Early life (1906–1934) Waxman was born Franz Wachsmann () 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
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, Waxman, however, was more interested in composition than musical direction for film, and in 1936 he left Universal to become a composer at
MGM.
Rebecca was Hitchcock's first Hollywood film as part of his contract with
David O. Selznick, and thus it was the first time he was allowed a full symphonic score. In 1943, Waxman left MGM and moved to
Warner Bros., where he worked alongside such great film composers as
Max Steiner and
Erich Wolfgang Korngold. A period of extended composition followed, including such films as
Mr. Skeffington (1944) and
Objective, Burma! (1945). In 1947, Waxman formed the Los Angeles Music Festival, for which he served as music director and conductor for the rest of his life. Waxman's goal with the LA Music Festival was to bring the thriving town to "European cultural standards", according to Tony Thomas.
Post-war film scores (1947–1959) By 1947, Waxman had left Warner Bros., to become a freelance film composer, taking only the jobs he wanted rather than being appointed by the studio. Waxman had used classical forms before: the climactic "Creation" cue from
The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), as
Christopher Palmer expresses it, "is in effect a fantasia on one note." His work on
Sunset Boulevard (1950) led to an
Academy Award. The score is fast-paced and powerful, utilizing various techniques to highlight the insanity of Norma Desmond, including low pulsing notes (first heard in
The Bride of Frankenstein) and frequent trills. According to Mervyn Cooke,
Richard Strauss's opera
Salome was the inspiration for the wild trills heard during Desmond's insane final performance. Waxman received a second consecutive Oscar for
A Place in the Sun (1951). However, while awards for film music highlighted the beginning of the 1950s, Waxman now began to write serious works for the concert hall. The Sinfonietta for Strings and Timpani came in 1955 and 1959 saw the completion of Waxman's oratorio
Joshua.
Later life (1960–1967) Waxman's later life saw continuing growth of his reputation as a composer.
Christopher Palmer writes that at the time of his death in 1967, "Waxman was at the zenith of his powers." Waxman's output in the 1960s was perhaps more subdued than that which came before it, however he did write
Taras Bulba in 1962. Waxman worked on several television shows, including
Gunsmoke, in 1966.
The Song of Terezín (1964–65) was based upon poetry by children trapped in the Nazi's
Theresienstadt concentration camp. The work is composed for mixed chorus, children's chorus, soprano soloist, and orchestra. Waxman died from cancer in February 1967, two months after his sixtieth birthday. His legacy contains over 150 film scores and an abundant collection of concert works.
Legacy Some of Waxman's music has been featured on commercial recordings, both on
LP and CD.
Charles Gerhardt and the
National Philharmonic Orchestra played highlights from various Waxman scores for an
RCA Victor recording in the early 1970s that utilized
Dolby surround sound. Twenty years later, Australian composer and conductor
Richard Mills (b. 1949) recorded an anthology of film suites with the Queensland Symphony for the record label Varèse-Sarabande (VSD5242/5257/5480/5713) which were (as the Gerhardt above) produced by George Korngold, son of
Erich Wolfgang Korngold, a colleague of Waxman, as well as another pioneer of the "Hollywood sound". The music for
Taras Bulba has been recorded by the [City of Prague Philharmonic/Nic Raine, on 2 cd Tadlow013-2] The
American Film Institute ranked Waxman's
score for Sunset Boulevard No. 16 on
their list of the greatest film scores. His scores for the following films were also nominated for the list: •
Bride of Frankenstein (1935) •
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) • ''
The Nun's Story'' (1959) •
Peyton Place (1957) •
The Philadelphia Story (1940) •
A Place in the Sun (1951) •
Rebecca (1940) •
Sayonara (1957) •
The Spirit of St. Louis (1957) •
Taras Bulba (1962) == Filmography ==