ABSTRACT
Page 180 of Miklós Rózsa’s autobiography includes a photograph that has achieved something like iconic status among the small group of us who are fascinated by the grand historical epics of the postwar period. It shows the venerable scholar Ramón Menéndez Pidal seated at a heavy wooden desk, poring over what seems to be an antique tome. In the background is a cabinet of books. Peering over his right shoulder is the composer, while at the extreme left of the photo is a bust-presumably of Homer-resting on the table. By literally and figuratively framing the composer between symbols of authority, the photo helps to establish Rózsa’s music as a contemporary instantiation of a grand epic tradition. In the text of his autobiography, Rózsa expands upon his connection with this tradition. “The historical adviser on the film,” he writes,
was the greatest authority on the Cid, Dr. Ramon Menendez Pidal, aged ninety-two. It was he who introduced me to the twelfth-century Cantigas of Santa Maria . . . I spent a month in intense study of the music of the period. I also studied the Spanish folksongs which Pedrell had gone about collecting in the early years of this century. With these two widely differing sources to draw upon, I was ready to compose the music. As always, I attempted to absorb these raw materials and translate them into my own musical language.2
