Alfred Newman
Alfred Newman (1901-1970) was, for much of his career, the most influential and respected composer and music director in Hollywood. His 44 Oscar nominations and nine Academy Awards are both records that are unlikely ever to be broken. The first-born of ten children to an impoverished produce seller in New Haven, CT, Newman manifested his musical interests very early, and by the age of eight was well-known locally as a piano prodigy. He played for virtuoso Jan Ignace Paderewski, who arranged a New York recital for the boy, and a performing career seemed in the offing, until he was forced to begin earning a living for his family. Newman worked his way up from vaudeville to the orchestra pit of the Broadway theaters, and eventually became an established conductor and arranger known and respected by all of the best composers, including Irving Berlin. When Berlin was brought to Hollywood at the dawn of the sound era, he arranged for Newman to come with him. There he was taken on by movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn and United Artists, and established himself as one of the movie capitol's two undisputed masters of music (the other was Max Steiner). Soon, he also began working for 20th Century-Fox.
Newman spent the '30s scoring some of the most prestigious movies of the decade, including Street Scene, Dodsworth, Stella Dallas, Dead End, The Prisoner of Zenda, Gunga Din, and Young Mr. Lincoln, among many others. Even when he wasn't working on a particular movie, he was often approached by studio production heads in need of advice when the scoring of a movie ran into trouble. Following his installation as Fox's music director in 1940, Newman worked on How Green Was My Valley, Heaven Can Wait, Song of Bernadette, The Razor's Edge, Captain from Castille, The Robe, and Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, among numerous other films; and, equally telling in his capacity as head of the studio's music department, he assigned the scoring of Laura to David Raksin, who wrote an immortal piece of movie music, and Jane Eyre, Hangover Square, and The Day the Earth Stood Still to Bernard Herrmann. In 1959, he left Fox for a career as an independent artist, and in 1961 conducted the Oscar-nominated score to Flower Drum Song. The next year, he wrote what may be his most familiar film score, How the West Was Won, with lyricist Ken Darby.
Ironically, for all of his accumulated honors, Newman remains viewed as a far greater arranger and conductor than composer. He could assimilate folk tunes or pseudo-folk tunes, as in How Green Was My Valley and How the West Was Won, and transform them into orchestral/choral works of tremendous power, and take a good original melody or two and turn them into something haunting and memorable, as in The Razor's Edge or The Robe. His compositions, however, lacked the boldness or adventurousness of Bernard Herrmann's or Miklos Rozsa's most inspired work -- his was tonal and accessible music that didn't demand too much of the viewer. But it was the palatable nature of Newman's music, coupled with his diplomatic skills, that helped him achieve his success. His scores were accessible without being trite, original in execution as film music without being jarring or troubling, and his affable nature, in contrast the the volatile, neurotic Herrmann or the seemingly aloof Rozsa, made him a favorite of studio executives. And all of that made his word about music the law in Hollywood for close to 30 years. He died in 1970, and his final soundtrack, for George Seaton's mega-hit Airport, became the last of Newman's 44 Oscar nominations.
© Bruce Eder /TiVo
Artistes similaires
-
Love Is a Many Splendored Thing
Musiques du monde - Paru chez TP4 Music le 6 janv. 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
好莱坞的声音
Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra, Alfred Newman
Classique - Paru chez Music Manager le 21 juin 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Classic Soundtracks: My Friend Flicka (1943 Film Score)
Bandes originales - Paru chez Classic Soundtracks le 4 mai 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Film Music
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez Music Manager le 12 oct. 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Best Collection
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez Music Manager le 17 avr. 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Best of Everything (Ost) [1959]
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez Classic Soundtrack Collector le 19 févr. 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Bravados (Original Soundtrack) [1962]
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez Classic Soundtrack Collector le 1 févr. 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake (Original Soundtrack) [1942]
Alfred Newman, Twentieth Century Fox Orchestra, Twentieth Century Fox Chorus
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez Classic Soundtrack Collector le 17 sept. 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Destination Gobi (Original Soundtrack) [1953]
Sol Kaplan, Alfred Newman, Twentieth Century Fox Orchestra
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez Classic Soundtrack Collector le 3 sept. 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Three Faces of Eve (Original Soundtrack) [1957]
Robert Emmett Dolan, Alfred Newman, Lionel Newman
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez Classic Soundtrack Collector le 25 juill. 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Keys of the Kingdom (Ost) [1944]
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez Classic Soundtrack Collector le 25 juill. 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Miracle on 34th Street (Ost) [1947]
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez Classic Soundtrack Collector le 25 juill. 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Diary of Anne Frank (Original Soundtrack) [1959]
Twentieth Century-Fox Studio Orchestra
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez Classic Soundtrack Collector le 16 juill. 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Anastasia (Ost) [1956]
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez Classic Soundtrack Collector le 10 juill. 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Hallelujah!
Brass Of The Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra, Georg Friedrich Händel, Alfred Newman
Classique - Paru chez Music Manager le 26 mars 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Confectioner's
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez fsp analog le 25 mars 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Be With Me
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez obligat music le 27 nov. 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Main Title / The Café / Theatre Lobby / Night / The Portrait / Apartment House / The Party / Waldo / End Title (From "Laura" Original Soundtrack)
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez Soundtrack Records le 22 févr. 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Overture (From "The Mark of Zorro" Original Soundtrack)
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez Soundtrack Records le 21 mars 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Robe Suite (Original Soundtrack Theme)
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez Soundtrack Records le 22 févr. 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Captain From Castile
Bandes originales - Paru chez Hollywood le 1 janv. 1947
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo