Miklos Rozsa

Some composers have undeniably superior technical craftsmanship. Other composers simply speak to your soul. If you're lucky, you'll find a composer who does both, as Miklos Rozsa does for me. His music is stentorian, thrilling, yearning, rapturous, and truly epic (unlike many objects described with this highly overused adjective). At the same time, his music is laden with poignancy, as if the composer poured his soul directly into his music.

Born in Budapest, Rozsa immersed himself in Hungarian folk music (a permeating influence on his work) before composing a batch of well-recieved classical works. After moving to Hollywood, he scored his first major triumph, The Thief of Bagdad, his music crammed with the compositional complexity, thematic richness, and soaring exhilaration that would become his musical calling cards. Soon after, Rozsa entered his "noir" period, scoring The Killers, Double Life, Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity and The Lost Weekend, and Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound, the last of which is famed for its use of the theremin (that "OOOOEEEE" instrument you hear in cheesy sci-fi movies, Mars Attacks! being the foremost modern example). Scores for period pieces like Madame Bovary, Plymouth Adventure, and Young Bess brought Rozsa back to the lush style of Thief of Bagdad. Ivanhoe, Knights of the Round Table, and The King's Thief further thrust Rozsa into the arena of the adventure film, but they were only precursors (albeit superb ones) for what was to come. The monumental scores for Quo Vadis (which actually came right after Rozsa's noir period), Ben-Hur, King of Kings, El Cid, and Sodom and Gomorrah are simply peerless, bursting with raw power, surging orchestral action, heart-rending solos, and empyrean outbursts of choral splendor. The action music for the sea battles and resplendent fanfares for the chariot race in Ben-Hur complement the achingly gorgeous love theme and the music for the Nativity scene. But it is the epilogue music for King of Kings (a glorious choral rendition of the Lord's Prayer theme) that has come the closest out of any piece of music to making me shed tears (in a good way). In truth, some scores from the Golden Age sound just a little dated to my ears, but I do not have that problem with Rozsa's music in the slightest. His transcendent music reminds me of why I listen to film music in the first place and the sublime heights it can reach if in the hands of a true master.

All the Brothers Were Valiant
The Asphalt Jungle
Beau Bremmell (with Richard Addinsell)
Ben-Hur**
Crest of the Wave
Crisis
Desert Fury
East Side West Side
El Cid**
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
Ivanhoe*
Julius Caesar
King of Kings**
The King's Thief
Knights of the Round Table*
The Light Touch
Lust for Life
Madame Bovary
The Miniver Story
Plymouth Adventure
The Power
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes*
Quo Vadis*
The Red Danube
Sodom and Gomorrah**
Something of Value
The Story of Three Loves
The Thief of Bagdad*
Tip on a Dead Jockey
The VIPs
Young Bess*

Alfred Newman

If you're going by sheer number of Oscars won, Alfred Newman was the mightiest of all film composers, with nine naked golden men in his name. Of course, Oscars don't necessarily guarantee quality--just ask (as of this writing) James Newton Howard, Danny Elfman, Basil Poledouris, Alfred's son Thomas, and, on the flip side, Gustavo Santaolalla and Michael Gore. Yet Newman truly was a remarkable talent; if nothing else, his renowned fanfare for the 20th Century Fox logo alone cements his eminence as a composer. As head of the Fox music department, Newman conducted, arranged, and supervised a multitude of scores, yet it is his own compositions that showcase his true talent. Unlike many of his contemporaries (Steiner, Rozsa, Waxman, Korngold) Newman was American-born. One of his first early scores was for Wuthering Heights in 1939, in which he captured the romantic yearning of the admittedly miserable Heathcliff and Catherine. Other highlights include Gunga Din, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, All About Eve, The Robe, The Seven Year Itch, Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, The Diary of Anne Frank, How the West Was Won, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and Airport. He also specialized in adapting Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals for film, including Carousel, The King and I, South Pacific, Flower Drum Song, and State Fair.

Newman left his mark upon the world of music in other ways as well. His brothers Lionel and Emil were film composers and conductors, as are his sons Thomas and David and his nephew Randy. But Newman's own versatility, craft, and talent made for an incredible legacy of salad dressing scores worthy of approbation.


Wuthering Heights

Dimitri Tiomkin

While Dimitri Tiomkin hailed from Russia, many of his most famous scores were, rather ironically, rip-roaring Westerns. After spending some years in Berlin and Paris, Tiomkin moved to America, starting his Hollywood career following the Great Depression. He swiftly established a relationship with Frank Capra, scoring Lost Horizon, You Can't Take It With You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Meet John Doe, and perennial Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life. He also collaborated with Howard Hawks on The Big Sky and Land of the Pharaohs and with Alfred Hitchcock on Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train, I Confess, and Dial M for Murder. But Tiomkin's talents really flourished in the Western genre--not only did he provide High Noon, Gunfight at the OK Corral, and The Alamo with scores that perfectly depict the optimistic, adventurous spirit of the Western frontier, but he also wrote title songs that became breakaway hits with the public (i.e., those who aren't nerdy about film scores). Although the lyrics sound rather cheesy to thus writer's ears, the tunes themselves prove that one does not have to be born in a specific country in order to understand its musical ethos.


Gunfight at the OK Corral
The High and the Mighty (Suite)
Land of the Pharaohs
Search for Paradise

Max Steiner

Known as the father of film music, Max Steiner set the precedent for what Hollywood scores sounded like and many of the methods, both artistic and technical, by which they were written and recorded. Steiner was born in Austria-Hungary and wrote his first operetta at age 15. After moving to America, he had a stint on Broadway but found his true calling when he moved to Hollywood in 1929. The film Symphony for Six Million was the first prominent Hollywood film that featured underscore that played under a majority of the picture. The next year, he scored the monumental King King, incorporating identifiable themes and motifs in a score with a surprising amount of musical complexity and sophistication, especially for a score written so early in Hollywood's history. Steiner became a Warner Brothers mainstay, finding incredible success with his score to Gone with the Wind and its immortal Tara's theme. Steiner ended up scoring over 300 films, many of them deftly incorporating snippets of popular tunes or classical works. Other notable works include Casablanca, Now Voyager, The Big Sleep, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, They Died with Their Boots On, and John Ford's The Searchers. One of Steiner's themes from A Summer Place has become the epitome of pop easy-listening; Tim Burton used the tune in both Batman and Dark Shadows. However, the score also contains a more lush, heartfelt love theme that displays Steiner's range just within a single genre. Steiner was a true pioneer of the film score, providing a foundation that the best film composers built on.

Helen of Troy
A Summer Place

Franz Waxman

One of the premier film composers of the Golden Age of cinema, Franz Waxman, like many of his contemporaries, studied classical music in Europe before immigrating to America. Waxman was born in what is now Poland, studying music in Dresden and orchestrating music for the nascent German film industry. After moving to Hollywood, Waxman made a splash with his scores for The Bride of Frankenstein and Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca. He later collaborated with Hitchcock on Suspicion, The Paradine Case, and Rear Window; although the last film doesn't contain a conventional underscore, Waxman still provided jazzy, upbeat music for the main title and a piano tune played by of the neighbors James Stewart spies on. (Incidentally, said neighbor is played by Ross Bagdasarian, creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks). Other highlights include The Spirit of St. Louis, Peyton Place, and the epic Taras Bulba. Waxman became the first film composer to earn a Best Score Oscar in two consecutive years for Sunset Boulevard and A Place in the Sun.

The Silver Chalice