Miklos Rozsa

 

 

[1907 - 1995] Hungarian Composer of great importance in the development of film music in its course of maturation. His musical studies began at childhood. At five, young Rozsa began studing violin. His admiration for the work of Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodály also led him to research the popular music of his country.

After graduation, the young Rozsa began a successful career with compositions very well received by classical market. Composer Richard Strauss praised his Hungarian Serenade op. 10. Suggested by Arthur Honneger, Rozsa tried the film composition as a new and interesting alternative of work. The contact with producer Alexander Korda in the movie Knight Without Armour led Rozsa to this new market. The partnership with Korda and the beginning of World War II made him move to America. In Hollywood he continued his film career composing for Jungle Book (1942) and Thief of Bagdah (1940). Followed a brilliant career with his dramatic and grandiose style created absolute classic of movie soundtracks as Spellbound (1945), awarded an Oscar, in which he introduced the use of electronic waves of the theremim. His dramatic writing married perfectly with the tragic feel of film noir in movies like Double Idemnity (1944), The Killers (1946), Naked City (1948) and Lost Weekend (1946). With the music for Quo Vadis (1951) proved to be the ideal composer to the colorful epic of the 50s. A new series of remarkable tracks followed: Ivanhoe (1952), Julius Cesar (1953), The King Of Kings (1961), El Cid (1961) and Ben Hur (1959). With the orientation to pop music occurred in the 60, Rozsa had to withdraw for a few years to have his talent recognized again (as also happened with Bernard Herrmann) by a new generation of directors. So he came back in the mid-70s, composing for adventure films as The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974), Time After Time (1979), the neo-noir The Last Embrace (1979) and Eye of the Needle (1981). His last work was the path of comedy Dead Man Do not Wear Plaid (1982) by Carl Reiner and Steve Martin, in which he recycled satirically his creations for film noir.