
machine’s underside revealing just
the arm and hand of a Martian
leaning on the hatchway door.
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   423
The dotted rhythm of the dirge-
like ostinato becomes pronounced
in the timpani suggesting the
heartbeat of the Martian as it tries
to crawl out of the machine. The
last vestige of its strength gone, the
hand of the Martian stops moving
and the prominent surface veins
on it stop pulsating. Curiously
the Martian’s limb goes from
having a reddish cast to a green
one as its veins stop pulsating.
Forrester goes over and feels its
wrist confirming that it is dead.
Though the music seems to fit
the scene perfectly it is actually
an artful grafting of what Stevens
wrote for the scene, “Martian
Man Dies,” with “Introduction.”
Less than a third of “Martian
Man Dies” is actually heard,
the first 23 seconds (5½ bars),
just up to the shot of the crowd
looking at the Martian machine.
At this point the music cuts to
the last third or 77 seconds (15
bars) of “Introduction.” Evidently
the excerpt from “Introduction”
grafted on to “Martian Man
424    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
Example 17: “Martian Man Dies” from War of the Worlds
Dies” was just taken from the
music track for the cue which
had already been recorded.
Careful listening will detect,
though, a barely perceptible splice
between “Martian Man Dies” and
“Introduction,” evidence that the
grafting was done after the two
cues had been recorded. Part of
the reason for this is because the
winds in “Introduction” have been
up to that point playing legato so
there is no attack or perceptible
ictus at the moment at which they
start to play the fourth chords and
the resulting transition is thus ever
so slightly clipped. Presumably
the timpani “heartbeat” effect
indicated on the conductor part
for “Martian Man Dies” must have
been then separately recorded
and overlaid on the portion
used from “Introduction.”
It is ironic that this moving
passage, first heard at the
beginning of the film, represents
the culmination of Stevens’ use of
quartal harmony in the score, the
only instance in which the bass
line is in contrary motion to the
fourth chords and at the same time
in a quartal relationship to them.
The added timpani track with
the almost elegiac violin line in
combination with the action takes
on the character of a lament for
the dying Martians. The passage
from “Introduction” also has the
effect of a reprise, musically and
dramatically, bringing the score
and the film full circle: Whereas
the Martians had been threatened
with extinction on their own
planet, by invading Earth, they
ultimately met with destruction.
Writer Mark Hasan notes, “The
plaintive version of the ‘Martian
Theme,’ heard during the opening
montage, also reappears, almost
verbatim, in ‘Doomed Invaders,’ as
the Martian ships fall from the sky.
The film decidedly retains a unique
balance, in which a measure of
sympathy is expressed for the ugly
invaders in spite of their evil deeds.
Stevens’ mournful passages never
come off as condescending, and
contributes to the scene’s power.”107
This “measure of sympathy,”
or pathos, may have been partly
fortuitous. A memo issued to
the sound department after the
film was scored details a number
of changes to be made, among
them this instruction: “REDUBB
– lower music when we first see
107  The titles Hasan uses were ones invented for
a bootleg recording that was issued of excerpts
from the film’s music track. See Mark Hasan,
“Leith Stevens: Earth vs. Mars: The Man Who
Kept the Score,” Outré, no. 22, 82.
the dead Martian machine.”108
The memo undoubtedly refers
to what Stevens had composed
to accompany this part of the
scene which was anything but
lamentoso: Instead of the slow
stately procession of fourth chords
in “Introduction” Stevens had
fourth chords fortissimo in the brass
doubled percussively by piano in
a jagged dotted rhythm, answered
by slowly descending parallel fifths
above them (see Example 17).
The repeated fourth-chord
figure gradually descends by slow
steps an octave down until the
fourth chords sound as they first
did growling in “The Thing,” only
here perhaps more like a groan.
Under this the previous dirge-like
rhythmic ostinato from “Martian
Man Dies” is continued by the
timpani, the pulsations spaced
ever farther apart. (Obviously
this explains why the timpani
heartbeat effect was then added
to the corresponding section of
“Introduction,” but changed so that
it was of a constant tempo instead,
so as to match the steady rhythm
of the existing track). “Martian
Man Dies” is also 10 seconds
108  Unsigned memo dated 4 November 1952
in production files for War of the Worlds at the
Herrick Library.

longer than the replacement
composite. This means that the
music originally would have
stopped with Forrester’s line “It’s
dead,” rather than ending as it
does in the film when we see the
Martian’s veins stop pulsating.
Obviously the film makers
thought that this part of the cue
was too loud for the scene at
that point, or else the change in
dynamics from soft legato to loud
staccato seemed to them jarring,
either of which might potentially
be distracting to the audience.
Up to this time there had been
almost continuous noise on the
sound track from the seemingly
endless blasts from the Martian
war machines in their path of
destruction. The screenplay
explicitly mentions as the noise
inexplicably subsides that there is a
“strange and sudden quiet,” and it
may have been felt that loud music
would disrupt the sense of that
silence, and thus that a less jarring
musical passage was needed.
Had the sound technicians
merely lowered the level at the
entrance of the fortissimo fourth
chords it would probably sound
odd in terms of musical dynamics,
because it would tend to negate
the highly dramatic contrast in
dynamics, thus again, ironically,
bring unwanted attention to
music, creating an effect as if
the volume had suddenly been
turned down on a radio for no
reason during a climactic part of a
symphonic broadcast. It may have
become immediately apparent
to the technicians that lowering
the level was not an answer, so
another solution was sought.
Though the score had already
been recorded Stevens was still
on the picture. Presumably it
was he, then, that substituted
the lengthy quartal passage from
“Introduction” which is softer
and less contrasting with the
preceding one, yet still dramatic
and sufficiently long to cover
the balance of the scene. At the
same time it is of a very different
dramatic character than what
he had written for the scene,
thus altering the whole mood of
the scene in a pronounced way,
imparting a certain poignancy to
the otherwise grim spectacle of
the Martian’s death. This would
seem clearly to be an instance
in which Stevens’ original
musicodramatic conception of
the scene differed markedly
from that of the film makers’,
yet he was able to skillfully
accommodate them by providing
an alternative that worked both
musically and dramatically and,
somewhat ironically, seems to
be one of the most memorable
musical moments in the film.109
Most recently writer Jack Hagerty
waxed eloquently about it in a
retrospective about the film:
[In the planetary montage] we
are introduced to the “Martian
theme,” a quiet, soulful melody
underscoring their desperation
to find a new home before their
race becomes extinct. In the
final scene we hear a reprise of
the Martian theme as Forrester
cautiously approaches the
crashed Martian War Machine.
