There Once Was A Cowboy From Russia
Sounds like the opening of a Saturday night bar
joke, doesnt it? But it isnt. There really once was a
cowboy who hailed from the land of borsch soup
and babushka dolls. His name was Dimitri Tiomkin
and he was one of the finest Hollywood composers
of the 1940s and 1950s; the golden age of
Hollywood music.
Like so many Russians, Dmitri Tiomkin immigrated to
Western Europe after the wrenching violence and
politics of the Russian Revolution. The young
Tiomkin was featured in a variety of playbills,
including being a piano soloist with the great Berlin
Philharmonic. Traveling on to Paris, the City of
Lights, he became popular for performing contemporary
Russian, German and French musical works.
And in that extraordinary creative milieu of art
and life, Tiomkin first encountered a lifelong love
American jazzand gave the brilliant premire
European performance of Gershwins Concerto in F
Major to raves from critics and audiences alike.
Then Hollywood knocked at his door. Tiomkin
sold several original jazz compositions to Metro
Goldwyn Mayer. After playing Carnegie Hall and
other prestigious venuesas the Great Depression
hit with full forceTiomkin and his first wife,
Albertina Rasch, set out for Tinseltown, where they
had been invited to produce ballet numbers for
films. But ever shrewd, he soon saw an exceptional
opportunity in film music, a new art for the new
technology of talking motion pictures. Tiomkin
composed a score for an early version of
Resurrection (1931) and a charming adaptation of
Alice in Wonderland (1933).
Hollywood was still comparatively primitive. One
day I looked out my bedroom window and saw a
man running along the street and a policeman
chasing him and shooting. The fugitive fell and a
splotch of red appeared on the pavement.
Wonderful, I thoughtHollywood realism. Then I
noticed there wasnt any camera ...
Dimitri Tiomkin
Tiomkins first great opportunity as a film
composer came in 1937, when a short, rapid-fire
cinematic genius named Frank Capra took a chance
on a Russian composer to score a major epicthe
Columbia Pictures production of James Hiltons
popular book, Lost Horizon. It was a creative
benchmark for Tiomkin and the beginning of a
special association with Caprathe music for Lost
Horizon remains one of the greatest scores ever
written for a film. Capras influence on Tiomkin was
considerable. The director loved American music
standards and folk songs. It was a powerful way to
connect an idea and an emotion with audiences.
When John Wayne poured his heart and
personal fortune into filming The Alamo (1960), he
looked to Dimitri Tiomkin for music. For Wayne,
the composer created one of the greatestand most
admiredscores of all-time.
But Tiomkin was much more than a composer
of music for Westerns; he wrote superb scores for
virtually every sort of Hollywood film. For the next
twenty years, Tiomkins name would stand as a
keystone to the success of some of Hollywoods
greatest films by its greatest directorsnotably
Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, William
Wellman, George Stevens and Stanley Kramer.
more....
Discography
