The culture-challenged libtards @ NBC did a poor job throughout of mentioning what was playing. As we were watching the closing ceremonies, my wife asked what the music was. I said "it sounds like some sort of sprawling Edna Ferber epic like Giant". The more I listened, I said "dammit, that is Giant!". I threw on the Blu-ray (which we still have not watched from the James Dean set), and indeed it was Giant. Though Russian born, Dimitri Tiomkin wrote some of the best western scores of all time.
Tiomkin’s movie scores are very recognizable. I’m glad to see that his work was acknowledged in this way.