109  The Paramount recording schedule for the
scoring sessions (entitled “Recording Program”)
preserved in the music department library
indicates that the score was to be recorded
October 21 & 27, 1952. “Introduction” and
“Martian Man Dies” were scheduled to be
recorded the same day (October 21st). I could
find no documentation that the excerpt from
“Introduction” was re-recorded for the purpose
of replacing the deleted portion of “Martian
Man Dies,” nor could I find the date the extra
timpani part was recorded. One copy of the
conductor part for “Martian Man Dies” preserved
at Paramount is marked in pencil with a cut in
the middle of bar 6: “Cut to 1BB – Bar 19 to end”
and notes that the change to using the portion
of “Introduction” was as of 11/13/52—two days
prior to the completion of Stevens’ work on the
film, and a week after the request had been made
to the sound department to lower the level of
the music in that scene. “1B” is the cue number
of “Introduction” and presumably “1BB” was a
number assigned to the modified version (with
added timpani track) used to replace the deleted
portion of “Martian Man Dies.”
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   425
A failing heartbeat on tympani
is superimposed over the theme
as a spindly Martian arm inches
its way towards the opening and
dies. It is a bittersweet moment
as we are told, musically, that
even though the Earth has been
spared, the entire Martian race,
and all of its knowledge, is now
extinct.110
In referring to the “Martian
theme,” Hagerty is presumably
referring to the violin obbligato
rather than the quartal harmony
under it which, more accurately,
constitutes the Martian “theme”
in the score (nor did he apparently
notice that the violin “theme” is
only heard in those two scenes).
But it is nonetheless easy to see—
or, rather, to hear—that the union
of this music with the final scene
somehow evokes sympathy for the
Martians though contrary to what
Hagerty claims, a sympathy that is
not obvious when this passage is
first heard in “Introduction” and
would likely have been lacking
had Stevens’ stark original scoring
of the scene actually been used.
It would just appear to be one of
those fortuitous happenstances
in which the pairing of music
and film somehow synergistically
altered the dramatic character
of the scene, and reciprocally,
made the music per se seem more
specifically evocative of sadness
than it would be heard away from
the scene. But doubtless this
sort of synergy resulting from
the pairing of music with scenes
has long been commonplace in
the cinema—even if seen by film
artisans and musicians themselves
as theatrical or cinematic, as
Brecht might say—such that
the dramatic character of a
scene cannot be fully attributed
either to the film alone or the
110  Jack Hagerty, “The War of the Worlds: George
Pal, Theoretical Physics, and the Invasion from
Mars,” [Part 2] Filmfax, January-March, 2006, no.
109, 69-70.
426    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
music alone. It is an “emergent
property” of the two combined,
and thus a “quality of the whole.”
However, the explanation for
such audiovisual “emergent”
phenomena / experiences
is rooted in the nature of
perception, specifically as studied
by Gestalt psychology.111
As with the apocalyptic
When Worlds Collide, in the end
humanity once again prevails,
the difference being that in War
of the Worlds it is not as a result of
human initiative and enterprise
but a veritable deus ex machina.
As the narrator explains, “The
Martians had no resistance to
the bacteria in our atmosphere to
which we have long since become
immune. After all that men could
do had failed the Martians were
destroyed and humanity was
saved, by the littlest things which
God in His wisdom put upon this
Earth.” In an interview many
years after the film was made,
director Byron Haskin reflected
on the story’s dénouement in the
novel and the problem they had
in dramatizing it on the screen:
Well, we threw the atomic
bomb at them [the Martians]
and it had no effect. All to prove
that humanity was really in
trouble. (Laughs) If man’s most
powerful weapon has no effect
on the invaders, it becomes
high irony that tiny germs, to
which mankind is immune,
are fatal to them. That sounds
pretty good when you read it,
but in the weird way you have
to tell a story on film, it doesn’t
play—it’s negative action. It’s
an invisible element. There’s
no way you can show disease
111  The research and theoretical ideas of
experimental psychologist Heinz Werner are
especially relevant to understanding audience
perception and cognition of film, specifically the
notions of physiognomic perception (the perception
of physiognomy), emergent properties, Gestalt
qualities, and qualities of the whole. See William H.
Rosar, “Film Music and Heinz Werner’s Theory
of Physiognomic Perception,” Psychomusicology 13
(1994): 154-65.
germs attacking the Martians
so that you can juice it up into
any kind of suspense. You have
to show the conquering of the
Martians simply by having them
waver and drop. This, you know,
is not the way you stage drama.
One has to have two parties in
a conflict, with hopefully both
equal in power, until suddenly
one overpowers the other in an
unexpected manner. That’s the
fundamental way. But we stuck
to Wells. I was as responsible
as anybody for a lot of the
major turns. The constant re-
occurrence of the religious
note came from having nobody
solving our final dilemma but
God. It became expedient to
ring a few church bells to get
some kind of ominous feel to the
goddam thing.112
Haskin’s remarks point up
fundamental differences between
literature, theater, and film that
by implication call into question
the relevance and applicability
of the narratological approach to
cinema so long favored by film
theorists, inasmuch as narratology
derives primarily from the art of
literature, rather than from the
drama (let alone film drama).
