Leonard Rosenman, the Oscar-winning composer of such classic film scores as East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, died Monday of a heart attack. He was 83 years old.

"With the composers Bernard Herrmann and Alex North," writes the New York Times, "Mr. Rosenman was widely credited with bringing film music---long awash in Tchaikovsky-inflected Romanticism---squarely into the 20th century."

Along with North (A Streetcar Named Desire, Spartacus), Georges Delerue (Jules et Jim, Shoot the Piano Player), and Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu, Rosenman's works were included in a series of film-music albums recorded for Nonesuch in 1997. Allmusic.com cites the collection, which includes music from the iconic James Dean films East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, in remembering the composer:

Rosenman's music was uncompromisingly contemporary in style, and was among the first film composers to utilize advanced compositional techniques such as serialism and microtones in major motion pictures ... [though] many film score buffs weren't even aware of Rosenman's work until the release in 1997 of Nonesuch's outstanding The Film Music of Leonard Rosenman, conducted by composer John Adams.

Listen to the main title tracks to each film from that recording by Adams and the London Sinfonietta:

East of Eden

Rebel Without a Cause