The story behind this virtuoso composer and his auspicious beginnings has been the source of fact AND rumor since his own time. It was one of history’s first “stage parent” situations. With a little encouragement from his father, this little tyke started his performing and writing before many of his peers where speaking in complete sentences.

This composer was a staunch pacifist who had moved to the USA in frustration as Europe moved inevitably towards the Second World War. While his discovery of an old poem by a long-dead countryman provided the basic plot, his personal and political convictions also came into the picture.

The composer of this selection was fortunate enough to establish a name for herself as a concert pianist long before she one of history’s great composers.

The whistled motive from this film has become nearly synonymous with climactic Old West showdowns, even though the film that it graces was made well after the golden age of Hollywood Westerns. The composer scored countless Westerns in this peculiar international style, making his reputation abroad…

Legend says that this composer dreamed the Devil appeared to him and played the violin with such virtuosity that the composer felt his breath taken away. When the composer awoke he desperately tried to recapture what he had heard in the dream. He always felt that it came nowhere close to capturing the demonic music he had heard in his vision.

Prior to this composer’s marriage, several lengthy periods of separation from his beloved amplified the swings between prolific creativity and difficult dry periods which were already part of his intense personality.