Originally to emphasize the
role of Divine Deliverance when
the Martians die, the sequence
was filmed with a choir boy from
the church rejoicing by singing
“Now Thank We All Our God,”
and others in the crowd joining
in, including Sylvia and Forrester,
as they all walk back into the
church. The screenplay indicates
that the swelling strains of the
hymn would bring the film to a
close as bells rang in the church’s
belfry and in the belfries of other
churches all around. In the final
version, instead of the boy singing
the hymn, it is heard earlier in
the first church that Forrester
112  Byron Haskin Interviewed by Joe Adamson
(Hollywood, CA: The Directors Guild of America
and Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1984),
204f.
visits searching for Sylvia. The
last that is seen of the crowd is
of them standing by the fallen
Martian machine and looking
heavenward with thanks as
church bells resound. Over this
Stevens concludes his score with
a choral coda that reprises the
last phrase and amen cadence of
“Now Thank We All Our God”
(and it sounds like he simply
used the existing track of the
choir singing in the church from
the earlier scene). “In this world
and the next,” affirms the hymn
verse, in this context perhaps
alluding to the premise that there
was another world involved in
the outcome besides the warring
worlds of Earth and Mars.113
Though there are actually a
number of melodic ideas in War
of the Worlds which have not been
discussed here, with his music for
the Martians, Stevens departs in
an interesting way from his notion
of using melodic ideas to define
characters by instead primarily
using harmony to characterize
them. With “The Thing” he
starts with fourth chords on
two tonics, seemingly just for a
colorful dramatic effect, much as
he had already in Destination Moon
and When Worlds Collide, but then
uses the progression motivically
for the meteor in the same cue
and the next ones (“Spectators,”
“Radio Active,” and “It’s Moving”).
From solely constructing quartal
progressions on two tonics as he
had previously done, he develops
his quartal harmony by adding
quartal bass lines (“Radio Active”)
and even quartal contrary motion
in the bass (“Introduction”).
Ultimately he uses fourth chords
to homophonically harmonize
melodic ideas associated with
the Martians and their war
113  The use of the hymn “Now Thank We All
Our God” is specified already in the shooting
script.

machines (“Introduction” and
“Heat Ray Dispenser”). So rather
than starting with a melody
and then harmonizing it as he
taught (as in writing a tune for
a song), in War of the Worlds he
reverses his usual practice and
goes from harmony to melody.
Since Stevens’ quartal harmony
appears in different progressions,
the only constant is the use of
fourth chords and not any one
progression. The various quartal
progressions are thus analogous
to thematic polymorphism, but
rather than a theme that has
different forms, the harmony
is polymorphic. Nonetheless
the quartal progression on two
tonics serves as a sort of Urform
to which he returns throughout
the score. This must have been
intentional as Stevens was
keenly aware of the central role
played by the art of variation in
film scoring, something just as
true now as it was in his day:
You can use the theme and
variations technique, either in
connection with a character
or with a situation. But when
your variations get far enough
away, reintroduce your theme
again, come back to it in a
different guise. Keep referring
back to it so the audience does
not have the problem that it
has, for example, in Elgar’s
Enigma Variations. Supposedly
no one knows what the theme
is because it’s never stated. Let’s
not give our audience musical
problems to solve when they’re
trying to enjoy a play. Be clear,
straightforward, and always
give them enough reference
so that there is no question
in their minds what we are
talking about.
The Urform quartal progression
may have been a fortuitous
consequence, however, resulting
from the fact that Stevens
apparently did not compose the
music in film order, and cues using
the Urform are among the first
he composed. It is only in film
order that his departures from
the Urform seem to appear as
variations or development.114 The
short triplet quartal fanfare on
two tonics that begins “Prelude”
could be construed as the “theme”
for the Martians, and the other
quartal progressions as variations.
Conversely, all the progressions
could be seen as variations on
a theme that is never stated
as Stevens says of the Enigma
Variations. In referring to the
“plaintive version of the ‘Martian
theme’” as Mark Hasan did in
discussing the score, it seems likely
that most listeners would readily
identify the fourth chords as a kind
of theme for the Martians, one that
is heard in different versions. The
quartal harmony does not really
become increasingly complex in the
course of the score (in film order)
since its use in “Introduction”
constitutes its most developed
form, yet it is the first cue in the
film after the main title. Probably
the least developed form of quartal
harmony is the repeated two-chord
figure in “Martian Man Dies”
at the end of the film—which,
ironically, was ultimately replaced
by the most developed form, the
passage from “Introduction.”
Stevens’ use of brass as an
instrumental color paired with
quartal harmony as a harmonic
color for the Martians functioned
somewhat similarly to the
motivic use of the theremin in
the scores for sci-fi films released
in the two years prior to War of
114  Stevens taught his students to not
necessarily compose their scores in film
order. See “Film Scoring,” 351. Dates on a
Paramount music department document entitled
“Assignment Schedule” preserved in the music
library indicate that the following cues that
use only the Urform quartal progression on
two tonics were orchestrated prior to cues that
use other quartal progressions: “The Thing,”
“Spectators,” “Prelude,” “Radio Active,” and “It’s
Moving.”
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   427
the Worlds, in that both served
to musically characterize space
aliens. But rather than opting for
a weird sound emphasizing the
otherworldliness or strangeness
of the aliens—what might be
categorized as a variety of misterioso
akin to music for “ghosts” and
“spooks” in the silent film
repertoire—Stevens portrayed
the Martians as classic movie
villains: ugly cold-blooded killers,
if possessed of superior intellects
to ours.115 There is a significant
exception: for the only two scenes
in which the Martians are actually
seen Stevens adds tremolando
strings as well, this instrumental
effect being so closely associated
with the traditional movie
misterioso (cf. Examples 15 and
16). Even what we saw of Martian
technology resembled the forms
of cold-blooded animals (reptiles)
and their war machines that of a
fish (Manta Ray), as if signifying
that they lacked the quintessential
quality of humanity’s mammalian
ancestry—warm blood and a warm
heart. As noted, one newspaper
film critic thought that the
megacephalic Martians themselves
resembled frogs, with their
elongated arms and round suckers
on the ends of their fingers,116
115  Though there were certainly horror and
fantasy films during the silent era there was
no “monster movie” genre as such, thus no
listings for “monster music” in catalogues
and encyclopedias of music for silent films.
