Miklós Rózsa Miklós Rózsa

Born: 18 April 1907, Budapest, Hungary.
Died: 27 July 1995.

Biography:
Hungarian composer Miklós Rózsa is regarded as one of the founding fathers of film music, whose style and technique allowed him to shape the entire future of the art. Rózsa was and exposed to classical and folk music through his mother, a classical pianist who had studied with pupils of Franz Liszt, and through his father, an industrialist and landowner who loved Hungarian folk music. He played the violin as a child, studied at the Leipzig Conservatory during the 1920s, and embarked on a career as a serious classical composer. Rózsa's first two published works, a String Trio and a Piano Quintet op.2, were published in Leipzig and in 1929. Rózsa moved to Paris in 1932, where he composed more classical music, including his Hungarian Serenade, and the “Theme, Variations, and Finale”, which was especially well received and was performed by conductors such as Georg Solti, and Leonard Bernstein. Rózsa was introduced to film music in 1934 by his friend, composer Arthur Honegger, who had written the score for the movie of the Les Miserables. While on a trip to London, Rózsa met fellow a Hungarian, film producer Alexander Korda, who commissioned him to write the score for his film Knight Without Armour (1937) - and Rózsa's change in musical direction was initiated. Rózsa worked with Korda on several subsequent films, and during the creation of “The Thief of Bagdad" (1940), moved to California, where he remained. Rózsa went on to score over 150 movies in Hollywood, with a large proportion of them now considered classics, defining landmarks in the genre. Among his vast filmography are titles such as "Jungle Book" (1942), "Double Indemnity" (1944), "Spellbound" (1945), "The Lost Weekend" (1945), "The Killers" (1946), "Madame Bovary" (1949), "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950), "Quo Vadis?" (1951), "Ivanhoe" (1952), "Young Bess" (1953), "Moonfleet" (1955), "Lust for Life" (1956), "Ben-Hur" (1959), "King of Kings" (1961), "El Cid" (1961), "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" (1974), "Time After Time" (1979) and "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" (1982), his final score. He was honored with seventeen Academy Award nominations between 1941 and 1962, winning the Award three times. Rózsa was a true pioneer in ever sense of the word: he introduced electronic music into Hollywood in 1945, virtually invented the musical language of film noir the following year, and scored the cinematic death of Jesus twice in two years in the late 1950s. He was religious in his research, striving for musical authenticity in each and every score he wrote. His directness in capturing emotions was sometimes a little indiscreet, but the beauty of his compositions, and his legacy on the "Hollywood" sound, is incalculable. Rózsa retired from scoring films in the early 1980s, and died on 27 July 1995, at his home in Hollywood, after a series of strokes.

