By Michael Laster
Jewish composers have made a profound impact on film music, contributing to some of the most iconic and memorable scores in cinematic history, thus helping to shape the sound of Hollywood that we’re familiar with.
Before the advent of so-called “talkies,” most silent films were typically accompanied by live music either improvised by a skilled keyboard player or drawn from a selection of works by various composers. One of the first films to feature an original score was D.W. Griffith’s groundbreaking yet controversially racist film Birth of a Nation, composed by Joseph Carl Breil. However, original film scores weren’t considered a required component of sound films until the arrival of our programs’ first three composers – Max Steiner, Dimitri Tiomkin, and Alfred Newman, often referred to as the “three godfathers of film music.”
Max Steiner, a Viennese composer born in 1888 to a wealthy theatrical family, was a musical prodigy whose godfather was Richard Strauss and whose teacher was Gustav Mahler. In 1914, he relocated to America, where he began conducting and orchestrating Broadway musicals, including Gershwin’s Lady Be Good. Steiner approached studio founder William Fox with the idea of composing an original score for The Bondman in 1916. As sound films gained popularity, Steiner transitioned to work at RKO Studios and later, starting in 1937, at Warner Brothers. Throughout his career at both studios, he wrote the music for over 300 films and received 24 Oscar nominations, winning three. Notable scores from his time at RKO include King Kong, Little Women, and The Informer, while at Warner Brothers, he provided the music for Jezebel, Now Voyager, Casablanca, and The Searchers. Perhaps his most memorable work is the score he composed for Gone With the Wind in 1939 with lush, romantic orchestral sound that defines classic Hollywood epics.
Born in 1894 in Russia, Dimitri Tiomkin studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with Felix Blumenfeld and Alexander Glazunov. While in Saint Petersburg, he supported himself by playing piano for Russian silent films. He continued his studies in Berlin under the composer and pianist Ferruccio Busoni. In 1925, he relocated to New York, where he worked as a vaudeville and ballet accompanist while composing for minor films such as Alice in Wonderland from 1933. Although Tiomkin initially aspired to be a concert pianist, an injury in 1937 shifted his focus to full-time composing. His collaboration with director Frank Capra marked a turning point in his career, beginning with Lost Horizon and continuing with classics like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It’s a Wonderful Life. Tiomkin’s versatility also led him to score major Westerns, such as John Wayne’s The Alamo and Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder. His most renowned work is the theme for High Noon from 1952, a song co-written with “When You Wish Upon A Star” lyricist Ned Washington and performed by Tex Ritter, which opens the film with a poignant ballad instead of the expected dramatic fanfare.
Alfred Newman, the first American composer on our list, was born in 1900. By age eight, he was recognized as a piano prodigy and launched a successful career as an accompanist and performer in the vaudeville circuit and later as a conductor and orchestrator for Broadway musicals. Newman’s first film score was for the 1931 movie Street Scene. In addition to composing over 200 compositions for film, Newman became a sought-after conductor and orchestrator in Hollywood. He is also the patriarch of the Newman dynasty, a notable lineage of film composers and music directors that includes his younger brothers, Lionel and Emil; his daughter, Maria; his sons, David and Thomas; and his nephew, Randy. Alfred Newman’s most memorable contribution to our cultural landscape is the iconic fanfare of the 20th Century Fox logo. Some of his films include Wuthering Heights, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, How The West Was Won, The Mask of Zoro, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and The Diary of Anne Frank.
Erich Korngold was born in 1897 in what is now the Czech Republic. Recognized as a prodigy by the age of five, he could reproduce any melody he heard on the piano, along with accurate accompaniment. By seven, he was composing original music, and then launched a successful career as an opera and ballet composer, conductor, and arranger, and earned acclaim from major European composers of the time, including Mahler, Richard Strauss, and Puccini. In 1935, Korngold moved to Hollywood, fleeing the political upheaval in Europe and seeking new opportunities in the film industry, particularly through his collaboration with director Max Reinhardt on the production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Throughout his career, he won Academy Awards for Best Original Score for Anthony Adverse in 1936 and The Adventures of Robin Hood in 1939, along with nominations for Captain Blood in 1935 and The Sea Hawk in 1940. He scored a total of 16 films—the fewest among the film composers listed in this program—largely to focus on his classical compositions.
