Welcome. Our goal is to promote all facets of the Tiomkin catalog, including performances of his work, soundtrack recordings, and scholarly articles, as well as general research and study.
This page will focus on items of current interest, including concert performances, newly recorded soundtracks or archival recordings, and other timely information.
Thanks to Olivia Tiomkin Douglas for her generous support of this venture.
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August 2010
Devil’s Cabaret and Crazy House released on DVD
With the Warner Bros. Archive Collection release of “Classic Musical Shorts from the Dream Factory” on DVD it is now possible to see and hear the result of a fascinating collaboration between composer Dimitri Tiomkin and choreographer Albertina Rasch. The four-disc set includes two previously unavailable Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Colortone novelties, Devil’s Cabaret and Crazy House. When they were first released in the early 1930s, each film contained a single ballet sequence choreographed by Rasch with music by Tiomkin.
From 1925 to around 1930, Tiomkin’s career was considerably intertwined with Rasch’s. Beginning in New York in 1925, the composer accompanied a vaudeville ballet troupe headed by the Austrian-born ballerina turned choreographer whom Tiomkin married the following year. By 1927, Tiomkin was serving as music director and arranger for "Albertina Rasch and her American Ballet." That same year he began writing original music for his wife to choreograph. One of the first such works was “Creole Blues,” completed in November 1927. When the couple turned to Hollywood as an outlet for their work, MGM signed contracts with both.
The ballet in Devil’s Cabaret is historically significant since the accompanying music is among Tiomkin’s earliest symphonic works. This excerpt from the composer’s pre-existing ballet work would not survive in recorded form had it not been for it’s use in film. Following the convoluted history of the filmed ballet sequence to Devil’s Cabaret is not easy. (Perhaps equally challenging is how Warner Home Video acquired certain distribution rights to some MGM films. Think back to 1986 and Ted Turner.) The Creole ballet was shot and recorded some time prior to March 1930 for Naughty Marietta, a film based on the Victor Herbert operetta and to star Grace Moore. One source claims the footage was then placed in Marianne, starring Marion Davies in her first sound film, then cut after the film’s preview. Now dubbed the "Devil Dance," it was to be included in March of Time, until that film was shelved in August 1930. At least a year after it was filmed, the ballet finally found a home in Devil’s Cabaret.
Here the ballet works, even though it is clearly not an organic part of the film in which Satan wants to convince people on Earth that life is literally a cabaret in hell. Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Susan King points out, “in the middle of the shenanigans, is a ballet sequence in which the music is supplied by a young Dimitri Tiomkin.” The inserted ballet does bring the film's narrative to a halt. Giant smoke puffs with crossfades bookend the two minute and forty-five second ballet that features twenty-four Rasch dancers. Production documentation from MGM indicates that 192 feet of film was inserted into Devil’s Cabaret. The ballet footage is particularly exciting as it documents Rasch’s earliest film work. (A visual record of her pre-Hollywood choreography for ballet and the stage is virtually non-existent.)
The main titles for both Devil’s Cabaret and Crazy House credit Albertina Rasch and Dimitri Tiomkin. Unfortunately, the Rasch-Tiomkin “Mars” ballet that found its way into Crazy House in 1931 (having been filmed for March of Time) is not to be found in the print that was selected for this compilation.
The Warner Archive Collection features made-to-order DVDs. A state-of-the-art manufacturing on demand system creates the DVD, places it in a plastic case with custom artwork, and shrink-wraps it for shipment to the customer. Titles can also be purchased as digital downloads. Many titles long out of circulation are now becoming available.
Coming up: A feature article on Tiomkin’s ballet music that will sort out the origins of the music and subsequent use in early sound films.
Sources
July 2010
Champion soundtrack released by Screen Archives
Dimitri Tiomkin’s score for Champion has been issued for the first time on compact disc. This is the fifth in a series of Tiomkin scores produced by Ray Faiola of Chelsea Rialto Studios and Craig Spaulding, and released by Screen Archives Entertainment (click here to order) in association with Volta Music Corp.
Champion made a star out of newcomer Kirk Douglas, who signed up for the leading role of an unsympathetic boxer against the advice of his handlers. Prior to filming, Douglas had never boxed, although he was an accomplished wrestler in college. For Champion, Douglas trained with Mushy Callahan. Born Vincent Morris Scheer, Callahan found some fame in the 1920s and early 1930s as a welterweight boxer. After retiring from the ring, Callahan found occasional work in Hollywood for four decades: onscreen as a boxing referee and behind-the-scenes as a technical consultant and boxing coach and trainer.
