Franz Waxmann

Franz Wachsmann or Franz Waxman (Königshütte, Upper Silesia, December 24, 1906 Los Angeles, California, February 24, 1967) was a nationalized German composer American, known mainly for his works for the film music genre. Waxman was the composer of the music for films such as Frankenstein's Bride (1935), Rebecca (1940) and Rear Window (1954). He also composed concert works, including the oratorio Joshua (1959) and Terezin's Song (1965), a work for orchestra, choir and children's choir based on poems written by the children of the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp during World War II. Waxman also founded the Los Angeles Music Festival in 1947 at which he conducted a number of West Coast premieres of both fellow film composers and concert composers.

Biography

Early Years (1906-1934)

He was born Franz Wachsmann in Königshütte (Chorzów) in 1906 to a Jewish family in the province of Silesia in the Kingdom of Prussia (today in Poland). He was the youngest of six siblings. At the age of three, Waxman suffered a serious eye injury from boiling water spilled from a stove, which permanently damaged his vision. No one in the family was musically gifted, except for Franz, who began taking piano lessons at the age of seven. His father was an industrialist and not believing that his son could earn a living with music, he encouraged her to start a career in banking. He worked for two and a half years as a cashier and used his salary to pay for piano, harmony and composition lessons. He then he left the bank and moved first to Dresden and then to Berlin to study music.

In 1923, at the age of 16, Waxman enrolled at the Dresden Academy of Music to study composition and conducting. Waxman lived off the money he earned playing popular music and managed to go to school. While working as a pianist with the Weintraub Syncopaters, a fashionable jazz band, Waxman met Frederick Hollander who introduced him to the eminent conductor Bruno Walter.

Waxman worked as an orchestrator for the German film industry, including the score for Hollander's film The Blue Angel in 1930. Producer Erich Pommer, who was also the director of the UFA studios in Berlin, was so delighted with the orchestration of the score for The Blue Angel that he gave Waxman his first major dramatic score in 1934: Fritz Lang's version of Liliom (1933) which was filmed in Paris after fleeing Germany. That same year Waxman suffered a violent attack by Nazi sympathizers in Berlin that led him to leave Germany and move with his wife first to Paris and shortly after to Hollywood. Pommer's next project, Jerome Kern's Music in the air (Fox Films, 1934), took him to the United States, taking Waxman with him to arrange the music.

Music for Film and the Los Angeles Music Festival (1935-1949)

In Hollywood Waxman met James Whale, who had been so impressed with Waxman's score for Liliom, that he commissioned him to compose the music for the film The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) whose success led to a two-year contract as head of the music department at Universal. He scored a dozen of the more than 50 Universal movies on which he worked as music director. Among the best known are Diamond Jim (1935) or The Invisible Ray (1936).

Two years after arriving in Hollywood, Waxman, then 30, signed a seven-year songwriting contract with Metro Goldwyn Mayer. He made an average of seven films a year, and it was during this period that he composed the soundtrack for such famous Spencer Tracy films as Captains Courageous, Captains Courageous, >The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and Woman of the Year i>). In 1937, Waxman was loaned by MGM to David O. Selznick for the film The Young at Heart and was nominated for Best Band nominations. Soundtrack and Best Original Score, the first two of the 12 Academy Award nominations he received for the 144 films he scored in his 32 years in Hollywood. In 1940 he was loaned out again to Selznick, this time for the Hitchcock film Rebekah. This soundtrack was the one that consolidated his name. The soundtrack of Rebeca is mysterious and ethereal, always in keeping with the mood of the characters in the film and, as Jack Sullivan said, becoming a "sounding board for the subconscious". He was nominated for the third time for the Academy Awards.

In 1943 Waxman left MGM and began a long period of association with Warner Bros., working closely with score composers such as Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner. Old Acquaintance (Old Acquaintance) is a film from this period. (Selections of his three other scores for Warner can be heard on RCA albums: "Mr. Skeffington (Mr. Skeffington) is included on &# 34;Classic Film Scores for Bette Davis", To Have and Have Not (To Have and Have Not) and "The Two Mrs. Carroll (The Two Mrs. Carrolls) are included in "Casablanca - Classic Film Scores for Humphrey Bogart", and Target, Burma! (Objective, Burma!) is in "Captive Blood" - Classic Film Scores for Errol Flynn).

