The Honorary List of Names to Remember

As a film music lover I see a lot of composers leaving this mortal plane these days. As regrettable as that is, it is also part of the human condition. But to assuage that tremendous feeling of loss, said composers leave an incredible body of work behind that will keep on shining for years.

Miklos Rosza for instance (1907-1995) who wrote a great many scores of classic Hollywood days, as well as QUO VADIS, KING OF KINGS and BEN HUR, wrote music well into the 1970s.


Alex North (1910-1991) was a composer who put all of his intellect into his music and this showed. For A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE he used jazz in his music to delineate the steamy climate of the tale. After having scores Kubrick's SPARTACUS, Kubrick removed the score North composed for his science fiction epic 2001 A SPACE ODDYSSEY and replaced it with popular classical music. North's music however came back with a vengeance in the 1990s.


Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975)was a composer who loved to overdramatize things. In his career, highlights were the Hitchcock films as well as his Orson Welles films. In the last few years of his life he was being rediscovered by the younger generation of filmmakers such as Brian de Palma and Martin Scorsese.


Maurice Jarre (1924-2009) was a composer who, after many years of orchestral scoring, dared to go all synthesizer on us. WITNESS was one of his biggest hits but who can forget his scores for LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and DR ZHIVAGO for the David Lean classics?


Henry Mancini (1924-1994) was a musical genius who knew how to write for mood music, popular music (as in songs) as well as for dramatic music. His highlights were the film he scored for Blake Edwards, The Pink Panther films and lots of other comedies like Who Is Killing The Great Chiefs Of Europe.


Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004) was the composer of not only film music but of a whole style of Americana in his creating modern music for the American Western, after the generation of Dimitri Tiomkin and the like. Bernstein scored some great movies but one of his best is TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD.


Leonard Rosenman (1924-2008) was a composer who would just as easily have given up on Hollywood and composed serious classical music. But his success at scoring films like FANTASTIC VOYAGE and BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES led him to compose a great number of other scores. One of his best works was the ill-fated animated version of THE LORD OF THE RINGS that Ralph Bakshi produced in 1978. But he also scored STAR TREK IV THE VOYAGE HOME and Robocop 2.


Only last month we lost John Barry, composer of the music of 11 James Bond movies and many other exciting titles. Barry (1935-2011) also left an incredible amount of music behind ranging from THE KNACK to DANCES WITH WOLVES and beyond.


And last (for now) but certainly not least (of these), Jerry Goldsmith (my personal favorite) who worked in television and film from the 1950s til the early 2000s, was famous for having scored 5 out of the first 10 STAR TREK movies. Also Jerry Goldsmith influenced a great many other composers who followed him, but Jerry will never be forgotten.

I did not intend this to be a complete list. So if you think I forgot somebody, I am sorry. I just know that the above mentioned composers will be missed by me personally as I greatly admire their work. So in homage to them;

Gentlemen, you shall be remembered !!!!