Franz Waxman was born in 1906 in what is now Poland. After enrolling in the Dresden Music Academy at 16, he worked as a pianist for Weintraub’s Syncopators, a successful German Jazz band. He started working as an orchestrator, and then composer for German cinema starting in 1930. After getting violently assaulted by Nazi sympathizers in Berlin, he first fled with his wife to Paris and then settled in Hollywood in 1934. Waxman’s impressive body of around 150 original scores includes iconic films such as Bride of Frankenstein, Sunset Boulevard, Taras Bulba, A Place In The Sun, The Silver Chalice, Rebecca, and Rear Window, the latter two being directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Despite his success in film scoring, Waxman continued to compose his own concert works.
Miklós Rózsa (originally Rosenberg), was born in 1907 in Budapest. Coming from a cultured family, he began learning the violin and piano as a child and started composing at age eight. His friend, composer Arthur Honegger, suggested that Rózsa supplement his income by composing film scores. In London, he worked on several films for Hungarian directors, including Alexander Korda and Ákos Tolnay. When World War II erupted, these directors relocated to Hollywood, providing Rózsa with new opportunities such as collaborating with Billy Wilder on Double Indemnity and Alfred Hitchcock on Spellbound. His impressive filmography also includes scores for The Green Berets, The King of Kings, and El Cid and Ben Hur with Charlton Heston.
Alex North, born Isadore Soifer in 1910, was the son of immigrants who fled the Russian Empire and settled in Pennsylvania. He studied at the Curtis Institute, Juilliard, and the Moscow Conservatory. During World War II, North served as a captain in the U.S. Army Special Services, where he was responsible for creating “self-entertainment” programs in mental hospitals. He also composed music for over twenty-six documentaries for the War Department. His first significant success was with A Streetcar Named Desire, one of the first mainstream films to feature a jazz-infused score. His impressive body of work includes scores for Death of a Salesman, Cleopatra, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? North wrote the iconic song “Unchained Melody,” as a theme for the 1955 film Unchained, which was later recorded by The Righteous Brothers, Elvis Presley, and others. One of his biggest blockbusters was Spartacus starring Kirk Douglas.
Bernard Herrmann was born in 1911 in New York City to Russian Jewish immigrants and started to write music at just 13. Herrmann studied composition and orchestration at New York University and Juilliard. By age 20, he had founded the New Chamber Orchestra, which performed his own compositions and music of other composers he admired. Transitioning to radio, Herrmann made a significant impact as both a composer and conductor collaborating with Orson Welles. Among Herrmann’s celebrated scores are The Day the Earth Stood Still, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Fahrenheit 451, and Taxi Driver. Tragically, he passed away in his sleep from an apparent heart attack immediately after completing the recording of Taxi Driver in 1975, leading Martin Scorsese to dedicate the film to his memory. A frequent collaborator with Alfred Hitchcock, Herrmann is perhaps best remembered for his iconic score for Psycho.
Elmer Bernstein was born in 1922 in New York City to European Jewish parents. At twelve Bernstein received a scholarship to study at the Juilliard School. And before you ask, no, Elmer Bernsteen is not related to Leonard Bernstein. During World War II, he created musical arrangements for Glenn Miller’s Army Air Forces band. In 1949, he composed music for a United Nations Radio documentary on Israel, which marked the beginning of his successful career in Hollywood. Some of Bernstein’s major films include The Ten Commandments, The Man with the Golden Arm, and My Left Foot. He also made his mark in the comedy genre, scoring films like The Three Amigos, Airplane!, Animal House, Trading Places, To Kill a Mockingbird and Ghostbusters. One of the most iconic Western themes in cinema history is from his score for The Magnificent Seven.
