Dimitri Tiomkin | |
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 Dimitri Tiomkin ca. 1930s | |
| Born | Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin (1894-05-10)May 10, 1894 |
| Died | November 11, 1979(1979-11-11) (aged 85) London, England |
| Occupation | Composer |
| Years active | 1929–1979 |
| Notable work |
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| Spouses |
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| Website | dimitritiomkin |
Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin[a] (May 10, 1894 – November 11, 1979)[1] was a Russian[2][3][4] and American film composer and conductor. Classically trained in Saint Petersburg before theBolshevik Revolution, he moved to Berlin and then New York City after the Russian Revolution. In 1929, after thestock market crash, he moved to Hollywood, where he became best known for his scores forWestern films, includingDuel in the Sun,Red River,High Noon,The Big Sky,Gunfight at the O.K. Corral,Rio Bravo, andLast Train from Gun Hill.
Tiomkin received 22Academy Award nominations and won four Oscars, three forBest Original Score forHigh Noon,The High and the Mighty, andThe Old Man and the Sea, and one forBest Original Song for "The Ballad of High Noon" from the filmHigh Noon.
Dimitri Tiomkin was born inKremenchug, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire (today part of Ukraine).
His family was of Jewish descent;[5][6] his father, Zinovy Tiomkin, was a "distinguished pathologist" and associate of professorPaul Ehrlich, and later a notableZionist leader. His mother, Maria Tartakovskaya,[7] was a musician who began teaching the young Tiomkin piano at an early age. Her hope was to have her son become a professional pianist, according to Tiomkin biographerChristopher Palmer.[8] Tiomkin described his mother as being "small, blonde, merry and vivacious."[8]
Tiomkin was educated at theSaint Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied piano withFelix Blumenfeld, teacher ofVladimir Horowitz, and harmony and counterpoint withAlexander Glazunov, mentor toSergei Prokofiev andDmitri Shostakovich.[9] He also studied piano withIsabelle Vengerova.[10]
He survived the revolution and found work under the new regime. In 1920, while working for the Petrograd Military District Political Administration (PUR), Tiomkin was one of the lead organizers of two revolutionary mass spectacles, theMystery of Liberated Labor, a mystery play for the May Day festivities, andThe Storming of the Winter Palace for the celebrations of the third anniversary of theBolshevik Revolution.[11] He supported himself while living in Saint Petersburg by playing piano accompaniment for numerous Russiansilent films.[9]Tiomkin joined many exiles in moving to Berlin after theRussian Revolution to live with his father.[12] In Berlin, from 1921 to 1923, he studied with the pianistFerruccio Busoni and Busoni's disciplesEgon Petri andMichael von Zadora [es].[5] He composed light classical and popular music, and made his performing debut as a pianist playingFranz Liszt'sPiano Concerto No. 2 with theBerlin Philharmonic.[13]
He moved to Paris with his roommate, Michael Khariton, to perform a piano duo repertory together. They did this before the end of 1924.
In 1925 the duo received an offer from the New York theatrical producerMorris Gest and emigrated to the United States. They performed together on theKeith/Albee andOrpheum vaudeville circuits, in which they accompanied a ballet troupe run by the Austrian ballerinaAlbertina Rasch. Tiomkin and Rasch's professional relationship evolved into a personal one, and they married in 1927.
While in New York, Tiomkin gave a recital atCarnegie Hall that featured contemporary music byMaurice Ravel,Alexander Scriabin,Francis Poulenc, andAlexandre Tansman. He and his new wife went on tour to Paris in 1928, where he played the European premiere of AmericanGeorge Gershwin'sConcerto in F at theParis Opera, with Gershwin in the audience.
