Dimitri Tiomkin

Legacy

Dimitri Tiomkin, although born in Ukraine and trained in Russia, has been credited with composing the most memorable film songs ever produced by Hollywood. During the 1950s he was the highest paid film composer, composing for nearly a picture each month, achieving his greatest fame during the 1950s and 1960s. Between 1948 and 1958, his "golden decade," he composed 57 film scores. During the single year of 1952, he composed 9 film scores, including High Noon, for which he won two Academy Awards. In the same decade, he won two more Oscars and his film scores were nominated nine times.

Beginning with Lost Horizon in 1937, through his retirement from movies in 1979 over four decades later, and up until modern times, he is recognized as being the only Russian to have become a Hollywood film composer. Other Russian-born composers, such as Irving Berlin, wrote their scores for Broadway plays, many of which were later adapted to film.

Tiomkin was the first film score composer to write both the title theme song and the score. That technique was exemplified in many of his westerns, including High Noon and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, where the main theme song became a common thread running through the entire film. For the film Red River, for example, his biographer Christopher Palmer describes how the music immediately sets the epic and heroic tone for the film:

"The unison horn-call is indeed an invocation: the gates of history are flung wide and the main theme, high and wide as the huge vault of the sky, rides forth in full choral-orchestral splendour."

Because of this stylistic contribution to westerns, along with other film genres, using title and ongoing theme songs, he had the greatest impact on Hollywood films in the following decades up until the present. With many of his songs being used in the title of films, Tiomkin created what composer Irwin Bazelon called "title song mania." In subsequent decades, studios often attempted to create their own hit songs to both sell as a soundtrack and to enhance the movie experience, with a typical example being the film score for Titanic.

He was known to use "source music" in his scores, which some experts claim were often based on Russian folk songs. Much of his film music, especially for westerns, was used to create an atmosphere of "broad, sweeping landscapes," with a prominent use of chorus. During a TV interview, he credited his love of the European classic composers along with his ability to adapt American folk music styles to creating grand American theme music.

A number of Tiomkin's film scores were released on LP soundtrack albums, including Giant and The Alamo. Some of the recordings, which usually featured Tiomkin conducting his own music, have been reissued on CD. The theme song to High Noon has been recorded by many artists, with one German CD producer, Bear Family Records, producing a CD with 25 different artists performing that one song.

In 1999, the U.S. Postal Service added his image to their "Legends of American Music" stamp series. The series began with the issuance of the Elvis Presley in 1993, and Tiomkin's image was added as part of their "Hollywood Composers" selection.

In 1976, RCA Victor released Lost Horizon: The Classic Film Scores of Dimitri Tiomkin (US catalogue #ARL1-1669, UK catalogue #GL 43445) with Charles Gerhardt and the National Philharmonic Orchestra. Featuring highlights from various Tiomkin scores, the album was later reissued by RCA on CD with Dolby Surround Sound.

The American Film Institute ranked Tiomkin's score for High Noon #10 on their list of the greatest film scores. His scores for the following films were also nominated for the list: