Madam, - Des McHale (Feb 6th) considers John Williams "the greatest composer of film music". Surely an exaggeration.
During the golden age of the cinema there were very many fine composers in this field.
They include Franz Waxman, Miklos Rosza, Dimitri Tiomkin, Erich Wolfgang Korngold in Hollywood and their British counterparts Richard Addinsell, Malcolm Arnold, Richard Rodney Bennett - all of whom, some Oscar winners, never received the appreciation due to them.
But the outstanding composer in the history of film music is surely the great Max Steiner.
In a career spanning the years 1933 to 1980, this Vienna-born maestro composed the scores for hundreds of films, including Gone With the Windwhose Tara's Themefigures in every list of best film scores.
He was nominated many times for an Oscar, winning three times though not for GWTW- surely the biggest injustice in the history of the Academy.
- Yours, etc,
CONNIE KIERNAN, Wheatfield Road, Palmerstown, Dublin 20.