Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Movie Music

Max Steiner & Dimitri Tiomkin Birthday Film Scores

May 10th is bursting with birthday energy! Turn down the lights for a celebration of those two silverbacks of the silver screen, Max Steiner and Dimitri Tiomkin.

Steiner (1888-1971), the literal godson of Richard Strauss, was instrumental in transplanting the sound of fin de siècle Vienna to the realm of cinematic dreams. He composed over 300 film scores for RKO and Warner Brothers, earning 24 Academy Award nominations and winning three – for “The Informer,” “Now, Voyager” and “Since You Went Away” – though he is unquestionably better remembered today for his work on “King Kong,” “Gone with the Wind” and “Casablanca.”

Tiomkin (1894-1979), a pupil of Alexander Glazunov, was born in Ukraine. He settled in the United States, where he composed music for films in all genres, though in the 1950s he enjoyed particular success writing for Westerns, including the Academy Award-winning “High Noon.” When asked why this would be the case, that a composer born halfway around the world would have such a command of this distinctly American idiom, Tiomkin replied, “A steppe is a steppe is a steppe.”

Tiomkin was honored with four Academy Awards – three for Best Original Score (for “High Noon,” “The High and the Mighty” and “The Old Man and the Sea”) and one for Best Original Song (“The Ballad of High Noon”).

Here’s a transcript of his acceptance speech, delivered after being handed the Oscar for “The High and the Mighty” in 1955:

“Lady and gentlemen, because I working in this town for twenty-five years, I like to make some kind of appreciation to very important factor what make me successful to lots of my colleagues in this town. I’d like to thank Johannes Brahms, Johann Strauss, Richard Strauss, Beethoven, Mozart, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov. Thank you.”

You can watch it here:

Though Steiner and Tiomkin were both very well-connected in the wider musical world, comparatively speaking, neither left very much in the way of classical concert music. In 2019, Intrada Records put out a diverting 2-CD set of Tiomkin’s brightly-scored ballet music, dances composed in Paris for his wife, Albertina Rasch, in 1927-1932, prior to his work in film. It would be wonderful for afternoon drive-time – if only I had a live air shift! You can sample some of it by following the link. Already detectable is Tiomkin’s trademark snarling brass, in a number titled “Mars” (the second track in this YouTube playlist):

In 2020, Oxford University Press published a book by Steven C. Smith, “Music by Max Steiner: The Epic Life of Hollywood’s Most Influential Composer.” Read my impressions of this authoritative biography, unbelievably the first full-length treatment of Steiner’s life and achievements, here. Then get yourself a copy!

Also in 2020, while I was twiddling my thumbs, waiting to get back to work, I put together a Steiner-Tiomkin crossword puzzle. The clues not only allude to specifics of their respective lives and careers, but they should also be of ample interest, I hope, to classic movie buffs. So even if you’re convinced you don’t know a lot about music, do check it out if, like me, you happen to watch a lot of movies from the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s.

To fill out the puzzle, follow the link and select “solve online” at the bottom of the page. You’ll then be able to type directly into the squares. Once you feel you’ve exhausted the puzzle, you’ll find the solutions by clicking on “Answer Key PDF.”

https://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/Data/2020.05/1007/10071219.977.html?fbclid=IwAR1pIAkaVZccK4LXQ5yTMtwJ7kzNlQeOPjgyn3Fkx4X4NcAvd1Cxp52iahw

Happy birthday to Max Steiner and Dimitri Tiomkin, two composers who enriched generations of movie lovers by keeping it “reel!”

Steiner’s “Now, Voyager”

Tiomkin’s “Land of the Pharaohs”

A great, two-part interview with Steiner:

Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQuNnzH6_g8
Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmJLTn_6UOY

The official Dimitri Tiomkin website:

Welcome to DimitriTiomkin.com

PHOTOS (counter-clockwise from top): Screen credits for their work on “Lost Horizon” (1937); Steiner conducting; Frank Capra (in coat) with Steiner and Tiomkin on the podium; Tiomkin composing

May 10, 2023
Chaplin’s Musical Genius Revealed

I missed Charlie Chaplin’s birthday by ten days, but I only just stumbled across this footage of Chaplin conducting (at the link below).

