In 1925, the duo received an offer from the New York theatrical producer
Morris Gest and emigrated to the United States. They performed together on the
Keith/
Albee and
Orpheum vaudeville circuits, in which they accompanied a ballet troupe run by the Austrian ballerina
Albertina Rasch. Tiomkin and Rasch's professional relationship evolved into a personal one, and they married in 1927. While in New York, Tiomkin gave a recital at
Carnegie Hall that featured contemporary music by
Maurice Ravel,
Alexander Scriabin,
Francis Poulenc, and
Alexandre Tansman. He and his new wife went on tour to Paris in 1928, where he played the European premiere of American
George Gershwin's
Concerto in F at the
Paris Opera, with Gershwin in the audience. After the stock market crash in October 1929 reduced work opportunities in New York, Tiomkin and his wife moved to Hollywood, where she was hired to supervise dance numbers in
MGM film musicals.
Working for Frank Capra (1937–1946) Tiomkin received his first break from
Columbia director
Frank Capra, who chose him to write and perform the score for
Lost Horizon (1937). In his autobiography, ''Please Don't Hate Me!'' (1959), Tiomkin recalls how the assignment by Capra forced him to first confront a director in a matter of music style: He worked on other Capra films during the following decade, including the comedy ''
You Can't Take It With You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Meet John Doe (1941), and It's a Wonderful Life (1946). During World War II, he continued his close collaboration with Capra by composing scores for his Why We Fight'' series. These seven films were commissioned by the US government to show American soldiers the reason for United States' participation in the war. They were later released to the general US public to generate support for American involvement. According to film historian Arthur R. Jarvis Jr., the score "has been credited with saving the movie." Another music expert, Mervyn Cooke, agrees, adding that "the song's spectacular success was partly responsible for changing the course of film-music history". Tiomkin composed his entire score around this single western-style ballad. He also eliminated violins from the ensemble. He added a subtle harmonica in the background, to give the film a "rustic, deglamorized sound that suits the anti-heroic sentiments" expressed by the story. Tiomkin won two more Oscars in subsequent years: for
The High and the Mighty (1954), directed by
William A. Wellman, and featuring
John Wayne; and
The Old Man and the Sea (1958), adapted from an
Ernest Hemingway novel. During the 1955 ceremonies, Tiomkin thanked all of the earlier composers who had influenced him, including
Beethoven,
Tchaikovsky,
Rimsky-Korsakov, and other names from the European classical tradition. The composer worked again for Zinnemann on
The Sundowners (1960).
Film genres and other associations Many of his scores were for Western films, which were extremely popular in this period, and for which he is best remembered. His first Western was the
King Vidor-directed
Duel in the Sun (1946). In addition to
High Noon, among his other Westerns were
Giant (1956),
Friendly Persuasion (1956),
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), and
Last Train from Gun Hill (1959).
Rio Bravo (1959),
The Alamo (1960),
Circus World (1964) and
The War Wagon (1967) were made with the involvement of
John Wayne. Tiomkin received Oscar nominations for his scores in both
Giant and
The Alamo. He told TV host
Gig Young that his aim in creating the score for
Giant was to capture the "feelings of the great land and great state of Texas." Although influenced by European music traditions, Tiomkin was self-trained as a film composer. He scored many films of various genres, including historical dramas such as
Cyrano de Bergerac (1950),
The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), and
Great Catherine (1968); war movies such as
The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955),
The Guns of Navarone (1961), and
Town Without Pity (1961); and suspense thrillers such as
36 Hours (1965). Tiomkin also wrote scores for four of
Alfred Hitchcock's suspense dramas:
Shadow of a Doubt (1943),
Strangers on a Train (1951),
I Confess (1953), and
Dial M for Murder (1954). Here he used a lush style relying on solo violins and muted trumpets. He composed the score for the science fiction thriller
The Thing from Another World (1951), which is considered his "strangest and most experimental score." He also appeared as a contestant on the October 20, 1955, episode of the TV quiz program
You Bet Your Life, hosted by
Groucho Marx. He composed the music to the song "
Wild Is The Wind". It was originally recorded by
Johnny Mathis for the film
Wild Is the Wind (1957).
Composition styles and significance Although Tiomkin was a trained classical pianist, he adapted his music training in Russia to the rapidly expanding Hollywood film industry, and taught himself how to compose meaningful film scores for almost any story type. Film historian David Wallace notes that despite Tiomkin's indebtedness to Europe's classical composers, he would go on to express more than any other composer, "the American spirit—its frontier spirit, anyway—in film music." Tiomkin alluded to this relationship in his autobiography:
Techniques of composing Tiomkin's methods of composing a film score have been analyzed and described by music experts. Musicologist Dave Epstein, for one, has explained that after reading the script, Tiomkin would then outline the film's major themes and movements. After the film itself had been filmed, he would make a detailed study of the timing of scenes, using a stopwatch to arrange precise synchronization of the music with the scenes. He would complete the final score after assembling all the musicians and orchestra, rehearse a number of times, and then record the final soundtrack. Tiomkin paid careful attention to the voices of the actors when composing. According to Epstein, he "found that in addition to the timbre of the voice, the pitch of the speaking voice must be very carefully considered...." To accomplish this, Tiomkin would go to the set during filming and would listen to each of the actors. He would also talk with them individually, noting the pitch and color of their voices. Tiomkin explains why he took the extra time with actors: ==Personal life and death==