Dimitri Tiomkin

Composer

  • Born: May 10, 1894
  • Birthplace: Kremenchuk, Poltava, Ukraine
  • Died: November 11, 1979
  • Place of death: London, England

Ukrainian film-score composer

A great composer of film music, Tiomkin used his Russian training to create a lush, epic orchestral sound. His comprehensive knowledge of a variety of American music accounts for his success as a composer for Westerns, for which he wrote memorable songs, and his understanding of French music led to his supreme command of Impressionist harmonies.

The Life

Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin (DMEE-tree zyih-NOH-vyeh-vich TYEHM-kihn) was born in the Ukraine in 1894. His father was a prominent doctor, and his mother was a music teacher. In 1907 Tiomkin enrolled at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied piano with Felix Blumenfeld and composition with Alexander Glazunov. In addition to the classical education he received at the conservatory, Tiomkin soon displayed an affinity for film music, working as an accompanist for silent films. He also became enamored of American popular music, an interest that dated from his exposure to Irving Berlin’s “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” After the Russian Revolution, Tiomkin moved to Berlin, where his father had settled earlier. In Berlin the young composer and pianist continued his musical studies with Egon Petri, Michael Zadora, and Ferruccio Busoni. He composed a number of light musical pieces, and he made his professional debut as a piano soloist, performing Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (1857) with the Berlin Philharmonic.

Along with his roommate Michael Kariton, a fellow pianist, Tiomkin left Berlin for Paris, where the two performed piano duets. In 1925 the duo set sail for America, where Tiomkin met Albertina Rasch, a ballerina and choreographer. Tiomkin and Rasch began a professional relationship—Tiomkin accompanied her and her ballet troupe on a national tour—that soon became personal, and the two were married in 1927. In 1928 the couple returned to Paris, where Tiomkin gave recitals that focused on American and new music. There he gave the European premiere of George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F (1925) and Rhapsody in Blue (1924), with Gershwin, Sergei Prokofiev, and Arthur Honegger in the audience.

In 1929 Tiomkin followed his wife to Hollywood, where he provided the music to her dance sequences in musicals produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. After composing the music for several other films, Tiomkin had his big break. He met and befriended director Frank Capra, who put him in charge of the music for the epic fantasy Lost Horizon. This was the first of a number of significant collaborations with Capra, and Tiomkin provided the scores to many Capra classics, including Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Meet John Doe, and It’s a Wonderful Life. During World War II, he wrote music for Why We Fight, a series of seven propaganda films Capra provided for the U.S. Army.

After the war, Tiomkin worked with other directors. For Alfred Hitchcock he wrote the sound tracks for Strangers on a Train, I Confess, and Dial M for Murder. For Fred Zinnemann he provided the sound track for High Noon. After the enormous success of that score, Tiomkin became known for his Western sound tracks, and he went on to score such films as Rio Bravo, The Alamo, and The Guns of Navarone. His final film project was Tchaikovsky (1969), a Russian-American collaboration on the life of the composer. For the film, Tiomkin arranged Tchaikovsky’s music, and he acted as executive producer. In 1968, following Albertina’s death, Tiomkin moved to London, where he married Olivia Cynthia Patch in 1972. After his death in 1979, he was buried in Los Angeles.

The Music

When he began to compose for Hollywood, Tiomkin had done little large-scale composition. He had, however, internalized a great deal of music from three sources. First, his studies with Glazunov gave him a thorough grounding in counterpoint, form, and harmony, as well as in Russian Romanticism. Second, Tiomkin was interested from a young age in American music, especially jazz, and he eventually came to know a wide range of American popular and folk music. Third, from his years in Paris, Tiomkin developed a love of French music, including that of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and the composers of Les Six. These influences were palpable in his film scores. Tiomkin was equally at home with instrumental and vocal forces, and indeed some of his best music combines these two.

Lost Horizon.Capra’s decision to put Tiomkin in charge of the music for his film Lost Horizon surprised many in Hollywood. Tiomkin was virtually unknown as a composer at the time, and Lost Horizon was an epic production of unprecedented scale, initially requiring music to accompany a running time of six hours (the film was ultimately cut to about two and a half hours). In order to assist Tiomkin, Capra hired a number of major orchestrators, including Hugo Friedhofer, Max Reese, and Robert Russell Bennett. Capra also brought in the venerated Max Steiner to conduct, to offer suggestions, and possibly to step in and write the score if Tiomkin was not up to the task.

Capra’s worries were groundless; Tiomkin’s score was a masterpiece. As Capra wrote in his autobiography, “Tiomkin’s music not only captured the mood, but darned near captured the film.” The sound track for Lost Horizon instantly made a name for its composer. It established Tiomkin’s reputation as a master of the epic film score, and it demonstrated his expert handling of a large symphony—the largest orchestra Columbia Studios had ever used to date—paired with chorus. As befits the film’s Tibetan setting, the score is peppered with musical exoticisms, including the extensive use of Asian percussion instruments. The film’s main theme, set for wordless chorus, has a timeless, almost medieval quality that avoids clichéd representations of the East.

High Noon.Although billed as a Western, the motion picture High Noon defies many of the conventions of that genre. It was independently produced, and it avoided the romanticized view of the Old West popularized by the large Hollywood studios at the time. High Noon was so gritty and realistic that early previews were panned.