Jerry Goldsmith was born in 1929 to parents who were Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary, with some Jewish-Romanian ancestry. He began playing the piano at six and studied with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who also taught the composers Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle, André Previn, and John Williams. Goldsmith started his career at CBS, where he composed the music for several episodes of The Twilight Zone. His first major film success was his score for Planet of the Apes in 1968. His success continued with iconic films such as Patton, Chinatown, Alien, Poltergeist, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, and five of the Star Trek films. He also composed the famous Universal Pictures fanfare in 1997. Among his most beloved works is the chilling score for the horror classic The Omen, which earned him his first Academy Award. This score not only solidified Goldsmith’s reputation as a master of film music but also became a touchstone for the horror genre, influencing many composers who followed.
Lalo Schifrin was born in 1932 in Argentina. At the age of six, he began a six-year course of study in piano under the tutelage of Enrique Barenboim, the father of renowned pianist Daniel Barenboim. By age twenty, Schifrin won a scholarship to the Paris Conservatory. In Paris, he spent his evenings performing, arranging, and composing with various jazz ensembles. In the early 1960s, Schifrin gained recognition for his collaborations with the legendary trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. However, Schifrin relocated to Los Angeles in 1963. His most famous film scores include Cool Hand Luke, Dirty Harry, Enter the Dragon, The Amityville Horror, and the Rush Hour trilogy. During the 1960s and 70s, he became a pioneer in integrating jazz, bossa nova, funk, and rock into film music, appealing to younger audiences. While Schifrin’s film scores are noteworthy, he is perhaps best remembered for his iconic themes for television series such as Mannix, Starsky and Hutch, and, most notably, Mission: Impossible.
Randy Newman was born in 1943 in Los Angeles, a nephew of the legendary film-scoring giant Alfred Newman. He studied music at the University of California, Los Angeles, but left the program just one semester shy of earning his B.A. Newman has been a professional songwriter since the age of 17 and is primarily recognized as a singer-songwriter, known for his unique vocal style, which lends itself to humorous impersonations. Ironically, many of the films he composed the music for feature some of his most beloved songs, such as “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from Toy Story. Since the 1980s, however, Newman has shifted his focus predominantly to film composition. He has scored nine Disney-Pixar animated films, including all the Toy Story films, A Bug’s Life, both Monsters, Inc. films, and the first and third Cars films. His live-action film scores include Cold Turkey, Ragtime, Awakenings, Meet the Parents, and Marriage Story. Newman’s score for the 1984 film The Natural, starring Robert Redford, has left a lasting mark in the history of classic sports films.
Howard Shore was born in Toronto in 1946, making him the only Canadian on this program—our favorite Canadian! He attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he honed his skills as a composer. Shore later joined forces with his childhood friend Lorne Michaels, serving as the musical director for Saturday Night Live from 1975 to 1980. He is well-known for his frequent collaborations with director David Cronenberg on films such as Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Naked Lunch, Crash, and Eastern Promises. His work with director Martin Scorsese includes scores for Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, and Hugo. However, Shore is perhaps best recognized for his monumental achievements with Peter Jackson on the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, which brought his music to an international audience. Other notable films in his repertoire include Big, starring Tom Hanks, The Silence of the Lambs, and the comedy Analyze This., and the 1993 classic, Mrs. Doubtfire starring the great Robin Williams.
James Horner was born in 1953 in Los Angeles to Harry Horner, a successful Hollywood art director and set designer. He spent his early years in London, where he attended the Royal College of Music and studied under the influential composer György Ligeti. After earning his Doctorate degree from UCLA, Horner’s big break came in 1982 when he was asked to score Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. His impressive body of work includes scores for iconic films such as Aliens, Field of Dreams, Glory, Apollo 13, Braveheart, A Beautiful Mind, The Perfect Storm, Apocalypto, and James Cameron’s Titanic. For the latter, Horner collaborated with lyricist Will Jennings to create the unforgettable song “My Heart Will Go On,” sung by Celine Dion. This song won four Grammy Awards, an Oscar, a Golden Globe Award, and Billboard’s Soundtrack Single of the Year, among other accolades. Known for his innovative and expressive use of woodwinds, Horner frequently featured wooden, tin, or bamboo flutes in his soundtracks. For example, “My Heart Will Go On” opens with an Irish tin whistle, while the score for one of my favorite childhood films, Jumanji, showcases a Japanese bamboo flute called a shakuhachi. Horner’s use of the bamboo flute elicits the innocence and nostalgia of Alan’s childhood memories while underscoring the mysterious and enchanted nature of the story.