The 1949 film, labeled a classic by the New York Times in 1994, is considered by some to be one of the best boxing movies ever made. John Hassan, writing in American Movie Classics Magazine in the late 1990s, explains how Champion set itself apart from other boxing films of its era by its authentic portrayal of the sport’s brutality and unscrupulousness. The film’s realism was helped along by screenwriter Carl Forman who adapted a short story of the same name by sportswriter Ring Lardner that was originally published in Metropolitan magazine in 1916. The creative team responsible for the film overcame the independent production’s low budget to receive six Academy Award nominations. Tiomkin’s music was so honored, along with actors Kirk Douglas and Arthur Kennedy, cinematographer Frank Planer, film editor Harry Gerstad, and Carl Foreman. Gerstad took home an Oscar, as he would three years later for High Noon, a film that recruited many of the same production personnel.
For Champion, pre-production rehearsal and preparation resulted in a reduced shooting schedule that saved an estimated $150,000 in production costs, according to producer Stanley Kramer. The film was shot in 24 days for $595,000. Since the independent film’s financial backing was uncertain, Douglas agreed to defer his salary until the picture made money. Tiomkin’s situation was similar. In his case, because the Stanley Kramer and Carl Foreman production company could not pay the composer much in advance, Tiomkin accepted a percentage of the film’s earnings. Speaking of Champion in his autobiography, the composer recalled that the rousing success of the prize-fight melodrama was unexpected and his “percentage” was good. Indeed, the film went on to gross $18 million.
One of Tiomkin’s themes from the film became the basis for the song, “Never Be It Said,” with lyrics by Aaron “Goldie” Goldmark. Goldmark, best known as a New York-based music publisher and occasional songwriter, provided a simple lyric for the love song. The love theme, heard instrumentally during the film’s romantic interludes, makes its first appearance on CD track 10; track 26 contains a piano solo arrangement and a particularly poignant version opens and closes track 30. The vocal version can only be heard briefly in the film and on the CD (track 11, from 1:17 to 1:40). The singer is Polly Bergen, who was on the verge of a lengthy and notable career as an actress. At the time of Champion, she was a budding singer of honky tonk and novelty tunes known for her appearances with Los Angeles-area dance orchestras. “Never Be It Said,” in print for the first time in 60 years, can be found in the Dimitri Tiomkin Anthology. An unpublished song, “March of the Champions,” featured lyrics by Joseph McCarthy Jr. set to the march heard in the main title. (“Junior” or Joseph Allan McCarthy, son of “Irene” songwriter Joseph McCarthy, had recently penned the words to “Rambling Rose.”) For Tiomkin, both collaborations were one-time affairs, and the lyrics for the two songs are not heard in the film save for the few words sung by Bergen previously mentioned. As an instrumental theme, “The Champion” found some success on a Coral Records LP, “Movie Themes from Hollywood” with Dimitri Tiomkin and his orchestra released in 1955.
The limited-edition soundtrack contains thirty-seven tracks. With more than forty-two minutes of music this represents all but about four minutes of the film’s underscore. In the liner notes, the soundtrack producers explain that a handful of unessential cues were not found among the acetates in the Dimitri Tiomkin Collection at the Cinematic Arts Library at USC used as source material for the CD. The lovely tune Tiomkin wrote as source music and heard coming from boxer Johnny Dunne’s car radio is on the CD as track 5, “Riding in Style.” Two jukebox tunes, heard on tracks 8 and 9, interpolate source and underscore, a favorite dramatic device exploited by the composer. For track 12, “Shotgun Wedding,” Tiomkin begins with an adaptation of Wagner’s wedding march that soon dissolves into dramatic underscore. (See “Wedding Music by Dimitri Tiomkin” for bridal music in other films.) The score was orchestrated by Joseph Dubin, Manuel Emanuel, Paul Marquardt, and Herb Taylor. Critics described Tiomkin’s music as first class and noteworthy.
Film music enthusiast Faiola wrote production and music notes for the 28-page color booklet. The CD can be ordered directly at Screen Archives Entertainment where seven sample tracks can be heard. In addition to the five CDs that make up the Volta series, Screen Archives offers more than a dozen other Tiomkin soundtracks and compilations.
