The legendary composer, who wrote the Mission: Impossible score, has passed away at the age of 93.
Lalo Schifrin died inside his Los Angeles home on Thursday from complications with pneumonia, his son, Ryan, confirmed.
He was surrounded by his loved ones.
Schifrin was a jazz pianist and classical conductor and had a remarkable career in music that included working with Dizzy Gillespie and recording with Count Basie and Sarah Vaughan.
His biggest contribution was the instantly recognizable score to television’s Mission: Impossible, which fueled the just-wrapped, decades-spanning feature film franchise led by Tom Cruise.
Schifrin originally wrote a different piece of music for the theme song but series creator Bruce Geller liked another arrangement Schifrin had composed for an action sequence.
‘The producer called me and told me: ‘You’re going to have to write something exciting, almost like a logo, something that will be a signature, and it’s going to start with a fuse,” Schifrin told the AP in 2006.
‘So I did it and there was nothing on the screen. And maybe the fact that I was so free and I had no images to catch, maybe that’s why this thing has become so successful – because I wrote something that came from inside me.’
Lalo Schifrin died inside his Los Angeles home on Thursday from complications with pneumonia , his son, Ryan, confirmed
Schifrin was a jazz pianist and classical conductor and had a remarkable career in music that included working with Dizzy Gillespie and recording with Count Basie and Sarah Vaughan. His biggest contribution was the instantly recognizable score to television’s Mission: Impossible
When director Brian De Palma was asked to take the series to the silver screen, he wanted to bring the theme along with him, leading to a creative conflict with composer John Williams, who wanted to work with a new theme of his own.
Out went Williams and in came Danny Elfman, who agreed to retain Schifrin’s music.
Hans Zimmer took over scoring for the second film, and Michael Giacchino scored the next two. Giacchino told NPR he was hesitant to take it on, because Schifrin’s music was one of his favorite themes of all time.
‘I remember calling Lalo and asking if we could meet for lunch,’ Giacchino told NPR. ‘And I was very nervous – I felt like someone asking a father if I could marry their daughter or something. And he said, ‘Just have fun with it.’ And I did.’
Mission: Impossible won Grammys for best instrumental theme and best original score from a motion picture or a TV show. In 2017, the theme was entered into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Schifrin has composed more than 100 arrangements for film and TV.
The Argentine won four Grammys and was nominated for six Oscars, including five for original score for ‘Cool Hand Luke,’ ‘The Fox,’ ‘Voyage of the Damned,’ ‘The Amityville Horror’ and ‘The Sting II.’
‘Every movie has its own personality. There are no rules to write music for movies,’ Schifrin told The Associated Press in 2018. ‘The movie dictates what the music will be.’
Schifrin originally wrote a different piece of music for the Mission: Impossible (pictured) theme song but series creator Bruce Geller liked another arrangement Schifrin had composed for an action sequence
Hans Zimmer took over scoring for the second film, and Michael Giacchino scored the next two (pictured: Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible)
He also wrote the grand finale musical performance for the World Cup championship in Italy in 1990, in which the Three Tenors – Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and José Carreras – sang together for the first time. The work became one of the biggest sellers in the history of classical music.
Schifrin was born Boris Claudio Schifrin to a Jewish family in Buenos Aires – where his father was the concertmaster of the philharmonic orchestra – Schifrin was classically trained in music, in addition to studying law.
After studying at the Paris Conservatory – where he learned about harmony and composition from the legendary Olivier Messiaen – Schifrin returned to Argentina and formed a concert band.
Gillespie heard Schifrin perform and asked him to become his pianist, arranger and composer. In 1958, Schifrin moved to the United States, playing in Gillespie’s quintet in 1960-62 and composing the acclaimed Gillespiana.
The long list of luminaries he performed and recorded with includes Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Getz, Dee Dee Bridgewater and George Benson. He also worked with such classical stars as Zubin Mehta, Mstislav Rostropovich, Daniel Barenboim and others.
Schifrin moved easily between genres, winning a Grammy for 1965’s Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts while also earning a nod that same year for the score of TV’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
In 2018, he was given an honorary Oscar statuette and, in 2017, the Latin Recording Academy bestowed on him one of its special trustee awards.
Later film scores included Tango, Rush Hour and its two sequels, Bringing Down The House, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, After the Sunset, and the horror film Abominable.