After the stock market crash in October 1929 reduced work opportunities in New York, Tiomkin and his wife moved to Hollywood,[14] where she was hired to supervise dance numbers inMGM film musicals.[13] He worked on some minor films, some without being credited under his own name. His first significant film score project was forParamount'sAlice in Wonderland (1933).[15] Although Tiomkin worked on some smaller film projects, his goal was to become a concert pianist. In 1937 he broke his arm, injuring it so much that he ended that possible career. He began to focus on work as a film music composer.[16]
Tiomkin received his first break fromColumbia directorFrank Capra, who chose him to write and perform the score forLost Horizon (1937).[13] The film gained significant recognition for Tiomkin in Hollywood. It was released the same year that he became a naturalized US citizen.[12][17]
In his autobiography,Please Don't Hate Me! (1959), Tiomkin recalls how the assignment by Capra forced him to first confront a director in a matter of music style:
[H]e gave me the job without reservation. I could write the score without interference, and he would hear it when it was done.Lost Horizon offered me a superb chance to do something big.... I thought I might be going a little too far in the matter of expense, and went to Frank one day as he sat in the projection room [and explained the score.].... He looked shocked. "No, Dimi, the lama is a simple man. His greatness is in being simple. For his death, the music should be simple, nothing more than the muttering rhythm of a drum." "But Frank, death of lama is not ending one man, but is death of idea. Is tragedy applying to whole human race. I must be honest. Music should rise high, high. Should give symbolism of immense loss. Please don't hate me."[16]
He worked on other Capra films during the following decade, including the comedyYou Can't Take It With You (1938),Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939),Meet John Doe (1941), andIt's a Wonderful Life (1946). DuringWorld War II, he continued his close collaboration with Capra by composing scores for hisWhy We Fight series. These seven films were commissioned by the US government to show American soldiers the reason for United States' participation in the war. They were later released to the general US public to generate support for American involvement.[12]
Tiomkin credited Capra for broadening his musical horizons by shifting them away from a purely Eurocentric and romantic style to a more American style based on subject matter and story.[16]
Following his work forFred Zinnemann onThe Men (1950), Tiomkin composed the score for the same director'sHigh Noon (1952). His theme song was "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'" ("The Ballad of High Noon"). At its opening preview to the press, the film, which starredGary Cooper andGrace Kelly, did badly. Tiomkin writes that "film experts agreed that the picture was a flat failure.... The producers hesitated to release the picture."[16] Tiomkin bought the rights to the song and released it as a single for the popular music market, with singerFrankie Laine. The record became an immediate success worldwide. Based on the song's popularity, the studio released the film four months later, with the words sung by country western starTex Ritter. The film received sevenAcademy Award nominations and won four awards, including two for Tiomkin:Best Original Music andBest Song.Walt Disney presented him with both awards that evening.[18]
According to film historian Arthur R. Jarvis Jr., the score "has been credited with saving the movie."[12] Another music expert, Mervyn Cooke, agrees, adding that "the song's spectacular success was partly responsible for changing the course of film-music history".[16] Tiomkin was the second composer to receive two Oscars (score and song) for the same dramatic film. (The first wasLeigh Harline, who won Best Original Score for Disney'sPinocchio and Best Song for "When You Wish Upon a Star".Ned Washington wrote its lyrics as he did for "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin".)
The song's lyrics briefly tellHigh Noon's entire story arc, a tale of cowardice and conformity in a small Western town.[19] Tiomkin composed his entire score around this single western-style ballad. He also eliminated violins from the ensemble. He added a subtle harmonica in the background, to give the film a "rustic, deglamorized sound that suits the anti-heroic sentiments" expressed by the story.[9]
According to Russian film historian Harlow Robinson, building the score around a single folk tune was typical of many Russian classical composers.[9] Robinson adds that the source of Tiomkin's score, if indeed folk, has not been proven.[9] TheEncyclopedia of Modern Jewish Culture, on page 124, states: "The fifty-year period in the USA between 1914, the start of the First World War and the year ofIrving Berlin's first full score,Watch Your Step, and 1964, the premiere of Bock and Harnick'sFiddler on the Roof, is informed by a rich musical legacy from Yiddish folk tunes (for example Mark Warshavsky's "Di milners trem," The miller's tears: and Dimitri Tiomkin's "Do Not Forsake Me." High Noon) ... "[20]
Tiomkin won two more Oscars in subsequent years: forThe High and the Mighty (1954), directed byWilliam A. Wellman, and featuringJohn Wayne; andThe Old Man and the Sea (1958), adapted from anErnest Hemingway novel.[21] During the 1955 ceremonies, Tiomkin thanked all of the earlier composers who had influenced him, includingBeethoven,Tchaikovsky,Rimsky-Korsakov, and other names from the European classical tradition.
The composer worked again for Zinnemann onThe Sundowners (1960).
Many of his scores were for Western films, which were extremely popular in this period, and for which he is best remembered. His first Western was theKing Vidor-directedDuel in the Sun (1946). In addition toHigh Noon, among his other Westerns wereGiant (1956),Friendly Persuasion (1956),Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), andLast Train from Gun Hill (1959).Rio Bravo (1959),The Alamo (1960),Circus World (1964) andThe War Wagon (1967) were made with the involvement ofJohn Wayne. Tiomkin received Oscar nominations for his scores in bothGiant andThe Alamo. He told TV hostGig Young that his aim in creating the score forGiant was to capture the "feelings of the great land and great state of Texas."[22]
Although influenced by European music traditions, Tiomkin was self-trained as a film composer. He scored many films of various genres, including historical dramas such asCyrano de Bergerac (1950),The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), andGreat Catherine (1968); war movies such asThe Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955),The Guns of Navarone (1961), andTown Without Pity (1961); and suspense thrillers such as36 Hours (1965).