Sources
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France to perform Tiomkin
The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France will perform two film works by Dimitri Tiomkin in a concert to be broadcast live on France Musique. The film music suites from High Noon and Strangers on the Train were compiled by orchestrator Christopher Palmer. Suites from Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia by Maurice Jarre are also on the program. The concert takes place on July 2nd at 7:30 p.m. in the Olivier Messiaen Hall at the Maison de Radio France in Paris. Christophe Mangou will conduct and Victor Villena will be the featured bandonéon (a small Latin American accordion) player.
June 2010
Remember the (complete) Alamo
For years soundtrack collectors have waited for a complete recording of Tiomkin’s score for The Alamo. The wait is finally over. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the epic Western, a complete recording of music from the film will be available on May 11 from Screen Archives Entertainment and Tadlow Music. The Tadlow Music production for Prometheus Records ranks as one of the most ambitious film music recording efforts ever.
Billed as the “World Premiere Recording of the Complete Film Score,” the project was spearheaded by executive producer Luc Van de Ven and album producer James Fitzpatrick. This herculean effort took place during a weeklong session in Prague in late November 2009. Nic Raine conducted, and Olivia Tiomkin Douglas attended the orchestra sessions. The choir was recorded in London in early December. Orchestrator Patrick Russ prepared the scores from material in the Dimitri Tiomkin Collection at USC’s Cinematic Arts Library. The music, recorded by Jan Holzner (orchestra) and Gary Thomas (choir), was mixed and mastered by Gareth Williams. A full-color booklet with an introduction by James Fitzpatrick and liner notes by Frank K. DeWald accompanies the boxed set. Fitzpatrick calls the recording the greatest challenge of his career, explains how the recording came about, and gives interesting behind-the-scenes details concerning Tiomkin’s score. DeWald, the American composer, choir director, and frequent contributor to Pro Musica Sana, provides cue-by-cue summaries in the extensive liner notes.
The three-CD set contains nearly three hours of music from the 1960 film—more than half previously unreleased. Topping it all off are the bonus tracks, which include original and alternate versions for several cues. The orchestral backing track for the Entr’acte is not to be missed. As DeWald points out, “Tiomkin’s vivid orchestral textures and colors stand out in this orchestra-only track that underscored the original choral version.”
Until now, collectors and fans of The Alamo have had access to only a limited number of recordings. On the original Columbia soundtrack LP, dated 1960, the music tracks include dialogue from the film and comprise a little less than 45 minutes of music. Two later releases on compact disc, from Varese Sarabande in 1989 and Sony Classical in 1992, each contain about 45 minutes as well. A 1995 Legacy CD offers about an hour’s worth.
James Fitzpatrick previously produced a four-CD set, The Alamo: Dimitri Tiomkin, The Essential Film Music Collection, with more than 20 minutes of music from the film, including the popular ballad “Green Leaves of Summer.” In fact, Nick Perito’s recording of that song, composed by Tiomkin with lyrics by Paul Francis Webster, can be heard over the opening of the 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Brad Pitt. Perito’s version is on the Basterds soundtrack,available on iTunes. In addition to “Green Leaves,” Inglourious Basterds also repurposes film music by Ennio Morricone, Charles Bernstein, and others.
The Alamo was orchestrated by G. A. Emanuel (Manuel Emanuel), Michael Heindorf, Maurice de Packh, George Parrish, and Herb Taylor. It was one of the last orchestrations by de Packh, who died in May 1960, five months prior to the film’s release. In the late 1950s, de Packh served as an important member of Tiomkin’s scoring team, having worked on Last Train from Gun Hill, Rio Bravo, Search for Paradise, and Wild Is the Wind.
The producers traveled to Prague from Belgium and England to record the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, using parts created by Czech copyist Jiri Simunek. They then went to London to record the Crouch End Festival Chorus. The music preparation had commenced months earlier in Los Angeles, when Patrick Russ received an enormous stack of photocopies of the scores in the Tiomkin collection from Ned Comstock at USC’s Cinematic Arts Library. Russ then led the creative effort in assembling the music and oversaw the prep team. Steve Biagini typeset the scores, which were almost entirely proofread by Russ and Paul Henning, with an assist from Warren Sherk. At the end of the project, Frank DeWald, based in Michigan, wrote the liner notes.
This long-anticipated recording should please Tiomkin aficionados and film music collectors alike—as well as the master himself. “This recording of The Alamo,” says Olivia Tiomkin Douglas in the introduction, “is everything Dimitri Tiomkin would have wished for in a faithful reconstruction of his timeless score.”