Nonetheless there were certainly many silent
films with ghosts and a variety of other fiends,
as Carlos Clarens chronicles in his classic
Illustrated History of the Horror Film (New York:
Capricorn Books, 1967). One finds, for example,
in Rapeé’s Encyclopedia entries for several
cross-referenced categories such as Ghosts,
Spooks, Witches, Skeleton, Gnomes, Diabolical,
Weird, and Gruesome—all of them related to
the basic category Mysterioso. The index of the
German Allgemeines Handbuch der Film-Musik has
corresponding entries for Spuk [spooks], spukhaft
[ghostly], Fantastisch [fantastic], Gespenstisch
[ghostly], Grauen [horror], Hexen [witches], and
Unheimlich [weird], all under the general heading
of “Spannung-Mysterioso” [Tension-Mysterioso].
See Hans Erdmann, Giuseppe Becce, and Ludwig
Brav, Allgemeines Handbuch der Film-Musik (Berlin:
Schlesinger, 1927).
116  “New Martian Invasion” is Seen in War of the
Worlds, Which Bows at Mayfair. Review of War
428    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
while another critic wrote at the
time: “The resemblance of the
Martians to bipedal lizards and of
the scanner-weapon to the cobra,
plays perfectly on man’s instinctive
aversion to the reptile.” 117 For
the scene in which Forrester and
Sylvia meet the scientists at Pacific
Tech (“Clayton & Sylvia Arrive
with Eye”) there is dialogue in
the shooting script that was cut
from the film in which one of the
scientists remarks, “It sounds as
though they may have evolved
from fish,” to which Sylvia retorts,
“They’re cold-blooded enough!”118
It could be said that Stevens
attempted to musically capture a
sense of the Martian’s corporeality,
their primitive physicality—
moreover their physiognomy—in
the sense of ‘character or outward
appearance of something,’ or ‘facial
features or expression, especially
when regarded as indicative of
character’ (OED). Already in his
radio days Stevens noted that “I
can’t tell you through music what a
man looks like . . . [b]ut in a very
few bars of carefully composed
music I can give you a pretty
clear idea of what kind of person
you’re listening to.”119 Audibly,
fourth chords played by brass have
a certain musical physiognomy. If
Stevens’ use of quartal harmony
for the Martians is their motif
(leitmotif), as a musical portrait it
suggests that they are anything
but genteel or graceful: At the
slowish tempi Stevens mostly uses
for the Martian music (such as it
is), the quartal progressions have a
somewhat stiff, ponderous quality,
perhaps evoking a cold-blooded
predator slowly stalking its prey.
of the Worlds, directed by Byron Haskin, New York
Times, August 14, 1953.
117  Milton Luban, “War of the Worlds. Terrific
Box Office Attraction,” The Hollywood Reporter, 2
March 1953.
118  War of the Worlds, Screenplay, ibid.
119  Noble, n.p.
From the outset, in Destination
Moon, Stevens associated quartal
harmony with the ethereal
coldness and emptiness of
outer space, with mechanical
computation in When Worlds
Collide, and in corporeal form, the
cold-hearted brutal Martians in
War of the Worlds. These different
musicodramatic uses of quartal
harmony are linked by a common
perceptual quality, specifically, a
physiognomic quality that is shared or
partly shared by each film context,
whether it be described in terms of
ambience, expression, or character.
In discussing the art of tone
painting, Albert Wellek argued
that such musicodramatic
correspondences as these are
neither arbitrary nor happenstance,
and cannot be attributable to so-
called “cultural conditioning,” but
are rooted in the interrelationship
of the senses of vision and hearing,
or as it has been called, the unity
of the senses. Wellek noted, “Tone
painting . . . uses immediately
obvious correspondences between
sound and object or situation:
the so-called primal synaesthesia
(Ur-Synästhesien), and it needs no
symbolism full of assumptions
and conventions.”120 Obviously
this explanation for certain primal
audio-visual correspondences is
at odds with the associationist/
conventionalist framework
presupposed by theorists writing
about film music, a framework
that uncritically accepts the
overstated claims made by the
theory of cultural conditioning.
U
nfortunately, like much of
the history of film music
practice and style, the
use of quartal harmony in film
scores is uncharted territory. The
120  Albert Wellek, “The Relationship Between
Poetry and Music,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism 21 (1962), 150.
only Hollywood film composer to
have spoken on the record about it
seems to have been Hans J. Salter,
and as it happens, about his use of
this kind of harmony in a horror
film, Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman
(Universal, 1943):
These string chords are based
on fourths, which have a strange
quality. Usually, chords are based
on thirds, but these are based on
fourths—there’s a fourth interval
between each voice. When you
move these chords back and
forth it gives a special, eerie and
mysterious feeling. And then,
if you put on top of it an eerie-
sounding melody line with the
Novachord, it really adds up to
something very strong.121
It is an interesting coincidence,
too, that the Viennese-born Salter
studied with Alban Berg, and
that Berg used fourth chords in
his opera Wozzeck, which he was
orchestrating when Salter studied
with him. In teaching Salter, Berg
used Schoenberg’s Harmonielehre
as a text, which contains a section
on fourth chords. Salter credits
his studies with Berg for having
the musical tools to effectively
score all the Universal horror
films that he later did.122 Writing
about his use of fourth chords
in Wozzeck, Berg himself did not
indicate that he intended them
to sound eerie or mysterious, but
had a different purpose in mind:
121  The cue in Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman
to which Salter alludes is “Graveyard” that
accompanies the first scene in the film where
the grave robbers break into the Talbot crypt.
Preston Neal Jones, “The Ghost of Hans J.
Salter,” Cinefantastique 7(2), 1978, 19. There is a
precursor in Universal’s The Wolfman (1941), a cue
by Charles Previn entitled “Wolf-bane,” in which
he uses parallel fourth chords played by strings
tremolandi. Both the scene in Frankenstein Meets
the Wolfman and the one in The Wolfman involve
cold dank settings at night with fog.
122  Hans Salter, An Oral History with Hans
J. Salter. Interviewed by Warren M. Sherk.,
Margaret Herrick Library (Beverly Hills, CA:
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,
Oral History Program, 1994), 7-11, 23, and 87.

