Archive
Wilfred Josephs, 1927-1997
Composer Wilfred Josephs died at his home in London on November 17, 1997, at the age of 70.
One of the most prolific and versatile British composers of his generation, Josephs moved effortlessly between concert music, film and television, writing 12 symphonies and more than 20 concertos alongside scores for The Great War, Cider with Rosie, Swallows and Amazons, I, Claudius and All Creatures Great and Small.
Wilfred Josephs was born in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, on July 24, 1927, the youngest of four sons in a Jewish family. He showed considerable musical ability from childhood, studying locally with Arthur Milner, but his parents encouraged him towards a more secure profession. Josephs therefore trained as a dentist, qualifying from the University of Durham in 1951 and subsequently serving as an orthodontist during his National Service.
Music nevertheless remained his real ambition. Josephs studied at London’s Guildhall School of Music with Alfred Nieman and later received a Leverhulme Scholarship that allowed him to study in Paris with Max Deutsch, one of Arnold Schoenberg’s distinguished pupils. For several years he continued practising dentistry while composing whenever possible.
His breakthrough came with the Requiem, Op. 39, inspired by newsreel images of Auschwitz shown during the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Based on the Hebrew Kaddish and written in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, the work won first prize in the 1963 International Composition Competition organized by the City of Milan and La Scala. Its success finally allowed Josephs to abandon dentistry and become a full-time composer. Read more…
Saul Chaplin, 1912-1997
Composer, arranger, musical director and producer Saul Chaplin died in Los Angeles on November 15, 1997, at the age of 85, from injuries sustained in a fall.
One of the great behind-the-scenes craftsmen of Hollywood’s golden-age musical, Chaplin worked on some 60 films and won three Academy Awards, for An American in Paris, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and West Side Story.
Chaplin was born Saul Kaplan in Brooklyn, New York, on February 19, 1912. He studied accounting at New York University but spent his spare time playing piano and writing songs. After graduation he teamed with lyricist Sammy Cahn, beginning a highly successful Tin Pan Alley partnership whose songs included “Please Be Kind,” “Until the Real Thing Comes Along” and the English-language version of “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen,” which became an enormous hit for the Andrews Sisters.
Chaplin entered Hollywood during the 1940s, working at Columbia before moving to MGM in 1949. His expertise lay less in conventional dramatic scoring than in adapting, arranging and reshaping existing songs for the screen. He provided vocal arrangements for Al Jolson in The Jolson Story (1946), worked on Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra’s On the Town (1949), and arranged Judy Garland’s celebrated performance of “Get Happy” in Summer Stock (1950).
His first Academy Award came for Vincente Minnelli’s An American in Paris (1951), for which he and Johnny Green adapted and supervised George Gershwin’s music, culminating in the film’s famous extended ballet. The picture won six Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. Read more…
Remembering Angelo Francesco Lavagnino, 1909-1987
Composer Angelo Francesco Lavagnino died ten years ago today in Gavi, Italy, on August 21, 1987, at the age of 78.
One of the most prolific and versatile figures in post-war Italian film music, Lavagnino wrote scores for more than 200 films across almost every conceivable genre, from documentaries and comedies to historical epics, westerns and science fiction. Internationally he was best known for his work on Orson Welles’s Othello and Chimes at Midnight, as well as Legend of the Lost, The Naked Maja, Gorgo and Conspiracy of Hearts.
Lavagnino was born in Genoa on February 22, 1909. He studied violin at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan, where he subsequently pursued composition under teachers including Renzo Bossi and Vito Frazzi. Before entering cinema he wrote extensively for the concert hall, including chamber and symphonic music, sacred works and the opera Malafonte. From 1948 until 1963 he also taught film music at the prestigious Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena.
His first important film assignment came through Orson Welles, composing music with Alberto Barberis for Othello, filmed over several years and released internationally in the early 1950s. Lavagnino’s dark, archaic-sounding music immediately demonstrated his ability to evoke historical atmosphere without relying simply on conventional orchestral romanticism. More than a decade later Welles invited him back for Chimes at Midnight (1965), for which Lavagnino adapted and recreated early musical forms to accompany Welles’s celebrated portrait of Falstaff. Read more…
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