May 2010
National Train Day
Trains have figured prominently in several films scored by Dimitri Tiomkin, from High Noon to Last Train from Gun Hill. In recognition of the third annual National Train Day on May 8, we are highlighting two films from this particular portion of his oeuvre, Canadian Pacific and Night Passage, in which trains play a central role in the story line.
Canadian Pacific
During the 1940s few epic railroad films were produced partly due to World War II when trains were needed to move supplies and material for the war effort. In 1948, exhibitor-turned-producer Nat Holt stepped in to fill the void with his first independent film, Canadian Pacific. Holt chose to film on location in the Canadian Rockies, in an area bordering British Columbia and Alberta at sites in Banff and Yoho National Parks, such as Lake Louise, Kicking Horse Pass, and the Yoho Valley, and the neighboring Indian reserve at Morley. A vintage 1880s wood-burning locomotive was procured from the Canadian government for the production. Gladwin Hill, a Hollywood correspondent writing in the New York Times, noted that for pickup shots back in Hollywood, a train from Nevada was used.
The Canadian Pacific railroad of the film’s title was built between 1881 and 1885 to link Canada’s coasts. Set against this historical background, filming began in August 1948 with a cast that included Randolph Scott, Jane Wyatt, and J. Carrol Naish. Writer Hill called the film the first railroad epic since Union Pacific, the 1939 film that producer Holt admitted was an influence. The film opened to generally favorable reviews in April 1949, most notably for its action sequences. It was jammed with action—“fist, gun, horse, girl and Indian”—according to one reviewer.
Tiomkin chooses to set up the love story in the main title music before introducing some march of progress music. Since the main titles contain a static shot of the mountains, the composer waits until nearly ten minutes in for a chance to musically accompany moving pictures depicting the sweeping majesty of the Canadian mountains. Even though there is music in 38 of the film’s 94 minutes, the film feels like it is sparsely scored. Perhaps this is because half of the nearly 30 music cues last less than a minute. The combined length of four powerful cues, “Canadian Rockies,” “Preparing for Indian Attack,” “Indian Night Attack,” and “Train Rescue, account for more than 13 minutes of the dramatic underscore.
In an interesting historical note, the film opened at the Palace Theatre in New York on the very day that vaudeville was revived at that theater. The Palace held special meaning for Tiomkin’s wife, choreographer Albertina Rasch. The Albertina Rasch Girls were among the last to perform at the Palace in 1932 when the twice-daily shows came to an end. And, of course, vaudeville was instrumental in bringing the couple together.
Another Tiomkin train-centric adventure came in 1957, with the Colorado Rockies and Animas Canyon serving as the film’s backdrop. Hollywood Reporter critic James Powers noted the visually stunning background and cited Tiomkin’s “good, rather folk-music kind of score” that includes two “nice” songs. The songs, both with lyrics by Ned Washington, are “Follow the River” and “You Can't Get Far Without a Railroad.” The effect of the success of High Noon, with its main title theme-dominated score, can be felt throughout Night Passage. After we hear “Follow the River” in the main title and a visual vocal of the song, “You Can't Get Far Without a Railroad,” the melodies from the two songs go on to permeate the entire score.
The film, released by Universal, pairs the stars from two of that studio’s highest grossing films, The Glenn Miller Story with James Stewart and To Hell and Back with war-hero Audie Murphy. In Night Passage, the actors play brothers representing good and evil, with Stewart portraying an accordion-toting musician. Stewart learned to play the piano from his mother, who also taught him to play melodies on an accordion that Stewart’s family had acquired in return for a debt. Stewart took to the accordion and gained experience playing at parties, public venues, and at school plays in college.
In the film, Stewart performs the songs onscreen, accompany his jovial vocals with an accordion on his lap. Stewart admitted to New York Times writer Douglas Robinson on the set in Durango, “that isn’t me really playing in the scene.” Although Stewart biographer Donald Dewey states, “most of his [Stewart’s] accordion playing in front of the cameras was subsequently recorded by a professional musician” this may not have been the case. While a professional accordionist did record the vocal-backing track, according to Robinson the music was pre-recorded in Hollywood and played on the set during filming.
The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad in Durango, Colorado, served as the center of the action. The Denver & Rio Grande Western line coal-burning steam locomotive served double duty, appearing onscreen and used behind-the-scenes to transport the cast, crew, and animals. The Durango train appears in a number of Hollywood movies and is in year-round operation to this day as a scenic tourist railroad.