In 1947 Waxman founded the Los Angeles International Music Festival which he directed for twenty years. It produced the world and American premiere of more than 80 works by composers such as Stravinsky, William Walton, Vaughan Williams, Shostakovich and Schoenberg, but also by colleagues such as Miklós Rózsa, whose Violin Concerto he conducted. During 1947 Waxman had a very tight schedule. In addition to devoting much of his time to the festival, he was in demand by the most important film studios, he was guest conductor of symphony orchestras in Europe and the United States, and he composed concert music. For the film Humoresque he wrote a special piece based on themes from Bizet's opera Carmen , which was performed by Isaac Stern on the recording. The "Carmen Fantasy" it became a repertoire piece and was recorded by Jascha Heifetz for RCA. Other notable Waxman concert works are "Overture for Trumpet and Orchestra," based on themes from the film The Horn Blows at Midnight; Sinfonietta for string orchestra and timpani; the song cycle "The song of Terezin"; and an oratory "Josua".

Post-war soundtracks (1947-1959)

By 1947 Waxman left Warner's and became an independent composer, accepting only the work that interested him from all that came his way. Waxman composed the soundtrack for the film Voices of Death (Sorry, Wrong Number) (1948), which climaxes with the use of a passacaglia, highlighting Waxman's inventiveness in using unusual musical forms for the cinema. Waxman had already used classical musical forms in films such as The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), where the "Creation" it is indeed a fantasy on a note.

In 1950 Waxman won the Academy Award for the score for Billy Wilder's film Sunset Boulevard and in 1951 for the score for George Stevens Un lugar en el sol (A Place in the Sun) , becoming for half a century the only composer to win the award for best soundtrack in two consecutive years. In the 50's and 60's he composed some of his best and most varied works not only for the cinema but for the concert hall. In the cinematographic sphere, in addition to the two aforementioned winners, Prince Valiant and Taras Bulba stood out and, although he had always been associated with romantic films, now he progressed towards epic and jazz-oriented scores. Crime in the Streets, The Spirit of St. Louis, Sayonara, Peyton Place and The Nun& #39;s Story also belong to that period and were incorporated into soundtrack discs. In the realm of music for the concert hall, the sinfonietta for strings and timpani arrived in 1955 and in 1959 Waxman completed his oratorio Joshua. Composed to commemorate the death of his wife, Joshua, with strong Hebrew influences and extensive use of form, it is a powerful example of Waxman's compositional art in the late 1950s.

Last years (1960-1967)

The last years of Waxman's life were one of continuous growth as a composer. Christopher Palmer writes that at the time of his death in 1967, "Waxman was at the zenith of his power." Waxman's output in the 1960s was perhaps more subdued than what preceded him, however he did write Taras Bulba in 1962. Waxman worked on several television shows, including Gunsmoke , in 1966.

"The Song of Terezin" (1965) was based on poems by children interned in the Nazi Theresienstadt concentration camp. Perhaps Waxman's deep spiritual connection to this subject stems from his own encounter with Nazis on a Berlin street in 1934, but whatever the reason, "The Song of Terezin"; it remains the most exemplary work of the composer's life. The work is written for mixed choir, children's choir, soprano soloist and orchestra. Waxman's career ended with his death from cancer in February 1967, ten months short of his sixtieth birthday. He left a legacy of more than 150 film scores and a rich collection of concert works.

Franz Waxman received many honors throughout his life, including the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, an honorary member of the Mahler Society and the International Association of Arts and Letters, and an honorary doctorate of letters and humanities from Columbia University. In 1999 the United States produced a stamp bearing his effigy, along with Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner, Dimitri Tiomkin, Bernard Herrmann, and Alfred Newman. In 2006, during the centenary of his birth, a street at his birthplace was named after Franz Waxmanstrasse. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences and Turner Classic Movies paid tributes to him. The Museum of Modern Art in New York presented a retrospective of 24 films, marking the first time MoMA has honored a composer. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra recently performed the complete soundtrack of The Bride of Frankenstein live.

