IRVING BERLIN 1888/1989
Irving Berlin who was christened Israel, was born in Tyumen, Siberia in 1888. However his Jewish parents and eight siblings were forced to leave Siberia in 1893 when their house was burned down, and like many Russian Jews decided to make their way to the Belgium port of Antwerp where they set sail to Ellis Island in the city of New York. His father Moses had been a cantor in a synagogue, and after being accepted as an American citizen managed to get a similar post in New York. However Moses died when Israel was very young and all the family had to find menial tasks sometimes in grotty conditions to survive. Young Israel became a newspaper boy before leaving school after which he spent his time singing in saloons in the Bowery district for a pittance. When he was 18 he got a job as a singing waiter whilst serving customers. In the evenings when the saloon closed he used to sit at the piano improving some tunes he knew in a Yankee-Doodle style which he later played in the saloon, and many customers applauded his improvised style and tipped him increasing his meagre wages considerably.
In 1911 he wrote his first piece of music ‘Alexander’s Rag Time Band’ which became a great hit and set him on his way to fame. By the mid 1920’s he had three major hits in his repertoire ‘What’ll I Do’, Always’ and ‘Lazy’ as well as writing scores for the Ziegfeld Follies. Then followed ‘Blue Skies’ and ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’ which were made into films in 1930 and 1946 respectively with Fred Astaire appearing in both films, and co-starring Bing Crosby in the latter. ‘Mammy’ was written for Al Jolson and quickly followed by ‘Let’s face the music and dance’ and ‘How deep is the ocean, how high is the sky?’ and in 1937 ‘I’ve got my love to keep me warm’. It was then that he wrote his first stage musical “Annie get your gun” about the Wild West sharpshooter Annie Oakley and turned into a film in 1950 starring Betty Hutton and the debut of Howard Keel.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbour and now having changed his Christian name to Irving, he wrote the patriot song ‘God Bless America’’, and then started composing a succession of film musicals, both music and lyrics - “Holiday Inn” starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire in 1942, “Easter Parade” starring Fred Astaire and Judy Garland in 1948, “Call Me Madam” starring Ethel Merman in 1950, “There’s No Business Like Show Business” featuring Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Donald O’Connor, Mitzi Gaynor, Marilyn Monroe and Johnny Ray in 1954, and of course “White Christmas” starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen in 1954 which was a remake of “Holiday Inn”.
In all Irving Berlin was responsible for composing over 1,500 songs and the greatest composer that America produced even if technically he was Russian. He died in his sleep aged 101 in his town house in Manhattan in 1989.
Hark! The herald-angels sing “Glory to the new-born King,
Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.
Joyful, all ye nations rise to join the triumph of the skies;
With the angelic host proclaim “Christ is born in Bethlehem”
Hark! The herald-angels sing “Glory to the new-born King.
Christ, by highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord
Late in time behold him come, offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see! Hail, the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Immanuel.
Hark! The herald-angels sing “Glory to the new-born King”.
Hail, the heaven-born Prince of Peace! Hail, the Sun of Righteousness. Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth.
Hark! The herald-angels sing “Glory to the new-born King.
‘PEACE ON EARTH and MERCY MILD’
Appropriate words at any time of year but especially at Christmas from the sagacity of Charles Wesley (a Methodist and Lincolnshire writer of some 6,500 hymns 1707/1788) composed together with the youthfulness of the beautiful music of Felix Mendelssohn (a German Jew 1809/1847).
COLE PORTER 1891/1964
Cole Porter was born in Peru, Indiana, USA in 1891 and learned to play the violin at the age of 6, the piano at the age of 8, and his first operetta with the help of his mother at the age of 10. His grandfather hoped that he would become a classical composer, though he actually started training to be a lawyer at Worcester Academy, Massachusetts in 1905. However he didn’t finish the course there and entered Yale College four years later where he became very popular with his college friends because of his piano parties. During the First World War it is rumoured that he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion, and although his name was recorded in their records there’s some doubt as to whether he actually did join.
He started writing the lyrics and music to many compositions during the 1920s and 1930s with hits such as ‘You do something to me’ in 1929, ‘Night and Day’ in 1932, ‘You’d be so easy to love’, ‘I’ve got you under my skin’ in 1936 (all Frank Sinatra hits) and ‘Don’t fence me in’. He also wrote the music for the stage musical “Anything Goes” starring Ethel Merman in 1934, and released as a film starring Bing Crosby, Donald O’Connor and Mitzi Gaynor after the Second World War, but when he wrote the song ‘What is this thing called love?’ it gave some clue to his sexuality as although he had married Linda Lee Thomas a rich divorcee eight years older than himself in 1919, Porter was in fact a homosexual, and it’s suggested that ‘In the still of the night’ was written for one of his male lovers. His marriage to Linda Lee Thomas was certainly an unconventional one, though after their divorce they still remained friends until her death in 1954. She had had hopes like Porter’s grandfather that he would turn out to be a classical composer, but in fact it was Broadway that Cole Porter made his mark. It was the era of show business and stage musicals with competition from Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin.
Cole Porter’s biggest hit musical “Kiss Me Kate” in 1948 was the story of a touring Shakespearean company touring Italy in “The Taming of the Shrew’ and was made into a film with the wonderful Kathryn Grayson playing Kate and Howard Keel her husband. The film included ‘Brush up your Shakespeare’, ‘Why can’t you behave?’, ‘I hate men’, ‘Wunderbar’ and ‘So in love’. The next movie “High Society” released in 1953 was just as successful with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, Louis Armstrong and Celeste Holm combining with great numbers such as ‘Well did you Evah?’, ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’, ‘True Love’ and ‘That’s Jazz’ in a remake of the 1940 romantic comedy “The Philadelphia Story”. A year later “Silk Stockings” was released featuring Fred Astaire and Cyd Cherise, “Les Girls” starring Gene Kelly, Kay Kendall, Mitzi Gaynor and Taina Elg, followed three years later by “Can-Can” starring Shirley MacLaine, Louis Jourdon, Frank Sinatra and Maurice Chevalier set around the Moulin Rouge Theatre in Paris.