Sources
April 2010
UPDATE: The High and the Mighty goes to court
From time to time, www.dimitritiomkin.com receives Web mail from people who have a connection with Tiomkin or his music. Recently we were contacted by Ronald Simone, who, after reading our July 2007 article on The High and the Mighty, wrote to inform us that he was the pianist hired to play Tiomkin’s music in court during that case. Today Simone lives and works in Las Vegas, specializing in jazz band and Rat Pack music and performing with modern-day incarnations of the Harry James and Jimmy Dorsey orchestras.
Back in the summer of 1958, however, Simone was a member of a band performing at Green Mansions, a resort in the Adirondack Mountains in New York. The band’s arranger, Michael “Mickey” Leonard, was a cousin of Lou Dreyer, the New York attorney who at the time was leading Tiomkin’s defense in The High and the Mighty case. Dreyer was in need of a young, educated pianist to play the theme in court. Simone, a recent graduate of Yale, and Leonard were summoned to the Plaza Hotel in New York City to meet Tiomkin. At the hotel, Tiomkin placed his handwritten, four-stave score on the piano and asked Simone to play it while Tiomkin conducted. Simone obliged. Satisfied, Tiomkin replaced the score with a lead sheet for “Enchanted Cello,” the work that the composer had been accused of plagiarizing.
During the trial, on December 2, 1958, Simone was called on to play each of the two songs. Afterward, Tiomkin’s attorneys were livid; to their ears, Simone had made “Enchanted Cello” sound “too good.” Later, Sigmund Spaeth told Simone that he should have played only the one-line written melody. (Simone had used the lead sheet’s chord symbols to extemporize a left-hand accompaniment that did not sit well with Tiomkin’s team.) Next time, Simone was instructed, he was to play the piece in a plain, dull manner. In court on December 16, Simone did as he was told. This time, it was the plaintiff’s attorneys who objected, saying that Simone played the music “too fast.” The pianist explained that the piece was in cut time, prompting the judge to ask, “What’s cut time?” (In cut time, two half notes receive the beat in each bar, effectively making the tempo twice as fast.) This brought chuckles from the music professionals in the courtroom and resulted in the need to call more expert witnesses to testify, which only prolonged the court proceedings.
For the 23-year-old pianist, the experience—which Simone says is his most unusual music gig ever—provided the memory of a lifetime. His personal “verdict”? Simone says he saw nothing in common between the two songs.
UPDATE: Tiomkin tracks in film music marathon on WWFM
Ross Amico reports that the WWFM program included music from seven films scored by Tiomkin, including The Alamo, Friendly Persuasion, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, High Noon, Land of the Pharaohs, Lost Horizon, and The Thing. For the lead-in to the webcast, Amico selected the track of Tiomkin conducting High Noon from the Sony Classical compact disc, "Milestones of the Millenium," released in 1999.
March 2010
Follow the River to be performed at the Jimmy Stewart Museum
Dimitri Tiomkin's song "Follow the River" will be performed at the Jimmy Stewart Museum in Indiana, Pennsylvania on Saturday evening, April 3, at the gala opening of a new exhibition. In the 1957 Western film Night Passage, Stewart sings the song onscreen. Students of local music educator Jason Rummel will perform "Follow the River" accompanied by accordion, just as it was done in the film. The fundraising event and program celebrates the opening of an exhibition that focuses on the Stewart family home in Beverly Hills, California. Stewart's daughter, Kelly Stewart Harcourt, and members of the museum's board of directors will be in attendance. Thanks to Jason Rummel for bringing this to our attention. For reservations and to order tickets, which are $35 per person, call the museum at 724-349-6122. For more information, contact the museum at www.jimmy.org/event. "Follow the River" is one of the many song selections recently published in the "Dimitri Tiomkin Anthology."
February 2010
The Long Night soundtrack released by Screen Archives
Dimitri Tiomkin’s score for The Long Night has been issued for the first time on compact disc. This is the fourth in a series of Tiomkin scores produced by Ray Faiola of Chelsea Rialto Studios and Craig Spaulding, and released by Screen Archives Entertainment in association with Volta Music Corp. As with the previous releases for D.O.A., High Noon, and Angel on My Shoulder, the source material for Long Night was obtained from acetate disc recordings in the Dimitri Tiomkin Collection at the Cinematic Arts Library, University of Southern California.
