1954 - BEST MUSIC
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- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Akira Ifukube was born on May 31, 1914 in Hokkaido, Japan. He was the third son of a chief constable (his grandfather was a priest of Shin-to) and spent a majority of his childhood in areas with a mixed Japanese and Ainu population. Therefore, Ifukube was strongly influenced by their musical traditions and styles. As a result, he studied the violin. Later, he attended secondary school in Sapporo, and decided to become a composer at the age of 14 after hearing a radio performance of Igor Stravinsky's the Rite of Spring.
Ifukube studied forestry at Hokkaido University and composed music in his spare time. His first piece was the piano solo "Piano Suite" and his big break came in 1935, when his first orchestral piece, "Japanese Rhapsody," won first prize in an international contest for young composers promoted by Alexander Tcherepnin. In 1936, Ifukube studied modern Western composition while Tcherepnin was visiting Japan, and in 1938, Ifukube's piano suite obtained an honorable mention at the I.C.S.M. Festival in Venice, Italy. In the late 1930s his music, including "Japanese Rhapsody," was performed in areas throughout Europe.
After completing his studies, Ifukube worked as a forestry officer and lumber processor. Towards the end of World War II, he was appointed by the Japanese Imperial Army to study the elasticity and vibratory strength of wood. He suffered radiation exposure after carrying out x-rays without protection. As a result, Ifukube left forestry work and ultimately became a full-time professional music composer and teacher. From 1946 to 1953, he taught at the Nihon University College of Art. In 1947, after encouragement from a friend, Ifukube came to the Big Screen, and composed the music score for Toho Studio's Snow Trail (1947). Ifukube continued to compose music scores for many drama and comedy movies, many of them produced by Toho. However, classical music remained Ifukube's greatest passion. But yet, the world would probably remember him mostly as the man who brought music and soul to the King of the Monsters: Godzilla.
When producer Tomoyuki Tanaka, director Ishirô Honda and special effects man Eiji Tsuburaya of Toho Studios decided to make a movie about a gigantic monster brought to life by nuclear bomb testing, Godzilla was born. Having placed together all the elements for the intriguing and haunting monster film, Godzilla (1954), only one element was left: the music score. Thus, Akira Ifukube came into the picture. He created a somber and masterful score to match the on-screen drama. He went on to score eight Godzilla films in Toho's "Showa" Godzilla series. In addition to Godzilla, Ifukube also scored a number of other sci-fi films produced by Toho including "Rodan," "The Mysterians," "Atragon" and "Frankenstein Conquers the World."
A number of the Godzilla films contains the "Godzilla Theme," which will forever etch in fans' minds that this is Godzilla's musical cue, and the "Monster Battle Theme," which occur in several Godzilla films whenever monster attacks and battles erupt. Probably Ifukube's most memorable work in these sci-fi films is his "monster marches," which are militaristic and rousing. The film Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965) (Godzilla vs. Monster Zero) was once screened in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo, and the audience was stomping to its feet and clapping their hands to the rhythm - most of these were children who have not seen a Godzilla film in their lives.
Ifukube returned to teaching at the Tokyo College of Music in 1974, becoming president in 1976. In 1978, Ifukube retired from film work and in 1985, he became president of the college's ethnomusicology department. He trained younger generation composers such as Toshiro Mayuzumi, Yasushi Akutagawa and Kaoru Wada. He also published "Orchestration," a 1,000-page book on theory. The Japanese government awarded him the Order of Culture and the Order of the Sacred Treasures.
In 1984, after a nine-year hiatus, Toho revived the Godzilla series, and released Godzilla 1985 (1985), thus marked the beginning of the Godzilla "Heisei" series. Five years later, Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989) was released. The composer of the film, Kôichi Sugiyama asked Ifukube if he could use some of his Godzilla themes. He said yes, as long as he doesn't change it into "pop music," which Ifukube dislikes. So, his themes were used, but unfortunately, to the contrary of what Ifukube wished. His daughter told him that no matter how much he stays away from scoring another Godzilla film, his themes will always be heard. So, she suggested that he score the next Godzilla film. Taking his daughter's suggestion into consideration, and after Toho came knocking on his door again, Ifukube came out of retirement; he scored the next three Godzilla films. He brought his classic Godzilla themes with him, utilizing the recognizable "Godzilla Theme" and "Monster Battle Theme" where appropriate, and backed with larger orchestras and enhanced with modern-day digital recording techniques.
Ifukube was usually only given a short amount of time to score a movie. He was given only three days to score Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993). After that film was completed, Ifukube said that he couldn't possibly score any more Godzilla films, especially at his advanced age. Therefore, fellow composer Takayuki Hattori scored the next film, Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994). He was going to take over the reins, but producer Tanaka decided to make one last Godzilla movie. And, what would be more appropriate than to have Akira Ifukube provide Godzilla's final musical bow? Ifukube agreed, and scored Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995). The score for this film is a blending of haunting music, rousing marches and a heartbreaking requiem. Ifukube stated that he regarded this film score as his best work. The rushed job that Ifukube experienced while writing these monster film scores became his magnum opus. Godzilla was a huge part of his life, and Ifukube stated that writing music for the monster was like writing music for his own. Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995) was not only the last Godzilla film of the "Heisei" series and the last Godzilla film Tanaka produced, but was Ifukube's last musical work in films. After the film was completed, Ifukube resumed retirement, this time for good.
