Background

Franz Waxman was born Franz Wachsmann at K"nigshütte in Upper Silesia, Germany (now Chorozów, Poland), the son of Otto Wachsmann, a salesman for the steel industry, and Rosalie Perl. His father actively discouraged his son's desire for a musical career. But Wachsmann, who had attained a respectable pianistic ability by the age of twelve, was adamant. After serving briefly as a bank teller, he switched to full-time musical study at the age of sixteen.

Education

In 1923 he enrolled at the Dresden Music Academy, but shortly thereafter he switched to the more ambitious program of the Berlin Conservatory.

Career

In Berlin he pursued composition and conducting studies by day while supporting himself as a café pianist by night. Wachsmann's association with the popular Weintraub Syncopaters brought him into contact with the composer Friedrich Hollaender, who enlisted him to work in the new field of providing music for the sound cinema. One of Wachsmann's very first assignments at the UFA studios in Berlin was to orchestrate and conduct Hollaender's music for The Blue Angel (1930), which became an international success. His first major original score was for Fritz Lang's French-made Liliom (1933), for which he utilized chorus, orchestra, and the ondes martenot, probably the first use of an electronic instrument in films. In 1933, Wachsmann, who was Jewish, was beaten by a Nazi youth gang on a Berlin street. Shortly thereafter he moved to Paris and then the United States when the German producer Erich Pommer invited him to work on Music in the Air (1934) in Hollywood. It was on his arrival in the United States that he adopted the spelling "Waxman. " Waxman became an American citizen in 1939. In Hollywood, Waxman was soon asked by the director James Whale to score his sequel to Frankenstein. Whereas earlier films in Universal's nascent horror cycle had largely employed late-romantic classics, Waxman composed for The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) a completely original symphonic score that became a landmark in the developing art of film music. Its themes became familiar to millions when Universal recycled them in many subsequent films and in the Flash Gordon serials of the late 1930's. Waxman soon became music director of the Universal studios, where the most important film he scored during his brief tenure was Magnificent Obsession (1935); but he preferred composition to administrative work and soon resigned to work solely as a composer. Among his scores for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Selznick, and Warner Brothers were Captains Courageous (1937), Three Comrades (1938), Rebecca (1940), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), Suspicion (1941), Objective, Burma! (1945), and Humoresque (1947). It was in the 1950's, when Waxman worked on a free-lance basis, that his career blossomed fully. The demented tango that expresses a silent-movie queen's delusions in Sunset Boulevard (1950) and the haunting, rhapsodic saxophone music of A Place in the Sun (1951) are among his best-remembered works. Waxman received Academy Awards for each of these scores, the only composer to have been so honored in successive years. His other major works of the 1950's include the scores for The Silver Chalice (1954), Rear Window (1954), Sayonara (1957), and Peyton Place (1957). Crime in the Streets (1956) demonstrates Waxman's continuing fascination with American jazz, which he pioneered in Germany during his Weintraub period. The Spirit of St. Louis (1957) contains a brilliantly mechanistic fugal passage for the building of Lindbergh's airplane. The Nun's Story (1959), arguably his masterpiece, integrates Gregorian antiphons into a modern harmonic context to express the anguish of a woman's spiritual crisis. In all, Waxman scored nearly 200 films, plus a good deal of television. His last film was Lost Command (1966). Waxman was a strong believer in the use of tone color for its ability to alter mood instantaneously. His flair for unusual instrumentation - such as the electric violin in Suspicion and the solo piccolo in Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man (1962) -plus the intense angularity of his style (Prokofiev has been cited as a major influence) made Waxman a particularly effective composer for films of psychological disorientation (Rebecca, Suspicion, and Sunset Boulevard) and for stories of interior conflict (The Spirit of St. Louis and The Nun's Story). Nevertheless, he also had great success with such extravagant outdoor adventures as Prince Valiant (1954) and Taras Bulba (1962). Although Waxman never took a musical degree, he maintained his connection with the concert world throughout his life. In Europe, Bruno Walter furthered his career; in Hollywood he studied with Arnold Schoenberg. In 1947, Waxman founded the Los Angeles International Music Festival in order to bring contemporary music to the West Coast. This annual summer event at Royce Hall at the University of California at Los Angeles endured until the year of his death. Raising the funds himself - and contributing the proceeds from many of his film commissions -Waxman gave American or West Coast premieres of works by Mahler, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams, and many others. He also made numerous guest-conducting appear-ances in Western Europe, the Soviet Union, and Israel. Of his own concert compositions, the Carmen Fantasie (1947; first written for the film Humoresque) was recorded by Jascha Heifetz and achieved great popularity. The Sinfonietta for Strings and Timpani (1955) was also successful. Other works include the oratorio Joshua (1959); the song cycle The Song of Terezin (1965), on poems by young concentration-camp victims; and an unfinished opera based on his film music for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. During the last decade of his life Waxman resided for six months a year in New York City, accepting fewer film commissions in order to concentrate on his concert activities. He died in Los Angeles.

Achievements

• He is known primarily for his work in the film music genre. His film scores include Bride of Frankenstein, Rebecca, Sunset Boulevard, A Place in the Sun, Stalag 17, Rear Window, Peyton Place, The Nun's Story, and Taras Bulba. He received twelve Academy Award nominations, and won two Oscars in consecutive years (for Sunset Boulevard and A Place in the Sun). He also received a Golden Globe Award for the former film. He also composed concert works, including the oratorio Joshua (1959), and The Song of Terezin (1965), a work for orchestra, chorus, and children's chorus based upon poetry written by children in the Theresienstadt concentration camp during World War II. Waxman also founded the Los Angeles Music Festival in 1947 with which he conducted a number of West Coast premieres by fellow film composers, and concert composers alike.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Legends of Hollywood, Vol. 2: Franz Waxman

    (Track List: 1 Suite: Prelude; The Sheba Queen; Jamaica Wa...)

  • A Place in the Sun (Limited Edition Soundtrack)

    (It would be difficult to imagine A Place in the Sun witho...)

  • DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS - Original Soundtrack Recording

    (Demetrius and the Gladiators is limited to 1000 copies on...)

  • The Franz Waxman Collection

    ((P/V/G Composer Collection). Over 40 piano/vocal selectio...)

  • My Geisha: Music From the Motion Picture
  • Legends of Hollywood: Franz Waxman, Vol. 1
  • Legends Of Hollywood: Franz Waxman, Vol. 4 (Film Score Compilation)
  • Rebecca
  • Film Music of Franz Waxman (The Film Composers Series, Vol. 3)
  • Legends Of Hollywood: Franz Waxman, Volume Three (Film Score Compilation)
  • Bride Of Frankenstein - Music By Franz Waxman

Personality

Waxman was a passionately serious musician in a milieu where such qualities were not always appreciated. His music did not escape the condescension that was frequently bestowed on serious film music. For example, a Time critic in 1963 dismissed his Taras Bulba score as a mixture of "Showstakovich and Messorgsky and . Minsky-Korsetoff. " Yet, that music has since become sufficiently popular to have been recorded three times. Numerous other Waxman scores have been recorded or reissued since his death. Although only a few of his concert works have won favor, his stature as a film-music pioneer and champion of new music seems secure.

Connections

He married Alice Pauline Schachmann, another émigré and the former wife of attorney Alfred Apfel, in October 1934; they had one child. Waxman's first wife died in 1957, and in August 1958, he married the pianist Lella Saenger-Sethe. They were divorced in 1965.

Father:

Otto Wachsmann

A salesman for the steel industry

Mother:

Rosalie Perl

Spouse:

Lella Saenger-Sethe

Spouse:

Alice Pauline Schachmann