While Chaplin was musically illiterate (by which I mean, he couldn’t read sheet music), he taught himself to play piano, violin and cello as a child, which served him well in his early days in the music hall. Later, he composed, or rather worked very closely with trained musicians, to produce the original scores for all of his features and some of his shorter films.

David Raksin, best remembered for his score to “Laura” (1944), assisted Chaplin on the silent classic “Modern Times” (1936). Raksin later revealed that it was he who had essentially scored the film, with Chaplin whistling all the tunes and asking him to make them fit the action.

However, he stressed the process was more complicated than it might at first seem. Chaplin was very much involved with every aspect of his films, and oversaw the development of the music as closely as he did any of the other elements. As a result, such a collaboration could take months, and there wasn’t a note in his scores that he didn’t approve.

Emotions could run high. Raksin recalled he was actually fired once, after only a week and a half, though quickly rehired. When music director Alfred Newman stormed out of one of the recording sessions, Raksin again defied Chaplin, refusing to take up the baton, which only led to further acrimony. The rift was eventually mended and decades later Raksin recollected his work on “Modern Times” as some of the happiest days of his life.

Chaplin’s scores yielded three popular hits: “Smile” from “Modern Times,” a hit for Nat King Cole in 1954; “Terry’s Theme” from “Limelight,” popularized by Jimmy Young as “Eternally” in 1952; and “This Is My Song” from “A Countess in Hong Kong,” recorded by Petula Clark in 1967.

Through a fluke – the belated release of “Limelight” in the United States, on a single screen in Los Angeles, twenty years after it was filmed, coinciding with the disqualification of music from “The Godfather,” after it was learned that Nino Rota had recycled a theme from one of his earlier scores (for the Italian film “Fortunella” in 1958) – Chaplin walked away with his only competitive Oscar, as a composer (!), one month before his 84th birthday.

Previously, he received two honorary Academy Awards, in 1929 and 1972.

April 26, 2023
Armchair Travel Through Film Scores

This week on “Picture Perfect,” settle in for a little armchair traveling as, musically, we follow the English abroad.

We’ll hear selections from “Enchanted April” (Richard Rodney Bennett), “A Passage to India” (Maurice Jarre), “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” (Thomas Newman), and “Around the World in 80 Days” (Victor Young).

Bennett, quite the accomplished concert composer (and occasional torch song singer), supplies a sensitive score for the 1991 Merchant/Ivory adaptation of Elizabeth von Arnim’s novel about four English ladies who spend an idyllic month at an Italian villa.

Jarre received his third Academy Award for his music to David Lean’s final film, a 1984 adaptation of E.M. Forster’s novel of repression and racial tension in colonial India.

Newman incorporates traditional Indian elements into his score for “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” the 2012 surprise hit about English pensioners reinventing themselves in retirement in Jaipur.

And Young won his only Oscar (alas, posthumously bestowed) for “Around the World in 80 Days,” the star-studded, light-as-a-feather, though admittedly charming mega-winner at the 1956 Academy Awards. It takes longer to watch the movie than it does to read Jules Verne’s novel – though it does provide a rare opportunity to see Ronald Colman in color.

No need to pack your valise for Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTO: There’s no balloon in Verne’s original, but as long as there’s champagne, who cares?

April 15, 2023
Happy 91st Birthday John Williams!

Happy birthday to the Master, 91 years-old today. I wish I could forget the horrible movie, because John Williams truly is the Last Jedi. Is there any doubt? Here’s a taste of what we can expect this summer.

John Williams is a living reminder of when the movies still had magic and soul. I will be forever grateful for everything this man has contributed to our entertainment and dreams of a better world.

Thanks for everything, and a very happy birthday, Maestro!

February 8, 2023
Dickens Movie Music Picture Perfect

‘Tis the season for… “Humbug!”

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll have a Dickens of a time with a garland of music from movies inspired by his writings. Tune in for selections from “Nicholas Nickleby” (1947) by Lord Berners, “Oliver Twist” (1948) by Sir Arnold Bax, “David Copperfield” (1969) by Sir Malcolm Arnold, and “A Christmas Carol” (1951) by Richard Addinsell.

Blame it on an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There will be more of gravy than of grave about it. Take your pick of Dickens on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

December 17, 2022

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