Scott Bradley

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For the professional baseball player, see Scott Bradley (baseball).

Scott Bradley (November 26, 1891 in Russellville, Arkansas - April 27, 1977 in Chatsworth, California) was an American composer, pianist and conductor.

He is most famous for scoring the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) theatrical cartoons, including those starring Tom and Jerry, Droopy Dog, Barney Bear, and the many one-shot works of Tex Avery.

Bradley was a conservatory-trained composer and English horn player who studied under Arnold Schoenberg. He first composed cartoon scores in the early 1930's for Ub Iwerks, a former Disney animator who had opened his own animation studio the year before. In 1934 Bradley began composing for Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising, who were producing cartoon shorts for MGM. After MGM established its own cartoon studio in 1937, Bradley was hired permanently, and he remained with MGM until his retirement.

His early style incorporated fragments of popular and traditional melodies, as was common practice in scores for animation. However, by the late 1940s, Bradley's compositions and orchestrations had become original and complex, often utilizing the twelve-tone technique devised by his teacher, Schoenberg. "Scott writes the most blank-blank-blank difficult fiddle music in Hollywood," concertmaster Lou Raderman was quoted (complaining good-naturedly) in Sight & Sound magazine. "He is going to break my fingers."

Bradley expressed considerable pride in his "funny music" and believed scoring for animation offered far more possibilities to the serious composer than live-action films.

He retired in 1957 when MGM closed its cartoon department.

[edit] References

  • Goldmark, Daniel (2006): "Cartoon Concerto". Liner notes for Tom and Jerry & Tex Avery Too! Volume 1: The 1950's. Film Score Monthly CD Vol. 9 No. 17.
  • Goldmark, Daniel and Yuval Taylor (eds.) (2002): The Cartoon Music Book. A Capella Books.
  • Maltin, Leonard (1987): Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons. Penguin Books.
  • McCarty, Clifford (2000): Film Composers in America: a Filmography, 1911-1970. Oxford University Press.