Ernst Sigmund Goldner (July 13, 1921 – March 17, 1999), known professionally asErnest Gold, was an Austrian-born Americancomposer. He is most noted for his work on the filmExodus produced in 1960.
Gold was born in 1921 inVienna, the son of Elisabeth (Stransky) and Gustav Goldner. Gold's father's mother (Jaiteles) had ancestry fromSzeged, Hungary[1][2] and mother's mother (Therese Sprung) fromTemesvár[3] and Budapest (Spitzer).[4][5] Gold came from a musical family. His father played the violin, and his mother sang.[6] His father also studied underRichard Heuberger.[7] Gold said he learned to read music before he learned to read words.[7] He studied violin and piano when he was six and began composing music at eight. By 13, he had written an entire opera.[4] As a child, he said he wanted to go toHollywood and be a composer.[8]: 24 Gold would go to movie theaters as a teenager, not only to watch the films but to listen to the musical score. Among prominent film composers of the time, he admiredMax Steiner.[7]
In 1938, Gold attended the VienneseAkademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst, but he and his family moved to the U.S. after theNaziAnschluss in Austria, because his family wasJewish.[4] InNew York City, Gold earned money by working as an accompanist and writing popular songs. He also studied with Otto Cesana andLéon Barzin at the National Orchestra Association.[7]
NBC Orchestra performed Gold's first symphony in 1939, only a year after he moved to the United States.[4] In 1941, he composed a symphony that was later played atCarnegie Hall in 1945.[7] Gold moved toHollywood in the same year to work withColumbia Pictures, his first significant role being the score for the melodramaGirl of the Limberlost (1945). After this, Gold wrote scores for other minor films.[4] For the next ten years, he worked onB movies, mainly orchestrating and arranging music for western movies and melodramas.[6]
In 1955,Stanley Kramer asked Gold to orchestrateNot as a Stranger for whichGeorge Antheil had composed the music. This production opened the door for Gold to work with other scores by Antheil and to orchestrate more of Kramer's films.[4] Gold worked on almost every film Kramer made, includingA Child Is Waiting andIt's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.[6] Gold produced his first original film score in 1958 forToo Much, Too Soon. His big break came in 1959, when he was asked to scoreOn the Beach after Antheil became ill and recommended Gold for the job.[7]
Gold is most widely recognized for composingthe score ofExodus (1960).[4] He was contracted byOtto Preminger and, atypically, was able to watch the movie being filmed.[6] Gold spent time inIsrael while writing the score.[8]: 26
In 1968, Gold wrote aBroadway musical[4] calledI'm Solomon.[9] He also wrote music for television.[6] In his later life, Gold was musical director of the Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra and founded theLos Angeles Senior Citizens Orchestra.[4] His concert works include apiano concerto, astring quartet, and apiano sonata.Moby sampled Gold's "Fight for Survival" fromExodus for his song "Porcelain".[10]