Reviews:
Ben Hur, Julius Caesar, The King’s Thief and Plymouth Adventure

Filmography:
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982), Eye of the Needle (1981), Last Embrace (1979), Time After Time (1979), Fedora (1978), The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977), Providence (1977), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974), The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), The Green Berets (1968), The Power (1968), The V.I.P.s (1963), Sodom and Gomorrah (1962), King of Kings (1961), El Cid (1961), The World the Flesh and the Devil (1959), Ben-Hur (1959), A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958), The Seventh Sin (1957), Something of Value (1957), Tip on a Dead Jockey (1957), Bhowani Junction (1956), Diane (1956), Lust for Life (1956), Tribute to a Bad Man (1956), The King's Thief (1955), Moonfleet (1955), Beau Brummell (1954), Crest of the Wave (1954), Green Fire (1954), Men of the Fighting Lady (1954), Valley of the Kings (1954), The Story of Three Loves (1953), Julius Caesar (1953), All the Brothers Were Valiant (1953), Knights of the Round Table (1953), Young Bess (1953), Plymouth Adventure (1952), Ivanhoe (1952), The Light Touch (1951), Quo Vadis (1951), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Crisis (1950), The Miniver Story (1950), The Bribe (1949), Adam's Rib (1949), Criss Cross (1949), East Side, West Side (1949), Edward, My Son (1949), Madame Bovary (1949), The Red Danube (1949), The Naked City (1948), Secret Beyond the Door (1948), Command Decision (1948), Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948), Brute Force (1947), Desert Fury (1947), A Double Life (1947), The Macomber Affair (1947), The Other Love (1947), The Red House (1947), Song of Sheherazade (1947), Time Out of Mind (1947), A Woman's Vengeance (1947), The Killers (1946), The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), Because of Him (1946), Blood on the Sun (1945), Lady on a Train (1945), Lost Weekend (1945), A Song to Remember (1945), Spellbound (1945), Ministry of Fear (1944), Dark Waters (1944), Double Indemnity (1944), The Hour Before the Dawn (1944), The Man in Half Moon Street (1944), The Woman of the Town (1944), Sahara (1943), Five Graves to Cairo (1943), So Proudly We Hail! (1943), Jungle Book (1942) To Be or Not to Be (1942), Jacare (1942), Sundown (1941), That Hamilton Woman (1941), Lydia (1941), New Wine (1941), The Thief of Baghdad (1940), The Spy in Black (1939), The Four Feathers (1939), On the Night of the Fire (1939), Ten Days in Paris (1939), The Divorce of Lady X (1938), The Squeaker (1937), Knight Without Armour (1937), The Green Cockatoo (1937), Thunder in the City (1937).

Highest Grossing Films (adjusted for inflation):
Unavailable at this time.

Awards:
1960 Academy Awards - Winner, Best Original Score (Comedy/Drama) - Ben-Hur
1948 Academy Awards - Winner, Best Original Score (Comedy/Drama) - A Double Life
1946 Academy Awards - Winner, Best Original Score (Comedy/Drama) - Spellbound
1962 Academy Awards - Nominee, Best Original Score (Comedy/Drama) - El Cid
1962 Academy Awards - Nominee, Best Original Song - "The Falcon and the Dove" from El Cid
1954 Academy Awards - Nominee, Best Original Score (Comedy/Drama) - Julius Caesar
1953 Academy Awards - Nominee, Best Original Score (Comedy/Drama) - Ivanhoe
1952 Academy Awards - Nominee, Best Original Score (Comedy/Drama) - Quo Vadis?
1947 Academy Awards - Nominee, Best Original Score (Comedy/Drama) - The Killers
1946 Academy Awards - Nominee, Best Original Score (Comedy/Drama) - Lost Weekend
1946 Academy Awards - Nominee, Best Original Score (Comedy/Drama) - A Song to Remember
1945 Academy Awards - Nominee, Best Original Score (Comedy/Drama) - Double Indemnity
1945 Academy Awards - Nominee, Best Original Score (Comedy/Drama) - The Woman of the Town
1943 Academy Awards - Nominee, Best Original Score (Comedy/Drama) - The Jungle Book
1942 Academy Awards - Nominee, Best Original Score (Drama) - Lydia
1942 Academy Awards - Nominee, Best Original Score (Drama) - Sundown
1941 Academy Awards - Nominee, Best Original Score (Drama) - The Thief of Baghdad

All the Brothers Were Valiant Ben-Hur Diane Double Indemnity/The Killers/Lost Weekend El Cid The Golden Voyage of Sinbad The Green Berets Ivanhoe Julius Caesar Julius Caesar King of Kings Knight Without Armour Lust for Life Moonfleet Plymouth Adventure The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover/Lydia/Crisis Providence Quo Vadis The Seventh Sin Sodom and Gomorrah Spellbound The Thief of Baghdad/Jungle Book Time After Time Valley of the Kings The V.I.P.s The World the Flesh and the Devil Young Bess


Home Page | Reviews A-M | Reviews N-Z | Composers | Links

Site copyright © 1997-2008, Jonathan Broxton/Movie Music UK. This page copyright © 2008. All rights reserved. The reviews and articles contained herein may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of the author. Some artwork and multimedia material are © various record labels and artists. All photos, multimedia and album artwork used are for non-profit making, promotional purposes, and no copyright infringement is intended.