The end of this period (film music communities often speak of a ”Golden Age” and ”Silver Age” of film scores, which are eras rather than quality judgements), is somewhat hard to determine, but I’m choosing to omit composers who rose to prominence after 1960, such as Jerry Goldsmith, John Barry, Maurice Jarre, and so forth.
Obviously, some of the included composers straddle the border because they continued their career past the Golden Age, Elmer Bernstein or Alex North being a notable examples (and particularly North was a pioneer in changing styles, making him a very borderline inclusion here).
As for my own choices, Miklos Rozsa is a clear top favorite of mine, particularly his epics like ’Ben-Hur’ or ’El Cid’. Beyond him, the sugary ”wall of strings” style of Alfred Newman is achingly beautiful (his love themes and religious film scores are great), Franz Waxman has a nice chameleonic quality, Bernard Herrmann was more inventive than most others on this list, and Hugo Friedhofer seems like a nice stylistic midway point between Waxman and Newman.
I feel bad about excluding Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Elmer Bernstein and Alex North, so honorable mentions to them (and if asked on another day, I might easily choose North or Korngold over Waxman or Friedhofer).
Dimitri Tiomkin worked the best in more operatic or larger-than-life films, flailing a bit in smaller films (notably, his Hitchcock scores are far inferior to those of Herrmann), and Max Steiner is sometimes guilty of too much musical mickey-mousing rather than scoring the overall feeling or subtext of a scene. But overall I really like both of them.
Obviously, some of the included composers straddle the border because they continued their career past the Golden Age, Elmer Bernstein or Alex North being a notable examples (and particularly North was a pioneer in changing styles, making him a very borderline inclusion here).
As for my own choices, Miklos Rozsa is a clear top favorite of mine, particularly his epics like ’Ben-Hur’ or ’El Cid’. Beyond him, the sugary ”wall of strings” style of Alfred Newman is achingly beautiful (his love themes and religious film scores are great), Franz Waxman has a nice chameleonic quality, Bernard Herrmann was more inventive than most others on this list, and Hugo Friedhofer seems like a nice stylistic midway point between Waxman and Newman.
I feel bad about excluding Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Elmer Bernstein and Alex North, so honorable mentions to them (and if asked on another day, I might easily choose North or Korngold over Waxman or Friedhofer).
Dimitri Tiomkin worked the best in more operatic or larger-than-life films, flailing a bit in smaller films (notably, his Hitchcock scores are far inferior to those of Herrmann), and Max Steiner is sometimes guilty of too much musical mickey-mousing rather than scoring the overall feeling or subtext of a scene. But overall I really like both of them.