Tiomkin also wrote scores for four ofAlfred Hitchcock's suspense dramas:Shadow of a Doubt (1943),Strangers on a Train (1951),I Confess (1953), andDial M for Murder (1954). Here he used a lush style relying on solo violins and muted trumpets. He composed the score for the science fiction thrillerThe Thing from Another World (1951), which is considered his "strangest and most experimental score."[23] He also worked withHoward Hawks onThe Big Sky (1952) andLand of the Pharaohs (1955), withJohn Huston onThe Unforgiven (1960), and withNicholas Ray on55 Days at Peking (1963).
In addition to the cinema, Tiomkin composed for television, including such memorable theme songs asRawhide (1959) andGunslinger. Although Tiomkin was hired to compose the theme forThe Wild Wild West (1965), the producers rejected his music and subsequently hiredRichard Markowitz as his replacement.
Tiomkin also made a few cameo appearances on television programs. These include being the mystery challenger onWhat's My Line? and an appearance onJack Benny'sCBS program in December 1961, in which he attempted to help Benny write a song.[24] He also appeared as a contestant on the October 20, 1955, episode of the TV quiz programYou Bet Your Life, hosted byGroucho Marx.[25]
He composed the music to the song "Wild Is The Wind". It was originally recorded byJohnny Mathis for the filmWild Is the Wind (1957).
He's a Russian-born gentleman who has written just about the most American-sounding tunes you and I have ever heard.
Although Tiomkin was a trained classical pianist, he adapted his music training in Russia to the rapidly expanding Hollywood film industry, and taught himself how to compose meaningful film scores for almost any story type. Film historian David Wallace notes that despite Tiomkin's indebtedness to Europe's classical composers, he would go on to express more than any other composer, "the American spirit—its frontier spirit, anyway—in film music."[13]
Tiomkin had no illusions about his talent and the nature of his film work when compared to the classical composers. "I am no Prokofiev, I am no Tchaikovsky. But what I write is good for what I write for. So please, boys, help me."[9] Upon receiving his Oscar in 1955 forThe High and the Mighty, he became the first composer to publicly list and thank the great European masters, including Beethoven, Strauss, and Brahms, among others.
Music historianChristopher Palmer says that Tiomkin's "genius lay in coming up with themes and finding vivid ways of creating sonic color appropriate to the story and visual image, not in his ability to combine the themes into a complex symphonic structure that could stand on its own."[9] In addition he speculates how a Russian-born pianist like Tiomkin, who was educated at a respected Russian music conservatory, could have become so successful in the American film industry:[26]
He came from a Big Country, too, and in America's vastness, particularly its vast all-embracingness of sky and plain, he must have seen a reflection of thesteppes of his native Ukraine. So the cowboy becomes a mirror image of theCossacks: both are primitives and innocents, etched on and dwarfed by a landscape of soul-stirring immensity and rugged masculine beauty. And as an exile himself, Tiomkin would have identified with the cowboys, pioneers and early settlers who people the world of the Western ... . [T]hose like Tiomkin who blazed a trail in Hollywood were actually winning the West all over again.[26]
Tiomkin alluded to this relationship in his autobiography:
Asteppe is a steppe is a steppe... . The problems of the cowboy and the Cossack are very similar. They share a love of nature and a love of animals. Their courage and their philosophical attitudes are similar, and the steppes of Russia are much like the prairies of America.[9]
Tiomkin's methods of composing a film score have been analyzed and described by music experts. Musicologist Dave Epstein, for one, has explained that after reading the script, Tiomkin would then outline the film's major themes and movements. After the film itself had been filmed, he would make a detailed study of the timing of scenes, using a stopwatch to arrange precise synchronization of the music with the scenes. He would complete the final score after assembling all the musicians and orchestra, rehearse a number of times, and then record the final soundtrack.[23]
Tiomkin paid careful attention to the voices of the actors when composing. According to Epstein, he "found that in addition to the timbre of the voice, the pitch of the speaking voice must be very carefully considered...." To accomplish this, Tiomkin would go to the set during filming and would listen to each of the actors. He would also talk with them individually, noting the pitch and color of their voices.
