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 LadyInque
Captain
Joined: May 20, 2005
Member#: 10281
Posts: 2224
Location: Eastern Massachusetts
    
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 Posted:
Mon May 24, 2010 7:16 am Post subject: Film Music before Soundtracks: RIP Rosa Rio |
 
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Last week, I learned that the remarkable Rosa Rio had passed away at the age of 107. You can read about her in an article by Margalit Fox at the New York Times here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/arts/music/15rio.html?hpw
Here's a quote from that article:
| Quote: |
Miss Rio was undoubtedly among the very last to have played the silent-picture houses, accompanying the likes of Chaplin, Keaton and Pickford on the Mighty Wurlitzer amid velvet draperies, gilded rococo walls and vaulted ceilings awash in stars. She was also one of the few women to have made her way in a field dominated by men. ...
For the silents, Miss Rio provided music — often improvised — to set moods that images alone could not: the footsteps of a cat burglar, the sighs of young lovers and the dreadful roar of the oncoming train as the heroine flailed on the tracks. When silents gave way to talkies, she became a ubiquitous presence on the radio; when radio yielded to television, she played for daytime serials. The Queen of the Soaps, the newspapers called her.
In Miss Rio’s career one can trace the entire history of entertainment technology in the 20th century. After all, she was alive, and playing, for nearly all of it. |
I knew Miss Rio personally, because she was my first and best piano teacher. I had the honor of being yelled at for not practicing my scales by one of the greats.
I thought I'd post this here because in a way, Miss Rio was a soundtrack composer. And at this station especially, it's good to remember the film music that existed before soundtracks did. It was created by one talented individual at a time, and most of it is lost forever. |
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