I believe I succeeded by filling
out everything that extends
musically into the folk-like
sphere with an easily recognizable
primitive quality [italics added]
that is adaptable even within
atonal harmony. For example:
preference for symmetrical
construction of the periods
and sentences, incorporation of
harmonies in (parallel) thirds
and especially fourths, and
indeed of melodies dominated
by the whole-tone scale and
the perfect fourth, whereas
otherwise in the atonal
music of the Viennese School
diminished and augmented
intervals prevail. Another such
means of harmonically primitive
music-making is so-called
“polytonality.”123
Berg’s description could
almost fit some of the examples in
Stevens’ scores described above.
It is also illuminating to compare
Berg’s comments about fourths
used harmonically with those of
his teacher, Arnold Schoenberg,
who had used them before him:
[Debussy’s] impressionism
makes use of fourth chords with
such great power that they seem
inseparably connected with the
new thing he has to say, and
may fairly be claimed as his
intellectual property, although
it can be shown that similar
things were written before and
at the same time as his. Perhaps
a contributing factor is that they
express nature moods [italics
added], for in any case it sounds
as though Nature spoke thus.124
Since the primitive and folk-
like (or, the barbaric, for that
matter) have often been equated
with Nature and what is “natural”
in the history of Western culture,
it could be said that there is an
123  Berg’s 1929 essay is quoted by Horace
Reisberg in a discussion of quartal harmony. See
Reisberg, “The Vertical Dimension in Twentieth-
Century Music,” in Aspects of Twentieth-Century
Music, Gary Wittlich, ed. (Englewood Cliffs:
Prentice-Hall, 1975), 346.
124  Schoenberg, Harmonielehre, quoted in Austin,
Music in the 20th Century, 215.
underlying connection between
Berg’s and Schoenberg’s thinking
about fourth chords. In this regard
a well known score for an early
sound film that uses fourth chords
in a scene depicting primeval
Nature is Max Steiner’s for King
Kong (RKO, 1933). Coincidently,
like Salter, Steiner was of Viennese
origins. “The Bronte” accompanies
the scene where Carl Denham
and his men pursue King Kong
through the jungle and come upon
a foggy lake. They set out to cross
it on an improvised raft when
from the dark misty water slowly
emerges the head and long neck
of a dinosaur—a Brontosaurus—at
which point Steiner Mickey-
Mouses its movement with
an ascending then descending
progression in the winds over a
dissonant pedal that, among an
assortment of discords, includes
a few parallel three-note fourth
chords.125 That the “discords”
also include so-called “Viennese
fourths”—three-note chords
consisting of an augmented fourth
and perfect fourth—suggests
the possibility that Steiner may
have intentionally been imitating
Schoenberg or Berg in this passage,
even Wozzeck.126 Coincidently (?)
there is an ascending progression
of similar-sounding chords over
pedal tones in Wozzeck that
accompanies the moon rising
over the forest pond where
Wozzeck then murders Marie.127
125  I thank film composer John Morgan for
pointing this out to me many years ago, showing
me the passage in a copy of Steiner’s sketch for
“The Bronte.”
126  “The Bronte,” mm. 36-42. The full score
for King Kong (orchestrated by Bernhard Kaun)
is preserved in the RKO Music Department
Collection, Special Collections, University of
California, Los Angeles.
127  Wozzeck, Act 3, Scene 2, three measures
after rehearsal number 95. By the time Wozzeck
had premiered in Berlin in 1925 Steiner had
already been in the United States working as an
arranger and conductor of musical comedies in
New York, having fled Europe at the outbreak of
WW1 in 1914. But certainly there must have been
much talk of Wozzeck in New York music circles
after its premiere. In considering the influence
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   429
Earlier in the score Steiner
uses rising parallel fourths in
the brass in “The Forgotten
Island” as the ship approaches
the forbidding Skull Island.128
Bernhard Kaun, who orchestrated
the score, observed that the
ascending fourths were similar to
the beginning of Howard Hanson’s
Lament for Beowulf (1925), though
he did not think that Steiner
was influenced by it.129 Steiner
was most likely drawing upon
what I call “movie Indian music,”
of Wozzeck on Gershwin in composing Porgy and
Bess, Christopher Reynolds insightfully notes in
a forthcoming paper: “For Gershwin’s knowledge
of Wozzeck there were at least three sources:
the piano-vocal score from 1926, Berg’s own
commentary on the opera, published in English
in the November 1927 edition of Modern Music,
and the Willi Reich article “A Guide to Wozzeck,”
also published in Modern Music, November,
1931. A fourth source, the American premiere
performance on 19 March 1931 that Gershwin
attended in Philadelphia, could doubtless be
added to this list.” Christopher Reynolds, “Porgy
and Bess: ‘An American Wozzeck’,” to appear in
American Music. By 1931 Steiner was already
in Hollywood working at RKO, but certainly
could have heard the radio broadcast of the
Philadelphia performance. Hugo Friedhofer,
who was then working at Fox and later became
Steiner’s chief orchestrator at Warner Bros.,
heard the broadcast at the time and described
it as sounding “like a madhouse.” Hugo
Friedhofer, Notes from an unrecorded telephone
conversation with the author, 30 January 1977.
128  Hanson’s Beowulf was already published in
1925, and uses both parallel fourths and three-
note fourth chords in several passages. According
to film composer, John Morgan, Steiner owned a
Hanson score, but he thought it was the Romantic
Symphony, not Beowulf.
129  Bernhard Kaun, Unrecorded conversation
with the author, 1973. Nor is there evidence
that Kaun, who it happens also orchestrated
Beowulf for Hanson, may have made Steiner
aware of it before Kong was scored. Nonetheless
it is interesting to read Hanson’s description of
the beginning of the work: “My intention has
been to realize in the music the austerity and
stoicism and the heroic atmosphere of the poem
[Beowulf by William Morris and A. J. Wyatt].
There is a brief picture of the great burial mound
by the sea on which the funeral pyre of the
hero is built.” Hanson could be a describing a
scene on Skull Island! That he uses the words
“austerity,” “stoicism,” and “heroic atmosphere”
in characterizing the opening setting of Beowulf
is significant because these same qualities could
also readily apply to Skull Island and its tribe
of warriors, whose “native drums” forms an
ostinato over which the fourths rise—just as
there is an ostinato drum background under the
rising fourths with which Beowulf begins. Hanson
quoted in record album liner notes by James
Lyons to Howard Hanson, Lament for Beowulf.
