Miklós Rózsa

Hungarian classical and film-score composer

• Born: April 18, 1907
• Birthplace: Budapest, Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Hungary)
• Died: July 27, 1995
• Place of death: Los Angeles, California

A giant in the field of American film composition, Rózsa created memorable music, from intimate melodramas to sweeping epics.

The Life

Miklós Rózsa (MEEK-lohsh ROH-zah) was born April 18, 1907, in Budapest, Hungary. His father, Gyula, was a successful industrialist and landowner, and his mother, Regina, had been a piano student at the Budapest Academy of Music. Rózsa began playing the violin when he was five and later studied the viola and the piano. When he was seven, Rózsa conducted a children’s orchestra in a performance of Leopold Mozart’s Toy Symphony. He was influenced by the music of the Palóc peasants on his father’s estate and began writing down their folk songs.

In high school Rózsa angered the administration by championing the modern composers Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. Enrolling at the University of Leipzig in 1925, Rózsa studied chemistry until one of the music professors, Hermann Grabner, told the senior Rózsa that his son should become a composer. After graduating cum laude in 1929, Rózsa worked as Grabner’s assistant until he moved to Paris in 1931.

Rózsa returned to Budapest for a performance of his orchestral work Serenade and received encouragement from Richard Strauss. Rózsa’s breakthrough came in 1934 when the Duisberg Symphony Orchestra performed his Theme, Variations, and Finale, inspired by Hungarian folk music. In 1937 the twenty-minute piece became his first composition played, by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in the United States. Because his concert music, however, earned him little money, Rózsa supported himself by composing popular tunes under the pseudonym Nic Tomay.

Rózsa’s career changed when he saw the French film Les Misérables (1934) and noticed how it was enhanced by the score of his friend Arthur Honegger. Rózsa was then approached by Jacques Feyder to write the score for the director’s Knight Without Armour (1937), and the composer began working for Alexander Korda’s London Films.

His film scores were merely a sideline to more serious work as Rózsa won Hungary’s highest musical award, the Franz Josef Prize, in both 1937 and 1938. However, when he scored The Thief of Bagdad in 1940, everything changed. Because of the outbreak of World War II, Korda moved the production to Hollywood, where his composer then settled permanently. Rózsa was nominated for an Academy Award, and his immensely popular score was released as a recording in an era when sound tracks were not distributed.

At a party given by June Duprez, one of the stars of The Thief of Bagdad, Rózsa met British actress Margaret Finlason, whom he married in 1943. The couple had a son, Nicholas, and a daughter, Juliet.

After Korda shut down his production company, Rózsa began a relationship with Billy Wilder, scoring the director’s Five Graves to Cairo, Double Indemnity, and The Lost Weekend. He won Oscars for Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound and George Cukor’s A Double Life.

In 1945 Rózsa joined the faculty of the University of Southern California; he taught there until 1965. Working freelance after Korda, he signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1949 for financial security and after being granted approval of the editing of his scores. In the early 1950’s, Rózsa’s concert music began to attract the attention of recording companies, especially his Duo for cello and piano and his Theme, Variations, and Finale.

With Quo Vadis?, Rózsa began specializing in historical epics. He won his third and final Academy Award for one of these, Ben-Hur, and was nominated for eleven other films. After Ben-Hur, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer did not know what to do with Rózsa and loaned him to producer Samuel Bronston for King of Kings and El Cid. Although Rózsa composed for several more films, he considered El Cid his last major score. Ironically, as demands for Rózsa’s services declined, new recordings of his music, much of it never before recorded, began to appear, often with the composer as conductor.

In 1974 the composer returned to Hungary for the first time in forty years to conduct a concert of his music in Budapest. A stroke in 1982 left him partially paralyzed, and he suffered from a back ailment and the neuromuscular disorder myasthenia gravis. Despite his declining health, Rózsa produced eight new works, including chamber music, during the 1980’s. In honor of Rózsa’s eightieth birthday, he was given a Golden Sound Track Award by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley declared April 18, 1987, Miklós Rózsa Day, with the ceremonies including a performance of his Toccata Capricciosa for Cello by cellist Timothy Landau. Failing eyesight forced him to abandon composing in 1988. Three weeks following another stroke, Rózsa died in Los Angeles on July 27, 1995.

The Music

The influence of Hungarian folk songs can be heard in the sharp rhythms and strong modal coloration in Rózsa’s concert and film music. In his autobiography Double Life, he writes that the music of Hungary is imprinted on every bar of his music. Rózsa added the influences of Bartók, who also collected folk songs, and Igor Stravinsky to create vibrant, rhythmic scores with longer melodic lines than usual in film music.

Korda Films. With their mixture of Middle Eastern and Oriental influences, the exotic melodies of The Thief of Bagdad complemented the depiction of genies and wizards. For The Jungle Book, Rózsa created music to approximate the personalities of the animal characters. Rózsa rerecorded the score, with narration by the film’s star Sabu, with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, and the RCA recording became the first to feature a complete film orchestral score.