Legacy

Some of Waxman's scores have been recorded on both LP and CD. Charles Gerhardt and the National Philharmonic Orchestra performed selections from various Waxman scores for the RCA Victor label in the early 1970s using the Dolby Surround sound system.

The American Film Institute ranked the score for Twilight of the Gods (Sunset Boulevard) number 16 on its list of the Greatest Film Scores of All Time. The following list of scores were also nominated to be included in that list:

• The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
• The Nun's Story (1959)
• Peyton Place (1957)
• The Philadelphia Story (1940)
• A Place in the Sun (1951)
• Rebecca (1940)
• Sayonara (1957)
• The Spirit of St. Louis (1957)
• Taras Bulba (1962).

Throughout his film career, he received a total of 12 Academy Award nominations for:

• 1938 - The joyful living creatures (The Young in Heart- Candidature to the best soundtrack.
• 1938 - The joyful living creatures (The Young in Heart) - Candidature to the best original music.
• 1940 - Rebeca (Rebecca) - Candidature to the best original music.
• 1941 - The strange case of Dr. Jekyll (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) - Candidature to the best soundtrack of dramatic film.
• 1941 - Suspecha (Suspicion) - Candidature to the best soundtrack of dramatic film.
• 1945 - Objective Burma (Objective Burma) - Candidature to the best soundtrack of dramatic film.
• 1946 - Humoresque (Humoresque) - Candidature to the best soundtrack of dramatic film.
• 1950 - The twilight of the gods (Sunset Boulevard- Award for Best Soundtrack Drama Film.
• 1951 - A place in the sun (A Place In The Sun- Award for Best Soundtrack Drama Film.
• 1954 - The silver chalice (The Silver Chalice) - Candidature to the best soundtrack of dramatic film.
• 1959 - History of a nun (The Nun's Story) - Candidature to the best soundtrack of dramatic film.
• 1962 - Taras Bulba (Taras Bulba) - Candidature to the best soundtrack of dramatic film.

Partial filmography

• The Man in Search of His Murderer (1931)
• Liliom (1934)
• Mauvaise Graine (1934)
• Frankenstein's girlfriend. (1935)
• Fury (1936)
• Captains Courageous (1937)
• A Christmas Carol (1938)
• The Young in Heart (1938) (2 Oscar nominations)
• Lady of the Tropics (1939)
• Rebecca (1940)
• The Philadelphia Story (1940)
• Suspicion (1941)
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
• Her Cardboard Lover (1942)
• Objective, Burma! (1945)
• Humoresque (1946)
• Possessed (1947)
• Dark City (1950)
• The Furies (1950)
• Sunset Boulevard (1950) (Oscar Award)
• He Ran All the Way (1951)
• Anne of the Indies (1951)
• A Place in the Sun (1951) (Oscar Award)
• Phone Call from a Stranger (1952)
• Stalag 17 (1953)
• Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954)
• Rear Window (1954)
• The Silver Chalice (1954)
• Elephant Walk (1954)
• Mister Roberts (1955)
• Peyton Place (1957)
• Run Silent, Run Deep (1958)
• The Nun's Story (1959)
• Career (The ambitious(1959) by Joseph Anthony.
• Return to Peyton Place (1961)
• Taras Bulba (1962)

Selection of concert works

• Carmen Fantasie, (1946) for violin and orchestra.
• Tristan and Isolde Fantasy, for violin, piano and orchestra
• Auld Lang Syne Variations (1947), for violin and camera set. Movements: "Eine kleine Nichtmusik," "Moonlight Concerto," "Chaconne a son gout," and "Hommage to Shostakofiev."
• The Song of Terezín (1964–65), based on poems of children placed in the concentration camp of Theresienstadt.
• Joshua (1959), Oratory.

Awards and distinctions

Oscar Awards