Tiomkin explains why he took the extra time with actors:
The music has the function of helping describe the characters. It helps paint the portraits.... [Giving an example] It was my job to soften her face, to make her look more Continental, more refined. We did it with the music which accompanied her every appearance on the screen, by developing a delicate, graceful theme.[23]
Dimitri Tiomkin died in London, England, in 1979 two weeks after fracturing his pelvis in a fall.[15] He was interred inForest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery inGlendale, California.
During the 1950s Tiomkin was the highest-paid film composer, composing close to a rate of a picture each month, achieving his greatest fame during the 1950s and 1960s. Between 1948 and 1958, his "golden decade," he composed 57 film scores. In 1952 he composed nine film scores, includingHigh Noon, for which he won two Academy Awards. In the same decade, he won two more Oscars and his film scores were nominated nine times.[23]
In his lifetime, Tiomkin became known both for a memorable 1954 awards acceptance and for his ability to learn language .[27] During his televised 1954Oscars acceptance speech for "The High and the Mighty", it was noted that Tiomkin thanked classical composersBach,Brahms,Beethoven, andDebussy rather than his modern-day colleagues.[27] A 1957New York Times article stated that Tiomkin had learned to speak Russian, German, Polish, Ukrainian, French, Italian, Yiddish, and English.[27]
He was honored in the Soviet Union and Russia. In 1967, he was a member of the jury of the5th Moscow International Film Festival.[28] In 2014, his theme songs toIt's a Wonderful Life andGiant were played during the closing ceremony for the2014 Winter Olympics inSochi, Russia.[29][30]
Beginning withLost Horizon in 1937, through his retirement from films in 1979, and until modern times, he is recognized as being the only Russian to have become a Hollywood film composer. Other Russian-born composers, such asIrving Berlin, wrote their scores for Broadway plays, many of which were later adapted to film.[31][32][33]
Tiomkin was the first film score composer to write both the title theme song and the score.[23] He expanded on that technique in many of his westerns, includingHigh Noon andGunfight at the O.K. Corral, in which the theme song was repeated as a common thread running through the entire film.[23] For the filmRed River his biographer Christopher Palmer describes how the music immediately sets the epic and heroic tone for the film:
The unison horn-call is indeed an invocation: the gates of history are flung wide and the main theme, high and wide as the huge vault of the sky, rides forth in full choral-orchestral splendour.[23]
Because of this stylistic contribution to westerns, along with other film genres, using title and ongoing theme songs, he had the greatest impact on Hollywood films in the following decades up until the present.[23] With many of his songs being used in the title of films, Tiomkin created what composerIrwin Bazelon called "title song mania." In subsequent decades, studios often attempted to create their own hit songs to both sell as a soundtrack and to enhance the movie experience, with a typical example being the film score forTitanic.[23]
He was known to use "source music" in his scores. Some experts claim these were often based on Russian folk songs. Much of his film music, especially for westerns, was used to create an atmosphere of "broad, sweeping landscapes," with a prominent use of chorus.[34]: example During a TV interview, he credited his love of the European classic composers along with his ability to adapt American folk music styles to creating grand American theme music.[35]
A number of Tiomkin's film scores were released on LP soundtrack albums, includingGiant andThe Alamo. Some of the recordings, which usually featured Tiomkin conducting his own music, have been reissued on CD. The theme song toHigh Noon has been recorded by many artists, with one German CD producer,Bear Family Records, producing a CD with 25 different artists performing that one song.[36]
In 1999, the US Postal Service added his image to their "Legends of American Music" stamp series. The series began with the issuance of one featuring singerElvis Presley in 1993. Tiomkin's image was added as part of their "Hollywood Composers" selection.[37]
In 1976,RCA Victor releasedLost Horizon: The Classic Film Scores of Dimitri Tiomkin (US catalog ARL1-1669, UK catalog GL 43445) withCharles Gerhardt and theNational Philharmonic Orchestra. Featuring highlights from various Tiomkin scores, the album was later reissued by RCA on CD with Dolby Surround Sound.
TheAmerican Film Institute ranked Tiomkin's score forHigh Noon as No. 10 ontheir list of the 100 greatest film scores. His scores for the following films were also nominated for the list:
Dimitri Tiomkin, the classically trained Russian musician...
Tiomkin was born in Russia...
Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman, and other European émigré composers also made their mark in Hollywood; however, Tiomkin is the only Russian composer to do so.
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