Among Scott Bradley’s best-known works are the soundtracks to the classic Tom and Jerry cartoons and to Tex Avery’s films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He was a pioneer of animation music who did not simply ‘recycle’ well-known melodies, but instead composed highly complex original scores inspired by classical modernism (such as Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg).
Carl W. Stalling is known for the musical accompaniment to the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies featuring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck for Warner Bros., as well as for early Disney classics such as The Skeleton Dance. Together with Max Steiner and Scott Bradley, he is regarded as the inventor of the click track (a metronome beat used for synchronisation). He perfected the technique known as ‘Mickey-mousing’, in which movements on screen are precisely synchronised with the music.
As the ‘principal composer’ for the Coen brothers (Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men), Carter Burwell also wrote the music for films such as Being John Malkovich and the Twilight saga. He is known for his minimalist, atmospheric and often sombre, melancholic Hollywood scores.
Further information on these three film composers can be found in the relevant MGG articles by Saskia Jaszoltowski.
The MGG, ‘Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart’, is a ‘General Encyclopaedia of Music’. Its encyclopaedic scope sets it apart fundamentally from other reference works: the MGG offers in-depth articles on every aspect of music, as well as on many related fields such as literature, philosophy and the visual arts.
Tuesday, 14 July 2026