Composer Max Steiner, whose scores for “King Kong,” “Gone With the Wind” and “Casablanca” placed him in the movie-music pantheon, isn’t much discussed today. He seems to belong to that old-school, pre ...

Steven C. Smith’s first book, 1991’s “A Heart at Fire’s Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann,” preceded — and arguably helped precipitate — a huge uptick of interest in that once neglected, ...