Danny Elfman was born in 1953 in Los Angeles. He spent much of his free time as a kid at the local movie theater, discovering classic sci-fi, fantasy, and horror films and first noticing the music of film composers like Bernard Herrmann and Franz Waxman. Unlike most other composers on this list, Elfman never took composition lessons or had any formal training on an instrument. Instead, he gradually picked up the skills required to compose for film through hands-on experimentation and hard work. In the early ’70s, Elfman worked as a performer in The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, an experimental performance troupe founded by his brother, Richard, blending music, cabaret, performance art, and visual spectacle. Elfman eventually transformed the group into the new wave band Oingo Boingo in 1980, serving as its lead singer and songwriter. As fans of Oingo Boingo, director Tim Burton and actor Paul Reubens invited Elfman to write the score for their first feature film, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, in 1985. Initially apprehensive due to his lack of formal training and experience, Elfman completed the score with help from his bandmate Steve Bartek, who studied orchestration at UCLA. Elfman would go on to score 19 of Burton’s 22 major films, including Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Big Fish, Corpse Bride, and Sleepy Hollow. Other scores by Elfman include the Men In Black trilogy, Good Will Hunting, Red Dragon, Spiderman I and II with Tobey Maguire, Milk, and Fifty Shades of Grey.
Elfman composed a number of television themes, including Tales from the Crypt, Dilbert, Desperate Housewives, and Wednesday, but the most iconic of his TV themes is the unforgettable opening for The Simpsons. It can probably be assumed that he’s the best singer on this list, which came in handy while working with creator Tim Burton on the score for Henry Selick’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. Elfman begged to be the singing voice for the role of Jack Skellington, strongly identifying with the character. The film is one of the most visually stunning products of stop-motion animation.
Thomas Newman was born 1955 in Los Angeles, the youngest son of Alfred Newman. He studied at the University of Southern California, and Yale, where he met composer Stephen Sondheim, who became an early mentor. In 1983, John Williams invited Newman to work on Return of the Jedi, letting Thomas orchestrate the scene in which Darth Vader dies. Notable films he scored include Scent of A Woman, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, Erin Brockovich, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, The Help, Bridge of Spies, American Beauty and more recently, the WWI film 1917.
Hans Zimmer was born in Frankfurt in 1957. Like Danny Elfman, he is largely self-taught, starting out as a synthesizer programmer and recording engineer in London. He learned much of his craft as an assistant to film composer Stanley Myers. Zimmer’s first major American film score was for Rain Man, which earned him his first Oscar nomination. Zimmer went on to score numerous Hollywood films, including Driving Miss Daisy, The Thin Red Line, Black Hawk Down, The Last Samurai, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean, Inception, 12 Years a Slave, Interstellar, Dunkirk, and Dune. His work became iconic for reshaping the sound of modern action films, known for adrenaline-inducing soundscapes, including the use of anvils and booming use of drums. In his music for the films A World Apart and The Power Of One, both about South African Apartheid, he used African drumming and African choirs. Based on this work, Disney hired him to oversee the music of The Lion King. The 1994 animated classic is the perfect marriage of a top-notch score by Zimmer and a masterful soundtrack of the songs of Elton John and Tim Rice.
Honorable mentions:
Hugo Reisenfeld
Leonard Rosenman
James Newton Howard
Victor Young
Louis Gruenberg
Werner Richard Heymann
Ernst Toch
Hans J. Salter
Hanns Eisler
Louis Applebaum
Saul Chaplin
Larry Adler
David Raksin
Ernest Gold
Bronisław Kaper
Jerry Fielding
Elliot Goldenthal
Justin Hurwitz
Laura Karpman
Mica Levi