The score has been given a second life thanks to the efforts of Olivia Tiomkin Douglas, Patrick Russ, Steve Hanson, and Ned Comstock, for the fragile acetates are more than sixty years old and nearing the end of their life expectancy. RKO had recorded these direct cut records for reference purposes. Like most acetates, they suffer from inherent surface noise, and the highs are flat and the lows muddy. For this release, audio specialist Chris Lembesis worked his magic on the discs, allowing the digital transfer to capture as much of the sonic quality as possible. Each time a disc is played, the stylus wears down the grooves and further degrades the sound quality. Doing a digital transfer helps preserve the discs by reducing the need to play them in the future.
The Long Night is based on La Jour Se Lève (Daybreak), a 1939 French film in the style of poetic realism, a movement that emerged in the 1930s in France and served as a precursor to film noir. Anatole Litvak directed this postwar crime drama released by RKO Radio Pictures in 1947. The cast includes Henry Fonda in his first postwar film, Barbara Bel Geddes in her screen debut, Vincent Price as a sinister magician, and Ann Dvorak as his assistant. Newsweek magazine described Fonda and Bel Geddes as portraying “a couple of lost souls in a small town, who fall in love and plan nice things.” Film Music Notes observed that Tiomkin’s music lent “dramatic support to the darkly emotional social drama of factory town life.” The composite town seen in the film was the work of Russian-born production designer Eugene Lourié, who covered the RKO Forty Acres backlot with structures straight from Anywhere, U.S.A. In addition, the town square, steel mill, nightclub, movie theater, row houses, and boardinghouse were constructed in miniature on stage 15 at the RKO-Pathé Culver City Studios.
Tiomkin, who fine-tuned the art of adapting and incorporating classical music in dramatic underscore during his stint as a music director and composer for World War II orientation and documentary films, uses musical paraphrases from Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony to form the backbone of the score. Litvak, born in Russia, also made documentaries for the U.S. War Department, and he worked with Tiomkin on The Battle of Russia. For The Long Night, Tiomkin, in adapting Beethoven’s music, did not simply have the orchestra play the master’s work. Instead, he went to great lengths to add drama to the film by selecting, placing, arranging, and balancing Beethoven’s music within the context of the film. At the same time, he supplemented the music with additive and interpolated original scoring.
A compelling example can be found in the cue “What Happened, Joe?” (track 4). This cue accompanies an early scene in which Henry Fonda is seen pacing in his apartment. On a casual listen, one might determine that the entire cue makes use of the Beethoven theme. A closer analysis reveals that the three occurrences of the theme account for only about half of the two-minute cue. Opening the cue with a twelve-second introduction that sets the scene and leads into the Allegretto from Beethoven’s Seventh, Tiomkin purposefully times the theme’s entry for dramatic impact and selects an appropriate tempo. For the theme’s first statement—lasting some thirty seconds—the timpani is given more prominence (marking time musically and psychologically), with a tam-tam added for dramatic flair. Tiomkin then holds the last note of the theme as a pedal tone in the orchestra and overlays chimes and timpani as time passes. The theme’s second statement parallels the first. This time the last note is accompanied by a single chime as the music swiftly but subtly shifts from Beethoven to Tiomkin in the space of that one shared note. A rising and falling string line provided by Tiomkin is interrupted by a distant, soulful military-like trumpet and horn call (coinciding with a shot of Joe’s army uniform). Following a short transition, a brief statement of the theme elides with a three-note descending motif that serves as a coda, taking us out of the scene.
The score incorporates several examples of Tiomkin’s jazz-influenced writing for solo piano. There is a sequence of two cues, beginning with “First Blues Piano” (as written on the cue sheet). Contrary to the title, Tiomkin supplies a minute-long boogie woogie for this scene, which takes place in the apartment of the magician’s assistant (track 19). The following track, a bit more bluesy, has a recurring section with stride bass in which the left-hand part jumps back and forth between low bass notes and the midrange chords. Tiomkin did not write many solo piano pieces for film, so these two isolated tracks are worth the price of the whole CD. For such a serious film there are some whimsical numbers, such as a source cue (track 22) that recasts the magician’s theme as a rhumba for dance band. The minute-long tango that follows, “Levitation,” leaves one wanting more. In that cue, the saxophone melody flirts with a violin obbligato, all accompanied by a rhythm section. Due to the diversity of musical styles on this film, Tiomkin worked with several arrangers, including Joseph Dubin, D. Kahn, P. A. Marquardt, Charles Maxwell, and Herb Taylor.
