Max Steiner composed one of the most beloved Hollywood scores for Casablanca (1942), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for "Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture". That same year this Suite was extracted from the main work, creating a concert piece that encapsulates the movie’s principal musical moment. The material is drawn from the film’s score and source tunes: it weaves Steiner’s original Warner Bros. fanfare into “As Time Goes By” (Herman Hupfeld, 1931), snippets of “La Marseillaise”, the Nazi drinking song “Die Wacht am Rhein”, and Steiner’s own dramatic underscoring. These elements are arranged into a brief rhapsodic arc that balances nostalgia, romance, and tension.

In performance, the suite requires clear delineation between the delicate string‑ and woodwind‑led “As Time Goes By” section and the more forceful brass‑driven statements of the patriotic and martial tunes. Precise dynamic control and ensemble cohesion are essential to convey the suite’s shifts in mood—from wistful longing to cinematic drama.