Ifukube was known as the "John Williams" of Japan, and became one of cinema's finest composers. He passed away in Tokyo on February 8, 2006 at age 91.- Composer
- Writer
- Music Department
During his roughly 15-year-long career, Fumio Hayasaka composed scores for some of the biggest names in Japanese cinema and was regarded by many as the finest Japanese film composer alive. Many of his scores were written for no less a cinematic luminary than Akira Kurosawa, including the legendary director's breakthrough multiple-perspective masterpiece "Rashomon" (1950). The brilliant composer's career was sadly cut short by tuberculosis in 1955, but his influence lives on not only in the still-watched films that bear his musical mark, but also in the work of the pupils he groomed as his successors. One such protégé, Masuru Sato, completed the score for Kurosawa's "I Live in Fear: Record of a Living Being" (1955), the project on which Hayasaka was working at the time of his death. Sato went on to provide scores for a substantial portion of Kurosawa's subsequent films. Another composer whose career owes a debt to Hayasaka is Akira Ifukube, whose work has enhanced the dramatic effect of many a "Godzilla" motion picture. It was Hayasaka who recommended Ifukube to Toho Studios.- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Austrian composer Max Steiner achieved legendary status as the creator of hundreds of classic American film scores. He was born Maximilian Raoul Walter Steiner in Vienna, Austria, the son of Marie Mizzi (Hasiba) and Gabor Steiner, an impresario, and the grandson of actor and theater director and manager Maximilian Steiner. His family was Jewish. As a child, he was astonishingly musically gifted, composing complex works as a teenager and completing the course of study at Vienna's Hochschule fuer Musik und Darstellende Kunst in only one year, at the age of sixteen. He studied under Gustav Mahler and, before the age of twenty, made his living as a conductor and as composer of works for the theater, the concert hall, and vaudeville. After a brief sojourn in Britian, Steiner moved to the USA in the same wave as fellow film composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold and quickly became a sought-after orchestrator and conductor on Broadway, bringing the Western classical tradition in which he had been raised to mainstream audiences.
He was soon snatched up by the film studios with the advent of sound and helped the fledgling talkies become musically sophisticated within a brief few years. He was one of the first to fully integrate the musical score with the images on-screen and to score individual scenes for their content and create leitmotifs for individual characters, as opposed to simply providing vaguely appropriate mood music, as evidenced in King Kong (1933), which set the standard for American film music for years to come.
From the 1930s to the 1960s, he was one of the most respected, innovative, and brilliant composers of American film music, creating a truly staggering number of exceptional scores for films of all types. He was nominated for Academy Awards for his scores eighteen times and won three times. Years after his death in 1971, he remains one of the giants of motion picture history, and his music still thrives.- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Violinist and conductor Victor Young was a prolific composer and arranger, who worked on more than 300 film scores over a period of twenty years. He came from an impoverished, but musical background and was trained on the violin at the Warsaw Imperial Conservatory, later studying piano in Paris under the French master Isidor Philipp. A prodigious talent, Young made his professional debut as a teenager with the Warsaw Philharmonic. However, World War I intervened, and he spent several months interned in a prison facility in Russia. Somehow, he was able to escape. By 1920, he had found his way to the United States and resumed work as a violinist with the Central Park Casino Orchestra in Chicago. He also diversified as an arranger and conductor for radio and the theatre. His first connection with the film industry came about, when he secured a position as assistant director with the Balaban and Katz cinema chain, writing and arranging as many as five (silent) film scores a week.
During the late 1920's, Young was back as musical director for 'Harvest of Stars' on radio, and as a talent scout for Edison Records. He briefly arranged for bandleader Ted Fio Rito before fronting his own orchestra in 1935, backed by a recording deal with Decca. He worked with many of the great vocalists of the period, including Judy Garland, Lee Wiley and The Boswell Sisters. His high profile brought him to the attention of Paramount, where he was signed to a one-year contract in 1936. He worked for the studio again between 1940 and 1949, but, by that time, his reputation had become so formidable that he came to be regarded as the pre-eminent film composer, and assigned the lion's share of A-grade features. His music subtly and seamlessly integrated into dramas like Reap the Wild Wind (1942), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), So Evil My Love (1948), John Ford's The Quiet Man (1952) and the western classic Shane (1953).
Young also wrote countless evergreen songs, many for top-flight singers, like Bing Crosby. His first big hit was "Sweet Sue" (popularly recorded by Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra), followed by the melodic jazz standard "Stella by Starlight" (which served as the theme for The Uninvited (1944)) and the ballad "When I Fall in Love" (a huge hit for Nat 'King' Cole, who featured the song in the movie Istanbul (1957)). For Broadway, Young wrote both music and lyrics for "Seventh Heaven", in 1955. Nominated for a staggering 22 Academy Awards, Young had his only win (for Around the World in 80 Days (1956)), rather sadly, after his sudden death from a stroke at the age of 56. It has been suggested, that his film compositions, while polished, lacked the élan or authoritative stamp of a Max Steiner or a Bernard Herrmann. Nonetheless, the sheer volume and enduring popularity of Young's music ensure his immortality among the ranks of the great songwriters and film composers of the 20th century.