Miklós Rózsa

Hungarian composer Miklós Rózsa (1907-1995) was one of the top film composers of all time. A gifted student of Bartók and Kodály, Rózsa moved to England on the suggestion of Arthur Honegger and got his first jobs scoring films for the Kordas, including The Thief of Baghdad (1940), earning Rózsa his first Oscar nomination; he eventually won three. Invited to Hollywood, Rózsa famously scored such classics as Spellbound (1945), Ben Hur (1959), and El Cid (1961), among many other films. Rózsa's regular concert fare was not sidelined by his film work; his Violin Concerto written for Jascha Heifetz is considered standard repertoire.