Tiomkin’s score for the film revolves around a single song, “Do Not Forsake Me,” with lyrics by Ned Washington. The song appears in various guises and variations, sometimes scored for orchestra alone, sometimes scored for voice and light accompaniment. The song was released prior to the film on a Capitol Records album that featured interpretations of the song by six different singers (in the film, the song is sung by Tex Ritter). Tiomkin noted in his autobiography that “the record was an immediate success, one of the hits of the year…the picture was released four months after the record, and packed the theaters, a box-office gold mine. The success of the record promoted it.” Like the film, Tiomkin’s score contains many genre-defying elements. First, unlike most conventional sound tracks of the period, High Noon begins and ends softly, with “Do Not Forsake Me” being sung by Ritter, accompanied only by guitar, accordion, and drums. Second, the song clamors for attention frequently throughout the film, rather than merely underscoring the action or dialogue. Third, the score slips back and forth between diegetic and nondiegetic music—that is, between music that only we hear and music that the characters seem to hear. Fourth, Tiomkin’s orchestration is dominated by winds, brass, and piano, in contrast to the string-dominated textures of most Hollywood music of the time.

The Fall of the Roman Empire.In 1964 Anthony Mann directed The Fall of the Roman Empire for Paramount Pictures. The film featured one of Tiomkin’s last major sound tracks and one of his grandest. Reversing the pared-down orchestration he had employed for many Westerns, Tiomkin called for a large chorus and an orchestra of 130 players, and he wrote music for about two and one-half hours of the three-hour film. The orchestration features the prominent use of brass, drums, and piano.

The motion picture’s main theme uses organ and orchestra, and some have observed that the theme resembles Russian folk music, with its use of modal harmonies and melodic construction and its melancholy quality. It is interesting to see that late in his life, Tiomkin returned to the music of his youth.

Musical Legacy

By the end of his career, Tiomkin was reportedly the highest paid composer in the history of motion pictures. Unlike most composers in the Hollywood studio system, Tiomkin worked as a freelancer, which allowed him to be employed by a wide range of studios and directors. He was often allowed to sit in on film projects in the early stages of production, a rarity in the film business.

Tiomkin was nominated twenty-three times for an Academy Award. He was a three-time winner in the category of Best Score for The High and the Mighty, for The Old Man and the Sea, and for High Noon. The song “Do Not Forsake Me,” from High Noon, also won for the category of Best Song. Upon receiving his Oscar for The High and the Mighty, Tiomkin highly amused the audience at the awards ceremony by thanking Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Richard Wagner, and Richard Strauss in his acceptance speech.

Although not a native-born American, Tiomkin had a great impact as a film composer on Westerns and on patriotic films. The success of “Do Not Forsake Me” led to a large number of similar efforts by other studios to insert a hit song in their films that could be marketed separately from the film. His scores for Rio Bravo and other Western films virtually defined the genre, and scores such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington were highly influential in their incorporation of American folk songs.

Principal Works

film scores:Alice in Wonderland, 1933; Lost Horizon, 1937; You Can’t Take It with You, 1938; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, 1939; Only Angels Have Wings, 1939; Meet John Doe, 1941; A Gentleman After Dark, 1942; When Strangers Marry, 1944; Angel on My Shoulder, 1946; Duel in the Sun, 1946; It’s a Wonderful Life, 1947; The Long Night, 1947; Portrait of Jennie, 1948; Red River, 1948; Tarzan and the Mermaids, 1948; Strangers on a Train, 1951; The Thing from Another World, 1951; The Big Sky, 1952; High Noon, 1952; Lady in the Iron Mask, 1952; The Steel Trap, 1952; I Confess, 1953; Jeopardy, 1953; Dial M for Murder, 1954; The High and the Mighty, 1954; Friendly Persuasion, 1956; Giant, 1956; Land of the Pharaohs, 1956; Gunfight at the O. K. Corral, 1957; Night Passage, 1957; Search for Paradise, 1957; The Old Man and the Sea, 1958; Rio Bravo, 1959; The Alamo, 1960; The Unforgiven, 1960; The Guns of Navarone, 1961; Circus World, 1964; The Fall of the Roman Empire, 1964; Thirty-Six Hours, 1965.

Bibliography

Darby, William, and Jack Du Bois. “Dimitri Tiomkin.” In American Film Music: Major Composers, Techniques, Trends, 1915-1990. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1990. This chapter on Tiomkin’s film music contains a great deal of musical analysis and a consideration of the composer’s overall output.

Palmer, Christopher. “Dimitri Tiomkin.” In The Composer in Hollywood. London: Marion Boyars, 1990. Palmer’s account of the composer focuses less on biography and more on identifying trends in Tiomkin’s oeuvre.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Dimitri Tiomkin: A Portrait. London: T. E. Books, 1984. Palmer’s monograph contains illustrations and a filmography. While the biographical data is largely derivative of Tiomkin’s autobiography, the analysis of the composer’s music and his place in the Hollywood pantheon is well crafted.

Thomas, Tony. “Dimitri Tiomkin.” In Film Score: The Art and Craft of Movie Music. Burbank, Calif.: Riverwood Press, 1991. This brief chapter on Tiomkin’s film music is supplemented by a reprint of Tiomkin’s article “Dimitri Tiomkin on Film Music,” which originally appeared in the journal Films in Review in 1951.

Tiomkin, Dimitri, and Propser Buranelli. Please Don’t Hate Me. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959. Tiomkin’s autobiography, cowritten with Buranelli, is filled with humour and fascinating details regarding the composer’s life. Tiomkin paints frank portraits of the many colorful personalities with whom he came in contact over the course of his career.