The CD features a number of source cues and dance-band numbers, most of which are for the nightclub scenes at Al King’s Jungle Club. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Manny Harmon and his orchestra were hired during production of the film. (A decade later, Harmon’s orchestra and the Roger Wagner Chorale would perform a Tiomkin composition, “America's Prayer for Peace,” at the first annual Christmas Eve candlelight luncheon, held at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills.) Although it is unclear whether Harmon and the orchestra actually appeared onscreen, the dance-band numbers may have been performed by the group.
One month before the film’s August 1947 release, Tiomkin and lyricist Ned Washington collaborated on a title song based on the Beethoven theme heard throughout the film. Washington’s lyric plays up the love angle:
If I could change things,
Here’s how I would arrange things.
There’d be no Long Nights,
I’d be always with you.
The Long Night was released to mixed reviews. Life magazine selected it as a Movie of the Week but felt the film’s powerful plot had been weakened by U.S. censorship. In the original French version, Fonda’s character takes his own life, whereas in the American version he surrenders to authorities after Bel Geddes’s character helps save him. Further, as a Los Angeles Times reviewer noted, the original film’s strong sexual themes had been reduced to vague innuendo for American audiences. Critics were impressed with the music, however. The Los Angeles Times called Tiomkin’s score “powerful,” and Variety exclaimed, “Dimitri Tiomkin’s magnificent scoring and conducting job deserves special mention, as it adds greatly to [the] film’s impact.
The hourlong limited-edition CD has forty tracks, including at least two cues not heard in the film. Film music enthusiast Faiola wrote the helpful film and music notes for the 24-page color booklet. The CD can be ordered directly at Screen Archives Entertainment where five sample tracks can be heard. In addition to the four CDs that make up the Volta series, Screen Archives offers more than a dozen other Tiomkin soundtracks and compilations, and is now selling the Dimitri Tiomkin Anthology songbook, providing one-stop shopping for Tiomkin aficionados.
Sources
Tiomkin tracks to run in film music marathon on WWFM
To set the stage, musically speaking, for the Academy Awards television broadcast on Sunday, March 7, WWFM will air a marathon of movie music beginning Friday, March 5. “Lights, Camera…Music!” will feature a daylong tribute to the music of Bernard Herrmann, Dimitri Tiomkin, John Williams, and others. The festival will include tracks from Tiomkin’s scores for Friendly Persuasion, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and Land of the Pharaohs. The fundraising program will run from 7 a.m. to midnight.
“Over 80 years of sound motion pictures have yielded some of the most memorable music of the past century,” says WWFM weekend morning host Ross Amico. “The popularity of film has had the effect of introducing the general public not only to the power and emotional richness of the symphony orchestra, but also to, at times, some astoundingly complex and sophisticated compositional techniques.” Amico became a lifelong film music fan and soundtrack collector after being dazzled by John Williams’s score for Star Wars at age ten. For WWFM, Amico explores the unusual, the forgotten, and the extraordinary in the world of classical music in his weekly Sunday night program, “The Lost Chord.” This past weekend Amico paid tribute to Tiomkin's biographer, Christopher Palmer, in his program, “A Palm for Palmer - Orchestrator and Arranger Christopher Palmer.” {Listen here.}
Music lovers in Central Jersey are already familiar with radio station WWFM The Classical Network. The station, which began broadcasting in 1982, serves New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, and portions of Delaware and Maryland and reaches listeners around the world through www.wwfm.org. WWFM, the only full-time classical music station in New Jersey, operates out of Mercer County Community College. The celebration will continue through Sunday as a “Film Music Theme Stream”—an online-only program available via the station’s Internet streaming.
For more information, contact David Osenberg at info@wwfm.org.
Thanks to Ross Amico for bringing this to our attention.
January 2010
Alexander Glazunov: Mentor, Teacher, Petrogradezt
by Warren M. Sherk
The single greatest musical influence on Dimitri Tiomkin is arguably the Russian composer Aleksandr Konstantinovich Glazunov. When Tiomkin’s mother sought to enroll her son at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, young Dimitri had to pass muster with Glazunov, the conservatory’s director, after taking the preliminary exams. The tall, ponderous, and peculiarly proportioned Glazunov listened as Tiomkin played a short sentimental piece he had composed in the style of Schumann.
