Trained in Berlin under Arnold Schönberg, Allan Gray (born Josef Zmigrod in Tarnow, Poland) was an established composer for stage, cabaret, and screen before his emigration in 1933. His film scores in Britain were playfully eclectic in style, alternating between haunting romanticism, catchy melodies, and occasional stark modernist touches. Gray's arguably most experimental work can be found in his collaborations with Powell and Pressburger, particularly in I Know Where I'm Going! (1945), where he inventively used Scottish folklore, and in A Matter of Life and Death (1946), where ticking clocks and repetitive piano scales evoke the monotony of celestial afterlife. Tim Bergfelder, Encyclopedia of British Film
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