Designation Moon
Destination Moon
Leith Stevens
The Omega Orchestra - Heinz Sandauer, Conductor
Cover: Jupiter Missle Roars Skyward (World Wide)
Omega Stereophonic Disk OSL-3
1959
From the back cover: Although many composers maintain that they recognize no difference between absolute music and descriptive or program music, and that a program is merely an incentive to the creation of new musical form, the texture of some programmatic compositions has proved to be so extraordinary rich and full that almost universally it must create a pictorial narrative in the listener's imagination. For most of us, it seem, this is a simpler way to hear music because music takes on meaning for us in terms of everyday emotions and experiences. In fact, some composers, realizing this, have attempted to bring their art closer to listeners by depicting characteristic aspects of Twentieth Century civilization in programmatic pieces.
Typical of that sort of composition are Honegger's "Pacific 231" which its celebrated musical description of a steam engine, or Copland's "Rodeo," describing a Western cowboy setting. In these works, as in others like them, the gulf between composer and listener is being bridged by a common ground – a musical description of something that is familiar to all of us.
However, when Leith Stevens was called upon back in 1950 to compose a score for George Pal's motion picture, "Destination Moon," he had a peculiar creative problem on his hands. The picture dealt with man making a rocket to fly him to the moon, and this science-fiction fantasy itself was created to play upon unexperienced emotions by showing images never before seen. At that time, information on space, the moon's surface, rocket launchings and all the other scientific lingo that has become popular knowledge today, was considerably harder to come by. It took Stevens over three months to steep himself in enough scientific lore to prepare himself to write the first notes.
He consulted with many scientists, among them the now famous Dr. Wernher van Braun. In these conferences and by studying countless artists' sketches of the moon's surface, Stevens was able to discover what the space world was like. The result was a startling, particularly dramatic score which became immediately popular. The music evoked new feelings, new mental pictures... it investigated a musical world never before probed or propounded so sharply.
Today, when we are more familiar with space launchings and our newspapers and magazines are filled with Sputniks and Satellites, and a rocket trip to the moon doesn't seem so fantastic, this composition is more meaningful than ever.
As the music describes the film's action, it begins with "Earth," a launching sequence. There is a musical depiction of a count-down, and just as if "Destination Moon" had foreseen the future, something goes wrong with the rocket and it is unable to take off. There is a hurried de-bugging operation and another count-down which is followed by one of the most thrilling sounds in stereo... the sound of a rocket launching. Then up, up, up... into the eerie blackness of space.
"In Outer Space" is especially interesting because of Stevens' musical portrayal of weightlessness. He as created a sound picture of infinity, a sense of no bottom and no gravity... a feeling that if you'd let go of a cup of coffee it would hang there in space. The violins perform a shimmering figure to indicate the silence and the clear, far-away stars, the moon coming nearer. The woodwinds enter too, to tell of the curious mental aberrations that affects human beings in a world of no gravity.
"On The Surface Of The Moon" is even more exciting as the rocket makes a successful landing and our spacemen, with long woodwind passages interrupted by sudden chords, bound across the moon in great long 100-foot strides. In "Escape From The Moon" the spacemen have reduced the weight of the rocket to make their take-off, with everyone in right-angle take-off position, the rocket is fired and they are in space again.
"Finale" is joyous. The crew is aware they can make it back home and then watch the moon fade away as the Earth looms up at them.
As the music was recorded, somewhere an actual trip to the moon is being planned. It may only be a matter of months or a year or so before a rocket, like the one on our cover, courtesy of the Army at Cape Canaveral, Florida, launches itself into the world of space, headed for the moon... just as Leith Stevens has imagined it so beautifully for us in musical terms.
About the composer: Leith Stevens is one of the most versatile and accomplished composer-conductors in the entertainment world. He has composed scores for motion pictures, television and radio, successfully conducted symphony orchestras, composed a highly praised piano concerto, written pop tunes and is currently working on an original television musical.
Born in Mount Moriah, Missouri, in 1909, his music career started with private teachers. At 14 he made his debut as a pianist in Kansas City. Two years later he made his conducting debut and at the same time became coach for Madame Schumann-Heink's first Master Class at Horner Institute. He later continued his musical education at Juilliard where he was awarded a fellowship.
His professional career started in radio and was later signed by the motion picture industry to compose the score for the RKO production of "Syncopation." Since that time, Stevens has racked up over 40 screen credits among them such notable films as "Night Song," "War Of The World," "The Wild One," "Julie," "Garment Jungle," and "The James Dean Story." Stevens was one of the founders and the first president of the Composers and Lyricists Guild Of America. – Cy Schneider
From Billboard - February 23, 1959: Moon music for space cadets. Current interest in rocketry could help sales. And the far-out musical effects could also catch on with hi-fi aficionados. The score itself is from the pic of the same name, highly original and manages to convey feelings no human has yet experienced – weightlessness, being on the moon, etc.
East
In Outer Space
On The Surface Of The Moon
Finale
