Love him or hate him, Dimitri Tiomkin stands as a musical original. He doesn't really sound like anybody else, certainly not like his teacher Glazunov or his contemporary Prokofiev. But the other day I did come across a work suggesting a real affinity. Listen to the finale of the Second Piano Concerto of Mily A. Balakirev. Here's a version on You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmFP_I_t7W0 At the very end you will hear the same sort of wayward gallumphing that characterizes so much Tiomkin (e.g., THE GUNS OF NAVARONE). The basic material may have affinities for Russian folk music, but both composers have a particular style of rhythmic transformation.
Balakirev (1836-1910) was one the "Mighty Five." He may even have been the founding figure, though today he and Cui are less famous than Rimsky, Mussorgsky, and Borodin. I see that the Second Concerto was left unfinished by Balakirev, who seemed to retire from composing in later years. It was completed by Sergei Liapunov. Don't know how much of the work should be credited to the latter.
I could never understand why Tiomkin aroused so much negative emotion. It could be that he was a shameless self promoter or that he operated completely independent of the studio system or that he was a good businessman.
I can't think of any other film composer who got his name on the marquee. He was highly educated in music but never denied how many composers he was influenced by which caused a controversy when he said so in an Academy Award acceptance speech.
It would be fun to try to find all the influences but he, like his contemporaries, had a unique style. I wish film music today (with a few exceptions) could be as rich as it was in the Gold and Silver Age.
I have been a Balakirev fan for a long time. His symphonies are particularly good. You may be on to something with regard to Balakirev's influence on Tiomkin. Balakirev's tone poem TAMARA also has passages that could pass for Tiomkin.
Tiomkin's music also sometimes reminds me of Gliere, LAND OF THE PHAROAHS in particular. The Nellifer theme especially.
They were both pianists, this may be a factor in the way they approached phrasing and composition. Tiomkin has been my favorite composer since I first heard one of his scores at a very early age. He was quite good at what he did, a brilliant melodist. It is difficult to think of many modern composers who have written so many distinctive and memorable melodies.
I guess you could sort of call Balakirev the "founding figure" of The Mighty Handful/The Five as he was the older composer who took Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, and Borodin under his wing and encouraged them. Cui was a couple years older than him but contributed to the "group" as more of a critic/writer than composer. I've heard a few of his compositions and they are pretty mediocre compared to the output of the other four "members". The designation of them as "The Mighty Handful" was an artificial one, anyway. They were labeled that by a newspaper music critic and the name stuck, but they weren't really a club or anything...in fact other composers like Glazunov (and I think Lyapunov) were more connected socially and musically to the main four of the group than Cui was, at least according to my reading. One thing they all bore in common however was that they were largely self-taught amateurs rather than trained professional musicians. All of them had day jobs (incredibly varied between them) and only composed in their spare time.
I for one like Tiomkin better than the Cui I've heard but he's not remotely in the same league as the other four as a composer, IMO.