The Theremin. Hitchcock asked for a new sound to convey paranoia in Spellbound, the first Hollywood film to feature the theremin, an electronic instrument. Because of production delays, however, Spellbound was released after The Lost Weekend, which used the theremin to suggest the alcoholic hero’s loss of equilibrium. Hitchcock and producer David O. Selznick were supposedly outraged that Rózsa had betrayed them. The composer used the instrument one more time for The Red House.

Crime Films. For Double Indemnity, a tale of deception and murder, Wilder wanted Rózsa’s score to reflect the film’s cynicism, so the theme conveyed the image of a march to the gallows. Paramount executives were shocked by the dissonant score, but the director stood by his composer. This success led to work for Rózsa on several other examples of the moody, brooding genre that would become known as film noir. Such scores often featured jolting chords to underline the psychological anguish of the characters. Sharp accents and bitonal harmonies were prominent in The Killers and Brute Force. In A Double Life Rózsa provided a nervous, repetitive score to stress the protagonist’s mania. When he places his hands over his ears to shut out a cacophony of voices, it is almost as if he is trying to stop the music that spells out his mental state.

Madame Bovary. For Madame Bovary, Rózsa wrote a waltz for the scene in which Emma Bovary is swept off her feet by Rodolphe Boulanger. With the couple oblivious to the other dancers, the music becomes more symphonic to emphasize the evolution of their feelings and then more frantic to reflect their passion. Rózsa scholars consider it one of his greatest achievements.

Epics. While earlier composers such as Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and Franz Waxman created thundering scores for adventure films, Rózsa’s similar work seems both more muscular, full of cymbals and trumpets, and more tender, with frequent interludes of intimate music. Weaving dances, fanfares, and marches, his epic scores continued the exoticism of his early film work.

Quo Vadis? employed three musical styles. For the scenes involving Romans, Rózsa had replicas made of ancient instruments based on their depictions in statues. He then imagined how the instruments would have sounded. Because the hymns of early Christians are also not extant, Rózsa based this music on Greek and Jewish liturgical music and on a Gregorian anthem. The slaves were Babylonians, Egyptians, Persians, and Syrians, so he used ancient Asian music as the basis for their scenes.

For Ben-Hur Rózsa used an organ, a vibraphone, and a harp in the opening strains to establish a religious impression. This theme is repeated whenever the hero undergoes moments of spirituality. The composer created a Jewish theme (grave tones, elegiac expressiveness) with woodwinds to indicate Ben-Hur’s longings for his homeland. Marches appear throughout, becoming more prominent during the film’s most famous scene, the chariot race.

El Cid was typical of Rózsa’s approach in the epics of alternating heroic music with more intimate melodies underscoring the melancholy side of the hero’s nature. For the finale, following the protagonist’s death, Rózsa began with a solo organ before adding fiery battle music.

Later Concert Music. One of his most personal orchestral works was Notturno ungherese, which he described as an attempt to recapture the beauty of his family’s estate. Rózsa enjoyed composing for musicians he knew and admired, as with his Sinfonia concertante for violin, cello, and chamber orchestra, written for the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. Other new pieces included a piano concerto composed for Leonard Pennario. His Viola Concerto received its world premiere in 1984, with Pinchas Zukerman performing with the Pittsburgh Symphony conducted by André Previn.

Later Scores. Rózsa combined the two sides of his double life when he used his Violin Concerto, commissioned by Jascha Heifetz and considered by many to be his greatest concert piece, as the basis of his score for The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. The music for the time-travel romance Time After Time is among the best of the composer’s lush, romantic scores. The score for the World War II spy thriller Eye of the Needle is reminiscent of music from his Korda period, particularly The Spy in Black. When Carl Reiner and Steve Martin paid loving tribute to film noir in Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, Rózsa was hired to provide his distinctive touch. Rózsa particularly enjoyed collaborating with director Alain Resnais on Providence. This personal drama about a dying writer included Valse Crépusculaire, a poignant piano piece evoking Rózsa’s nostalgia for his youth.

Musical Legacy

Along with Bernard Herrmann, Rózsa helped lead a musical revolution during a time when most Hollywood scores sounded alike, moving sound tracks toward a more modern idiom. Echoes of Rózsa can be heard in Jerry Goldsmith’s driving rhythms for Chinatown (1974). His distinctive mixture of heroic and intimate melodies inspired Maurice Jarre’s work on Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Rózsa’s use of choral music and unusual instruments found a follower in Ennio Morricone, in such films as The Mission (1986). For such scores as Out of Africa (1985), John Barry borrowed Rózsa’s soaring romanticism. With the possible exception of Herrmann, no film composer has been more imitated.

In his autobiography, Double Life, Rózsa reveals that he never cared for films. Although he composed scores primarily as a source of income, however, he never lost sight of his profession. His film music closely resembles his concert music and was clearly as personal.

