Hugo Friedhofer
Hugo Friedhofer (born May 3, 1901 in San Francisco ; † May 17, 1981 in Los Angeles ) was an American film composer who - despite his high reputation in film music circles - is still a lot less known than colleagues such as Erich Wolfgang Korngold , Alfred Newman , Franz Waxman or Max Steiner , with whom he worked very often as an orchestrator or co-composer.
Live and act
As the child of the German-born American Mathias Friedhofer and the German immigrant Eva König, who were both trained as professional musicians at the Dresden Conservatory (he was a cellist, she a pianist), Hugo learned cello at the age of 13. After a broken apprenticeship as a graphic designer , he took composition lessons from Domenico Brescia. At the age of just 19 Friedhofer was engaged as a cellist with the People's Symphony Orchestra and in the same year married the pianist Elizabeth Barrett, with whom he was to have two children.
In 1929 Friedhofer worked for the first time in the field of film music as a pianist in silent film orchestras , but in the same year he was signed as an arranger at Fox Studios. When he lost his job there in 1935, he initially worked as an orchestrator for Erich Wolfgang Korngold , but was hired by Alfred Newman , the director of the newly established music department of the Twentieth Century Fox Studios, as their permanent resident composer in 1942 .
In 1947 he won the Oscar for best film music for his film music for The Best Years of Our Lives . Friedhofer was to receive a total of nine nominations for the trophy, in 1958 even two at once for his film music for the romance The Great Love of My Life (1957) - which served in part as a film template for Sleepless in Seattle (1993) - and for the film adaptation of The Boy on the dolphin (1957).
Friedhofer's work is today extremely valued and rediscovered within the industry despite its relatively low level of awareness. Record labels such as Naxos , Film Score Monthly , Varése Sarabande and BYU are now also devoting themselves to his complete works, which have not been fully explored discographically .
Filmography (selection)
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literature
- Hugo Friedhofer on film music. and the film music by Hugo Friedhofer. in Tony Thomas : Film Music. The great film composers - their art and their technique. (OT: Film Score ). Heyne, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-453-09007-1 , pp. 225-237.
Web links
- Hugo Friedhofer in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- A giant in the shadow of dwarfs: the film composer Hugo Friedhofer
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Friedhofer, Hugo |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American composer, conductor and pianist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 3, 1901 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | San Francisco |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 17, 1981 |
| Place of death | Los Angeles , USA |