Howard Hanson conducting the Eastman-
Rochester Orchestra and Eastman School of
Music Chorus. Mercury SRI 75007.
430    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
music using the simple formula
for Indians-on-the-warpath in
Westerns used for decades from
the silent days that typically
features a pentatonic melody over
a simple tom-tom ostinato, often
with “open” intervals (fourths,
fifths, and/or octaves) in the bass
reinforcing the ostinato.130 Probably
the most famous and most imitated
piece exemplifying the formula is
the faux California Indian “Dagger
Dance” from Victor Herbert’s
opera Natoma (premiered 1911)
that was a staple of the silent film
music repertoire.131 That Steiner’s
“Jungle Dance” heard a few scenes
later in Kong after “The Forgotten
Island” resembles “Dagger Dance”
suggests that it was probably the 8-
5 chords in the accompaniment of
“Dagger Dance” (and in other such
pieces) that Steiner had in mind.
“The Forgotten Island” begins
with an 8-5 chord in the bass but
then the upper fourth of the chord
(played by trombones) detaches
from the texture and slowly—and
ominously—rises over the fifth
130  Film composer Dimitri Tiomkin wrote about
using the “movie Indian music” formula in his
scores: “[A]ll audiences think a certain type of
steady beat of tom-tom or tympani drum, and
a high, wailing wind instrument performing in
a simple four or five-tone scale, connotes one
thing: Indians. I have conducted no exhaustive
research into the American Indian’s music, but I
suspect that this particular stylization of ‘Indian
music’ has very little similarity with the genuine
article. In the past some composer freely adapted
some possibly authentic Indian song, changed
and altered it, and came up with the tom-tom
effect we all know. I have employed it in any
number of Westerns, including Howard Hawks’
Red River [1948]. I never used standard bars or
phrases. I simply employed their mood. The idea
is to avoid the usual and the trite, and at the
same time to retain the basic ingredients . . . .”
Dimitri Tiomkin, “Composing for films,” Films in
Review 2, no. 9 (1951), 17-22.
131  Cf. the following entry from one of
the many manuals published on silent film
accompaniment: “AMERICAN INDIAN should
be classed separately, for there is nothing more
typical. This music is not difficult to procure, for
considerable research work has brought to light
many wonderful Indian melodies, and these have
been carefully harmonized to keep the scale pure.
Such numbers by Arthur Farwell as ‘Inketunga
Thunder Song’ or ‘Song of the Deathless Voice,’
or Victor Herbert’s ‘Dagger Dance’ from Natoma,
are rich in Indian lore and atmosphere.” Musical
Presentation of Motion Pictures by George W.
Beynon (New York: Schirmer, 1921), 24.
which is sustained throughout
(even a tom-tom is playing in the
orchestra though not a simple
Indian tom-tom rhythm typical
of most movie Indian music).
Technically Steiner’s inclusion
of fourth chords in the chordal
passage in “The Bronte” from King
Kong that scores the menacing
movement of the prehistoric
monster constitutes a precursor in
the fantasy, horror and sci-fi film
genres to Stevens’ use of them.
If only by virtue of synchronicity,
visually and musically it anticipates
the menacing effect of the looming
serpent-like probe of the Martian
war machine in War of the Worlds.
Roy Webb, Steiner’s colleague
at RKO in the 1930s, incorporated
cues from Kong including “The
Forgotten Island” along with his
own original music in scoring Last
Days of Pompeii (RKO, 1935) and
Last of the Mohicans (1936, U.A.). As
a result he may have been directly
influenced by Steiner’s use of
fourths in his own writing. In the
1940s at RKO Webb often used
quartal harmony in association
with crime and brutality in
his scores, for example, using
a progression of brass fourth
chords for the “heavies” in the
WW2 espionage intrigue Action in
Arabia (1944). But it was mainly
in his film noir scores where he
used quartal harmony the most:
Murder My Sweet (1945), Dick Tracy,
Detective (1945), Cornered (1945),
The Spiral Staircase (1946), Notorious
(1946), Out of the Past (1947),
Crossfire (1947), and They Won’t
Believe Me (1947). Interestingly
he also used it scoring the Willis
O’Brien monster movie, Mighty Joe
Young (1949), where it is associated
with the brute strength of the huge
gorilla, “Joe Young.” Christopher
Palmer observed of Webb’s
musical language in this period:
Webb, throughout the forties,
showed consistent sympathy
with the world of film noir and
skill in translating its nuances
into musical terms—largely
through a wide spectrum of
modern harmonic resources
and an understanding of the
atmospheric properties of
orchestral colour, of texture,
and of understatement. If
Webb lacks Steiner’s melodic
distinction, harmonically he is
more sophisticated. In his use
of chords built up of fourths
and in the linear orientation of
much of his music, Webb’s idiom
grows closer to the neo-classical
austerity of Hindemith than to
romantic prototypes. So it is that
the crudities and commonplaces
of conventional ‘horror’ music
are completely and remarkably
absent from Webb’s.132
Miklós Rózsa also used quartal
harmony in scores for noir films
of the 1940s much in the same
way Webb did: Double Indemnity
(Paramount, 1944), The Lost
Weekend (Paramount, 1945), The
Killers (Universal, 1946), Brute
Force (Universal-International,
1947), and The Naked City
(Universal-International, 1948).133
Commenting on Rózsa’s idiom
for film noir, Christopher Palmer
characterized it as follows: “The
overtures [main titles] to The Killers
and Brute Force are typical; jagged
rhythms, sharp accents, pulsating
ostinati, bitonal harmony, flurried
snatches of theme, iron textures,
repetitive figures and phrases.”134
The Biblical epic was another
film genre with which Rózsa
and his music became closely
associated. Starting with Quo Vadis
132  Christopher Palmer, The Composer in
Hollywood (London: Marion Boyars, 1990), 166.
133  As quoted above, Stevens explicitly touches
on Rózsa’s music for Spellbound in “Film
Scoring,” 354.
134  Palmer, 202. Adolph Deutsch already used
quartal harmony in the final scene of the pre-
noir The Maltese Falcon (W.B., 1941), and George
Bassman used fourth chords in his main title for
the noir The Postman Rings Twice (M-G-M, 1946).