Principal Works

cello work:Toccata Capricciosa for Cello, Op. 36, 1977.

chamber work:Duo, Op. 7, 1931 (for cello and piano).

film scores:The Divorce of Lady X, 1937; Knight Without Armour, 1937; The Squeaker, 1937 (Murder on Diamond Row); Thunder in the City, 1937; The Four Feathers, 1939; On the Night of theFire, 1939 (The Fugitive); The Spy in Black, 1939 (U-Boat 29); Ten Days in Paris, 1939 (Missing Ten Days; Spy in the Pantry); Four Dark Hours, 1940 (The Green Cockatoo; Race Gang); The Thief of Bagdad, 1940; Lydia, 1941; Sundown, 1941; That Hamilton Woman, 1941 (Lady Hamilton); The Jungle Book, 1942; Five Graves to Cairo, 1943; Sahara, 1943; So Proudly We Hail, 1943; The Woman of the Town, 1943; Dark Waters, 1944; Double Indemnity, 1944; The Hour Before Dawn, 1944; The Man in Half Moon Street, 1944; Blood on the Sun, 1945; Lady on a Train, 1945; The Lost Weekend, 1945; A Song to Remember, 1945; Because of Him, 1946; The Killers, 1946; Spellbound, 1946; The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, 1946; Brute Force, 1947; Desert Fury, 1947; A Double Life, 1947; The Other Love, 1947; The Red House, 1947; Song of Scheherazade, 1947; Criss Cross, 1948; Kiss the Blood off My Hands, 1948 (Blood on My Hands); The Naked City, 1948; The Secret Beyond the Door, 1948; A Woman’s Vengeance, 1948 (The Gioconda Smile); Adam’s Rib, 1949; The Bribe, 1949; Command Decision, 1949; East Side, West Side, 1949; Madame Bovary, 1949; The Red Danube, 1949; The Asphalt Jungle, 1950; Crisis, 1950; The Miniver Story, 1950 (with Herbert Stothart); Ivanhoe, 1951; The Light Touch, 1951; Quo Vadis?, 1951; Plymouth Adventure, 1952; All the Brothers Were Valiant, 1953; Julius Caesar, 1953; Knights of the Round Table, 1953; Young Bess, 1953; Green Fire, 1954; Men of the Fighting Lady, 1954 (Panther Squadron); Seagulls over Sorrento, 1954 (Crest of the Wave); Valley of the Kings, 1954; Diane, 1955; The King’s Thief, 1955; Moonfleet, 1955; Bhowani Junction, 1956; Lust for Life, 1956; Tribute to a Badman, 1956; The Seventh Sin, 1957; Something of Value, 1957; Tip on a Dead Jockey, 1957; A Time to Love and a Time to Die, 1958; Ben-Hur, 1959; The World, the Flesh, and the Devil, 1959; El Cid, 1961; King of Kings, 1961; Sodom and Gomorrah, 1962; The V.I.P.s, 1963; The Green Berets, 1968; The Power, 1968; The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, 1970; The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, 1973; Providence, 1977; Fedora, 1978; The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, 1978; The Last Embrace, 1979; Time After Time, 1979; Eye of the Needle, 1980; Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, 1981.

orchestral works:Theme, Variations, and Finale, Op. 13, 1933; Violin Concerto, Op. 24, 1956 (for violin and orchestra); Notturno ungherese, Op. 28, 1964; Sinfonia concertante, 1966 (for violin, cello, and orchestra); Piano Concerto, Op. 31, 1967 (for piano and orchestra); Viola Concerto, Op. 37, 1984 (for viola and orchestra).

writings of interest:Double Life, 1982 (autobiography).

Bibliography

Brown, Royal S. Overtones and Undertones: Reading Film Music. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Analysis of Double Indemnity explains how Rózsa broke from the traditional Hollywood score epitomized by the work of Steiner. Includes a lengthy interview.

Evans, Mark. Soundtrack: The Music of the Movies. New York: Hopkinson and Blake, 1975. Offers concise analysis of major scores. Introduction by Rózsa.

Karlin, Fred. Listening to Movies: The Film Lover’s Guide to Film Music. New York: Schirmer Books, 1994. This excellent introduction to film music includes lengthy analysis of Spellbound.

Palmer, Christopher. The Composer in Hollywood. London: Marion Boyars, 1990. Chapter on Rózsa offers excellent analysis of many scores.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Miklós Rózsa: A Sketch of His Life and Work. London: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1975. The composer’s former assistant gives a brief overview of his life and a perceptive analysis of the major scores.

Prendergast, Roy M. Film Music, a Neglected Art: A Critical Study of Music in Films. 2d ed. New York: Norton, 1992. Analyzes Rózsa’s scores for Julius Caesar, Quo Vadis?, and Spellbound.

Rózsa, Miklós. Double Life: The Autobiography of Miklós Rózsa. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1982. Title refers to his two lives as composer of concert and film music. Describes working with directors, producers, and actors. Heavily illustrated.

Thomas, Tony. Film Score: The Art and Craft of Movie Music. Burbank, Calif.: Riverwood Press, 1991. Includes a brief essay in which Rózsa discusses how film composers overcome problems that confront them in their field.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Music for the Movies. 2d ed. Los Angeles: Silman-James Press, 1997. Chapter on Rózsa includes commentary on Quo Vadis? by the composer.