Broadway cum Rakhmaninov
East European Composers in Hollywood
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Hollywood film music is a melting pot of popular hits and jazz, of European symphony, of opera, ballet, and Broadway show. It was above all emigrants from Europe who created this music, which belongs to American cultural identity. The melodic models and orchestral effects for pro-ducing melodramatic scenes with emotionally stirring sound are to be found in the works of Rakhmaninov and Chaikovskii. There is a subtle irony in the fact that America’s most beautiful “native songs”, the most popular western songs, were penned at the height of the Cold War by Dimitri Tiomkin, who had learned his trade in St. Petersburg.
(Osteuropa 5/2007, pp. 23–42)