Ernest Gold (composer)
Ernest Gold; actually Ernst Siegmund Goldner ( born July 13, 1921 in Vienna, † March 17, 1999 in Los Angeles ) was an American composer of Austrian origin.
Life and work
Ernst Goldner was the son of an Austrian violinist and a classical singer. Even as a five year old, he began to compose and was considered a child prodigy who was already studying as a child at the Vienna Music Academy. After the annexation of Austria by Nazi German Empire in 1938, he had to emigrate to the United States and studied in New York City at Otto Cesena. Goldner 1945 left New York and moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as an arranger and anglicized his name to Ernest Gold. He began to write film music for Western. He started in 1958 with the score to The Defiant Ones its long-standing collaboration with the director and producer Stanley Kramer. The following year, his film music made to Kramer's On the Beach known Australian folk song Waltzing Matilda internationally. His breakthrough, however, he experienced only when he received the 1961 Oscar for the film Exodus.
As a composer of modern music works he made a name for himself. He composed several symphonies and chamber music. During his school years at the Vienna Wasagymnasium which also forced to emigrate later composer Andre Asriel incidentally was his classmate. Also this wrote film scores - albeit on the other side of the globe and the Iron Curtain.