Leonard Bernstein’s noirish score for On the
Waterfront contains a long quartal passage (“The
Accident”).

(M-G-M, 1951) Rózsa eventually
became typecast as the premiere
composer for Hollywood “Toga
dramas,” a venerable theatrical
and film genre that got a new
lease on life at about the same
time sci-fi films were popular at
the box office.135 It is significant
that Rózsa also employed a variety
of chords constructed of fourths,
fifths, and octave doublings in
his scores for these films to evoke
both a feeling of antiquity and
the ruthless brutal might of the
Roman Empire.136 With regard
to the “Roman music” in Rózsa’s
score for Ben Hur (M-G-M, 1959),
Steven Wescott commented:
Through his use of “uncolored”
modal melodies, consistently
harmonized with parallel
P5ths and 8-5 sonorities, Rózsa
achieves a certain harshly
primitive sound that effectively
reverberates a peculiar tenor
of the immutability of Roman
dominance which functions, in
fact, as a culpable antagonist
in the film. At the same time,
this almost banal “brutishness”
seems somehow remarkably
effective in obviating most
questions of musical/historical
authenticity. Indeed, Rózsa
states that in seeking to
create a “specialized pseudo-
archaic style” for Ben-Hur, he
“simply developed the ‘Roman’
style . . . already established in
Quo Vadis.”137
Once again we see “primitive”-
sounding sonorities equated with
villains, in this case, brutish
135  Rózsa himself said that Quo Vadis marked
the beginning of his “fourth period,” what he
called his “Historico-Biblical period,” as he also
scored a number of other “costume dramas”
during the same time. Miklós Rózsa, A Double Life
(New York: Wynwood Press, 1989), 163.
136  For the stage history of toga drama and
early toga films, see David Mayer, Playing Out
the Empire: Ben-Hur and Other Toga Plays and Films
(Oxford University Press, 1994).
137  Steven D. Wescott, “Miklós Rózsa’s Ben-
Hur: The Musical-Dramatic Function of the
Hollywood Leitmotiv,” in Film Music 1, ed. Clifford
McCarty (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.,
1989), 185-86. Rózsa’s remarks are quoted from
A Double Life, 190.
Romans. In an essay entitled
“Music in the Hollywood Biblical
Spectacular,” Palmer wrote of
Rózsa’s central contribution to
the invention of a musical style
for this genre, though it not being
without historical origins of a sort:
[M]elodically speaking, the roots
of Hungarian peasant song are
in the modes and the pentatonic
scale, its predominant intervals
are the fourth and fifth and
therefore suggest a harmonic
treatment derived from these
intervals, i.e. parallel chords of
superimposed fourths and fifths.
Now these are precisely the
means whereby an atmosphere of
antiquity may be conjured up for
Western ears. . . . So there was
no need for Rózsa consciously
to assume an archaic-sounding
idiom; the prerequisites were
already inherent in his own
style.138
Perhaps rightly Roy Prendergast
dismisses Palmer’s conjecture
as being “pop musicology,” for
it is not clear that Rózsa’s use
of quartal (or quintal) harmony
derives from Hungarian folk music,
rather than from the music of any
number of other composers who
had already used it, particularly his
countryman Bela Bartók. And it
would be difficult to demonstrate
that Bartók’s use of it grew out of
Hungarian folk music. Replying
to Palmer’s assertion, Prendergast
argued that “[W]e would have to
conclude that the music of Bartók,
another composer whose music
has strong Hungarian peasant song
influences, contains ‘precisely the
means whereby an atmosphere
of antiquity may be conjured up
for Western ears.’ Bartók’s music
can hardly be regarded as having
an ‘atmosphere of antiquity.’”139
Commenting on his “pseudo-
archaic style” for these films,
Rózsa himself said nothing about
138  Palmer quoted in Prendergast, 129.
139  Ibid.
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   431
it being derived from Hungarian
folk music. Writing about his music
for Quo Vadis (M-G-M, 1951) soon
after the film, Rózsa explained
how he had been at pains to find
ways of harmonizing the ancient
monadic source material he used:
“For the modern ear, instrumental
music in unison has very little
emotional or aesthetic appeal;
therefore I had to find a way for an
archaic sounding harmonization
which gives warmth, color, and
emotional values to these melodies.
A parallelism with open fifths and
fourths came in most handy. . . .”140
In light of the these comments by
critic Lawrence Morton made at
the time, apparently Rózsa was
successful in achieving his goal:
“The ‘elemental’ harmonies of
fourths and open fifths, especially
when fortissimo in woodwinds
and brass, are so powerful and
effective that I somewhat regretted
their occasional resolution [sic]
into more conventional triads,
even though I fully understand
how a composer must ask himself
many times how long he dare stay
with the harmonies of fourths
and fifths without letting them
degenerate into a mannerism.”141
As for quartal harmony per
se evoking antiquity, in her
study, A Survey of the Evolution
and Use of Quartal and Quintal
Sonorities, Adrianne Marie Auvil
expressed the opinion that the
influence of “‘Quartal’ sounds
produced by medieval practices
or by isolated later experiments
such as those of Domenico
Scarlatti . . . on the nineteenth-
century development of ‘quartal’
sonorities was negligible.”142 One
notable exception that she does not
140  Miklós Rózsa, “The Music for Quo Vadis,”
Film Music Notes 11, no. 2 (November-December
1951), 6.
141  Lawrence Morton, “Rózsa’s Music for Quo
Vadis,” Film Music Notes 11, no. 2 (November-
December 1951), 12.
142  Auvil, 36.
432    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
discuss is Debussy’s popular piano
prelude “La Cathédral engloutie”
in which it has been suggested that
Debussy uses parallel quartal and
quintal chords redolent of medieval
organum.143 What influence this
piece alone might have had on
other composers, including Rózsa,
would be difficult to ascertain
let alone research, though the
fact that Stokowski made an
orchestral transcription of it is
some indication of its popularity
in the piano repertoire and, after
recording it in 1930, no doubt
contributed to its subsequent
popularity as well.144 One also finds
similar sonorities in “Grablegung”
(“Burial”) from Hindemith’s
Mathis der Maler but it is not
clear whether or not Hindemith
intended to evoke organum.