Looking back years later, after achieving success as a film composer in Hollywood, Tiomkin realized that encounter with Glazunov had been his defining moment. The director had recognized Tiomkin’s potential, and soon Dimitri was studying harmony and counterpoint with Glazunov, one of Russia’s foremost composers at the height of his renown. Tiomkin recalls, “His music was performed wherever there were concert halls. Orchestras played his superb C-minor Symphony, ballet troupes danced his beautiful suite Raimonda, and for violinists his concerto was standard repertoire.”
Glazunov’s classes in composition, orchestration, and counterpoint were popular among students eager to learn from the master, whose teaching method involved not technical drilling and academic routine but “spiritual inspiration,” as Tiomkin tells it. That didn’t mean the basics were neglected, however; Tiomkin remembers being schooled in strict conformity to part writing, the proper use of suspensions and modulations, and the avoidance of parallel fifths—not to mention modernism. Woe to the student who made a mistake while performing, for Glazunov had a keen ear and knew the repertoire from memory. “After someone had played a sonata or a prelude and fugue, he might remark shyly with his voice trailing off, ‘In the third section, page seven, bar twenty-six, you neglected to play the F sharp,’ and cock his head to one side and chuckle.”
Tiomkin describes Glazunov as a Petrogradezt (in Russian, a typical citizen of the city of St. Petersburg, or Petrograd); a towering musical genius; a composer of captivating symphonies, ballets, songs, instrumental works, and stage music; and an incomparable pedagogue. Tiomkin could be talking about his own music when he describes Glazunov’s work as simple, romantic, melodic, and captivating in form and imagery, filled with emotion and soul, the music seemingly interwoven deeply with his personality.
On a more personal note, Tiomkin recalls the director’s magnanimous personality and devotion to ideals. Glazunov was born into a family of wealth and gave freely to those in need. Tiomkin taught piano to Glazunov’s niece and others upon Glazunov’s recommendation. Through his influence with the Ministry of the Interior, the director made it possible for Jewish students to be granted special permission to reside in St. Petersburg prior to admittance into the conservatory. Upon graduation, the title of “free musician” granted a Jewish musician the right to reside anywhere in Russia.
It was Glazunov who suggested that Tiomkin study composition. Tiomkin’s autobiography, Please Don’t Hate Me, is filled with stories involving the director. At the conservatory, Glazunov cut an imposing, robust figure. He dressed like a character from a Tolstoy novel: a flowing double-breasted knee-length coat, striped dress pants, and a large black tie. (“Glazunov makes me wonder—what did he look like naked? It was impossible to guess,” was the original opening line of the autobiography, then titled Hollywood Harmonies. A similar sentiment appears on page 11 of the published work.) More bohemian than aristocrat, Glazunov was a bon vivant who loved good food and drink and was partial to smoking long black cigars. Lebemann is the German word Tiomkin uses to describe his mentor.
In 1929 Glazunov arrived in the United States from Russia for a conducting tour that would take him to Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia. At the time Glazunov was the last surviving master of the Russian Nationalist School, founded by Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov, which rebelled against the romanticism of Tchaikovsky. In mid-November Tiomkin and Albertina Rasch were guests at a reception for Glazunov at Wm. Knabe & Co.’s Ampico Hall in New York, celebrating the piano maker’s ninety-second anniversary. When Tiomkin spotted his former teacher, he was stricken by how thin and haggard the larger-than-life director had become. (The writer H. G. Wells had a similar reaction upon seeing Glazunov exactly nine years earlier.) Life had been hard for the master composer in post-revolutionary Russia, and enrollment at the once thriving conservatory had shrunk to 650 students from its heyday of 2,500. By this time Tiomkin had established a reputation in New York as a concert pianist, embracing the modernists that Glazunov despised: composers like Debussy, Ravel, and particularly Scriabin. On the other hand, Tiomkin’s recitals almost always included a composition by J. S. Bach, and Glazunov’s tutelage in fugal writing stayed with him throughout his career as a film composer. On Glazunov’s love of fugues, Tiomkin wrote in 1959, “To this day in Hollywood I am happy if I can sneak a fugue into a score for a motion picture.”*
*For a particularly germane example, listen to music from The Well on disc 3, track 2 of The Alamo: Dimitri Tiomkin: The Essential Film Music Collection, where the triumphant music includes a fugue that begins 2:30 in.
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