(Introductory music to the program)
Harry Mannis: Good evening and welcome to Themes and Variations. I'm Harry Mannis ...
(There is seemingly a gap here, then we hear the opening of Rózsa's Opus 13. The record is very scratchy.)
Mannis: This is the opening statement of Miklós Rózsa's most successful concert work, his Theme, Variations, and Finale, Opus 13, written in 1934, when he was a struggling 27-year-old Hungarian living in Paris.
This composition helped open up opportunities. Rózsa's Theme, Variations, and Finale won the approval of the lofty world of contemporary music in pre-war Europe, although there was no guarantee of either success or a comfortable income. Both would come some years later when Rózsa discovered the business of film composition.
He scored several pictures for Sir Alexander Korda in the late 30s, but it wasn't until Rózsa moved to Hollywood in 1940 that he started to enjoy the life of a composer with a solid income. In time, his main problem would be in trying to keep alive his name as a composer for the concert hall, no mean trick in the music business, where a snobbish attitude has always prevailed against any serious composer who deigned to write for the cinema. Rózsa did indeed manage, and he did it by not considering film music as something to be sloughed off just for money.
Rózsa's film scores are somewhat simpler than his concert works, but the standard of craftsmanship is the same. And his work for films helped raise the standards in the art of film scoring. Rózsa also, perhaps to the chagrin of composers who lacked the knack, had the gift of melody, of being able to write pleasing tunes. This met with the approval of the movie producers, who liked the customers to come away humming the main theme. This definitely was the case in 1946 with Spellbound, which brought Rózsa his first Oscar.
(Music from Spellbound is heard.)
Miklós Rózsa, born April 18th, 1907 in Budapest. The composer of some 60 motion picture scores. and almost as many pieces of chamber music, concert pieces, concerti, and ballets. Rózsa, more than any other composer, has worked with one foot in the concert halls and the other in the movie sound stages, and he's done it and managed to keep a balance between the two and won the respect of both.
However, there is no doubt that which avenue has been the more profitable. Rózsa's hilltop home in Hollywood is clearly that of an affluent cultured gentleman. His collection of 17th century Dutch and Flemish oil paintings, Rembrandt etchings, Roman sculptures of the first and second centuries guard him against any possible poverty in the future.
His reputation in music makes him, after Kodály and Bartók, the foremost Hungarian composer of his time. Miklós Rózsa.
(Interview with Tony Thomas is heard. Click on the arrow if the file doesn't start automatically.)
Mannis: That profile of Miklós Rózsa was prepared by Tony Thomas. And so we conclude Themes and Variations for this evening.