It is certainly conceivable that
Stevens could have been influenced
by Webb’s music, since his first
two scores, Syncopation (1940)
and Night Song (1947) were both
for RKO. He could have been
influenced by Rózsa’s scores as
well, because after RKO, Stevens
worked at Universal-International
in the late 1940s when Rózsa was
there. Perhaps it is no coincidence
that parts of the theatrical trailer
for All My Sons were tracked with
Rózsa’s music from the Universal-
International noir films that Mark
143  Cf. Horace Reisberg with reference to
the opening bars of “Le Cathédral engloutie”:
“Debussy used perfect-fourth dyads and trichords
with octave doublings, and in parallel motion,
to imitate organum in his piano prelude ‘The
Sunken Cathedral.’” Reisberg, 343. Mark DeVoto
analyzes another similar passage in the piece,
noting the same historical foundation: “Debussy
uses oscillating chords of two perfect fifths in
the left hand, together with a melody doubled
in perfect fifths and octaves, to give an archaic
atmosphere to his impressionistic ‘sunken
cathedral,’ in which he seems to be recalling
parallel organum of the Middle Ages.” Walter
Piston, Harmony, rev. & expanded Mark DeVoto
(New York: Norton, 1978), 494.
144  For one, it has been suggested that Charles
Tournemire in the “Paraphrase-Carillon” in
his L’Orgue mystique was influenced by “La
Cathédral.” See Andrew Thomson, “A Composer
of Genius,” Music and Vision, 1999 http://www.
mvdaily.com/articles/1999/10/messiaen.htm
(accessed 12/1/2005).
Hellinger produced, and Stevens’
own stark main title for the film
strongly evokes the genre: It sounds
like “crime drama” music. For that
matter, Stevens himself scored two
crime dramas during this time,
Larceny (Universal-International,
1948), and another which is
considered a noir film, Beware My
Lovely (Filmakers, 1952). However,
as shown above, Stevens’ use of
quartal harmony in the context
of the sci-fi films clearly seems
to be a Schillinger “geometric
expansion” of the tertian two
tonics progression, and thus a
form of harmonic variation.
W
hether derived from
Hungarian folk song,
Debussy, Ravel,
Hindemith, Berg, Schoenberg,
or Stravinsky, the use of quartal
harmony by Stevens and his
colleagues exhibits a common
underlying expressive character
that connects its use and similar-
sounding sonorities in the Biblical
films with their use in film noir:
Quartal sonorities possess a
distinctive musical physiognomy
that very well may readily evoke a
sense of the ancient, the primeval
or primordial, and the primitive.
Depending on variables of tempo,
rhythm, register, and instrumental
timbre, this physiognomy may lend
itself to the cinematic portrayal of
cold, brute strength (and ultimately
brutality) regardless of culture or
time period.
Thus while certain musical
devices such as quartal harmony
may be associated with specific
film genres they are not exclusively
so. Just as film composers
sometimes become typecast in
scoring certain film genres, the
musical devices they use become
obligatory in those genres, perhaps
somewhat to the frustration of the
composers themselves who may
feel inhibited in using them outside
a given filmic context. Presumably
this is partly responsible for how
so-called “genre conventions” in
film music become established
and that are also perpetuated
by one composer being asked to
imitate another’s work following
the simple expedient of “use it if
it works.” Of course ultimately
this only begs the perennial
question of why a given musical
device “works” in a given dramatic
setting in the first instance.
In any case, by 1950 quartal
harmony would have been familiar
to audiences from film noir but
new to science fiction films with
Stevens’ use of it in Destination
Moon and Rózsa’s use of it in the
Toga films. Of the three film
genres, quartal harmony is
most commonly associated with
crime drama, thus no doubt
my own association of it with
that genre. After Stevens, other
composers used it in scores for
sci-fi films, and it became part
of the repertoire of musical
devices constituting “monster
music.” For example Carmen
Dragon used it in association
with the “pod” aliens in his score
for Invasion of the Body Snatchers
(Columbia, 1956) and Heinz
Roemheld in cues he composed
for the multiply-authored score
of The Mole People (Universal-
International, 1956). Probably
due to its strong association with
film noir, and also because it had
become a popular device in jazz
harmony, composers continued
to use quartal harmony in crime-
detective films and TV shows of
the 1950s and into the1960s.
The association of quartal
harmony with cool jazz is
particularly relevant in light of
remarks Stevens himself made
in retrospect: “Starting with the
space pictures for George Pal, there
was the chance of exploration
of new sound getting away from

conventional patterns. This, in
a sense, did break the ice for
keener consciousness of jazz in
film writing. They found out that
they don’t have to stick with the
so-called conventional things
and so jazz’s toes were tested in
the waters of commerce and the
test was successful.”145 So it is
significant that the same year War
of the Worlds was released Stevens
used his quartal progression on
two tonics at one point in the first
145  Fran Kelley, “Leith Stevens: Unsung Hero,”
Metronome (September 1955), 20-27, cited in
Hamilton, “Leith Stevens,” 23.
MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   433
jazz score for a film, The Wild One
(Columbia, 1953), three years
later in another sci-fi score, World
Without End (Allied Artists, 1956),
and then in a jazzy way again in
the feature documentary The James
Dean Story (Warner Bros., 1957).146
146  Stevens uses virtually the identical triplet
“fanfare” of brass fourth chords on two tonics
that he used in the War of the Worlds “Prelude”
(mm. 1) again in “To the Jail,” mm. 7, in The Wild
One, and in “Borden Scouts,” mm. 1-2 in World
Without End. There is a jazzy variation of it in
“Who am I?” in The James Dean Story (the cue title
comes from the LP record of the score released
on Capitol Records W-881). By then this little
fanfare seems to have become a sort of musical
emblem for him. Stevens’ sketches for all three
scores are in the WHMC.
434    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC

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 MUSIC FOR MARTIANS   437

Leith Stevens conducting a rehearsal of the Australian Broadcast Corp. Symphony Orchestra in Town Hall,
Sydney, in 1943.
 438    THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC

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