Four Centuries of Great Music April 27, 2025 Concert Music by Film Composers Episode 3

Concert Music by Film Composers Episode 3

Today on Four Centuries of Great Music is the third episode of my series featuring the concert music of composers known as film composers.  Today I will be exploring he concert music and film music of Franz Waxman and Thomas Newman.

Franz Waxman was born in 1906 in Königshütte to Jewish parents in the German Empire's Prussian Province of Silesia (now Chorzów, Poland)..  At the age of three Waxman suffered a serious eye injury involving boiling water tipped from a stove, which left his vision permanently impaired.  In 1923, at age 16, Waxman enrolled in the Dresden Music Academy and studied composition and conducting. Waxman lived from the money he made playing popular music and managed to put himself through school.  While working as a pianist with the Weintraub Syncopators, a dance band, Waxman met  film composer Frederick Hollander, who eventually introduced Waxman to the eminent conductor Bruno Walter.

Waxman worked as an orchestrator for the German film industry, including on Hollander's score for The Blue Angel (1930). One of his first dramatic scores was for the film Liliom (1934). That year Waxman suffered a severe beating by Nazi sympathizers in Berlin that led him to leave Germany and move with his wife first to Paris, and soon after to Hollywood.

The success of his score for Bride of Frankenstein (1935) led to the young composer's appointment as Head of Music at Universal Studios. Waxman, however, was more interested in composition than musical direction for film, and in 1936 he left Universal to become a composer at MGM.   Waxman scored a number of pictures during the next few years, but the score for Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca  made his name. In 1943, Waxman left MGM and moved toWarner Bros., where he worked alongside such great film composers as Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold.  After a series of successes at Warner Bros, he left in 1947 to become a freelance film composer and in 1950 and 1951 he won back to back Oscars for Sunset Boulevard and  A Place in the Sun.  In the 1950s and early 1960s he began composing more concert music

Bernard Herrmann said that Waxman’s score for Taras Bulba was "the score of a lifetime.”

The Song of Terezín written in 1964–65 was based upon poetry by children trapped in the Nazi's Theresienstadt concentration camp.   Perhaps Waxman's deep spiritual connection to the subject came from his own encounters with Nazism on a Berlin street in 1934, but whatever the reason for Waxman's deep commitment to the subject, The Song of Terezín stands as the exemplary work of the composer's life.   The work is composed for mixed chorus, children's chorus, soprano soloist, and orchestra.

It is composed in 8 movements:
Franz Waxman: Das Lied von Terezin:  An einem sonnigen Abend
Franz Waxman: Das Lied von Terezin:  Versunken
Franz Waxman: Das Lied von Terezin:  Das Mauschen
Franz Waxman: Das Lied von Terezin:  Vogellied
Franz Waxman: Das Lied von Terezin:  Es is Zeit
Franz Waxman: Das Lied von Terezin:  Dachbodenkonzert in einer alten Schule
Franz Waxman: Das Lied von Terezin:  Der Garten
Franz Waxman: Das Lied von Terezin:   Finale (Die Furcht)

Della Jones, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin & Lawrence Foster
Waxman: The Song of Terezin - Zeisl: Requiem Ebraico
Decca Classics


Since Bernard Herrmann thought so much of Waxman’s score for Taras Bulba, let listen to music from that score here performed by The Richard Hayman Orchestra from the album Great Hollywood Epics

Franz Waxman: Taras Bulba
The Richard Hayman Orchestra
Great Hollywood Epics
Naxos

Was born in 1955 as the youngest son of film composer Alfred Newman.  Alfred Newman and his family have been nominated for 95 academy awards in various musical categories and have won 9 Oscars.  The family includes his older brother David Newman, younger sister Maria Newman, uncles Lionel Newman and Emil Newman, cousin Randy Newman, and his first cousin once removed, Joey Newman.

Newman studied composition and orchestration for two years at the University of Southern California, before transferring to Yale University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1977 and a Master of Music in 1978.  While at Yale, he met composer Stephen Sondheim, who became an early mentor.  Initially most interested in musical theater, he began film orchestration working with John Williams on “Return of the Jedi” in 1983 and film composing for the he film “Reckless” in 1984.  In 1994, he received his first Academy Award nomination with the score for The Shawshank Redemption.  




Thomas Newman:  The Shawshank Redemption from The Shawshank Redemption

Thomas Newman:  End Title from The Shawshank Redemption
Thomas Newman
The Shawshank Redemption
Sony/BMG Entertainment


Thomas Newman: Of Mice and Men - Bindle Stiffs
Thomas Newman: Of Mice and Men - Beans with Ketchup
Thomas Newman: Of Mice and Men - Jackson Fork
Thomas Newman: Of Mice and Men - Her
Thomas Newman: Of Mice and Men - Jerkline Skinner
Thomas Newman: Of Mice and Men - Weed
Thomas Newman: Of Mice and Men - Bucking Grain
Thomas Newman: Of Mice and Men - Punk
Thomas Newman: Of Mice and Men - The Swamper
Thomas Newman: Of Mice and Men - Bright Cotton Dress
Thomas Newman: Of Mice and Men - Roll your Hoop
Thomas Newman: Of Mice and Men - Crooks
Thomas Newman: Of Mice and Men - Tin Can Shotgun
Thomas Newman: Of Mice and Men - Red Mules
Thomas Newman: Of Mice and Men - A Real Bad Thing
Of Mice and Men (Music from the Original Ballet)
Sony