What an amazing sextet of movie musicals until Ricard Rodgers came on the scene. However after a riding accident when his horse fell on top of him, he defied medical opinion that both his legs should be amputated. Nevertheless eventually he was in great pain so much that one of his legs had to be amputated, but it was kidney failure that accounted for his death in 1964 aged 73 in Santa Monica, California.
IVOR NOVELLO 1893/1951
Born David Ivor Davies in Cardiff in 1893 he was a successful boy singer in the Welsh Eisteddfod and educated privately firstly in Cardiff, but later in Gloucester where he studied musical harmony. He wrote some songs from the age of 15, but early during the First World War had one of his major successes with ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’ before joining the Royal Naval Air Service in 1916. However at the end of the War he had the opportunity to become an actor whilst staying in the USA and appeared in two silent films, firstly Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Lodger” and then “Downhill” in 1927. But from then on after returning to Britain he started to write words and music of a succession of stage musicals all of which were well received in London audiences at The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
The first of these was “Bitter Sweet” in 1929 and there became a healthy rivalry throughout the 1930’s between he and Noel Coward when stage musicals and light operettas became in vogue. In 1935 Novello wrote “Glamorous Nights”, “Careless Rapture” which ran for 296 appearances, “Crest of the Wave” which included the patriotic song ‘Rose of England’ and “The Dancing Years” which started at The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane but was interrupted by the Second World War but reopened at the Adelphi Theatre in 1944 eventually running for 696 appearances. By then he had adopted his mother’s middle name of Novello as two more theatre productions “King’s Rhapsody” in 1949 and “Gay’s the Word” in 1951 were his last shows. However his masterpiece was “Perchance to Dream” which opened at the Hippodrome Theatre in 1945 and ran for 1,022 performances until 1949 and included the following hit song which was performed at his funeral by Olive Gilbert:-
Although you’re far away and life is sad and grey
I have a scheme, a dream to try. I’m thinking dear of you, and all I mean to do When we’re together you and I.
WE’LL GATHER LILACS IN THE SPRING AGAIN And walk together down a shady lane, Until our hearts have learned to sing again When you come home once more.
And in the evening by the firelight’s glow You’ll hold me close and never let me go; Your eyes will tell me all I want to know When you come home once more.
Ivor Novello died suddenly in 1951 aged 58 with a heart attack and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium with his ashes under a plaque that reads “Till you are home once more”.
As a postscript I have three lilac trees of different shades in my back garden and they always remind me of my dear wife Enid as I chose that Ivor Novello song to be played at her funeral.
CHARLES WILLIAMS 1893/1978
Born as Isaac Cozerbreit in London in 1893 and probably not well known to most of us (me included) until I listened to some of his music. He started as a freelance violinist in theatres and cinemas have studied musical composition at the Royal Academy of Music. Most of his compositions were used as theme music in cinematograph films before and after the Second World War, but also for BBC programmes.
Briefly in chronological order are some of the films that he composed music for:-
1945 film “The Way to the Stars” written by Terence Rattigan who was a serving RAF officer during the Second World War and featuring John Mills, Michael Redgrave, Rosamund Johns and Stanley Holloway.
1946 film “Carnival” starring Sally Gray, Michael Wilding, Jean Kent, Bernard Miles and Stanley Holloway.
1947 film “While I Live” starring Sonia Dresdel and Tom Walls but using the wonderful piano theme ‘The Dream of Olwen’'
1960 film “The Apartment” featuring Marilyn Monroe, Frankie Vaughan and Yves Montand.
Then the following BBC programmes for which he also composed music for:-
‘Devil’s Gallop’ which was the opening and closing music for the daily radio serial “Dick Barton, Special Agent”.
’The Young Ballerina’ which in the early 1960s was the music for the BBC interlude between programmes showing a clay potter spinning away on a turntable to make an urn.
’Girls in Grey’ which was the music composed for the opening of the BBC Newsreel Service depicting a flashing transmitter.
’High Adventure’ which was the opening music for the radio programme “Friday Night is Music Night” introduced nowadays by Ken Bruce on a Sunday on Radio 2, but formerly by Robin Boyle from the Mermaid Theatre in London on what was then the BBC Light Programme. It is the World’s longest running orchestral programme of light music having started in 1953.
Now I realise that one has to be of a certain age to remember some of these films and BBC programmes, but playing football or cricket as a child had to stop at 6.45pm as we rushed home to listen to Dick Barton, Jock and Snowy but it was so captivating as was Paul Temple in those days. As I mentioned earlier I hadn’t heard of the composer Charles Williams but did remember ‘The Dream of Olwen’ and from there researched the composer and discovered these other gems. I hope these pieces of music stirs up memories for our older Diasboro club members.
All I can add is that Charles Williams eventually formed his own orchestra and died aged 85 in Findon, West Sussex in 1978.
GEORGE GERSHWIN 1898/1937
George Gershwin was christened as Jacob in the Russian and Yiddish community of Brooklyn, New York City in 1898. Unlike his older brother Ira he had at first no interest in music until he was 10 years old, but in 1913 after being coaxed to attend classical concerts by Ira he had became fascinated by the different tones of orchestral instruments especially the piano. However he also became attracted to Vaudeville and New York’s Tin Pan Alley, so much so that in 1919 he wrote the words and music of ‘Swanee’ which was his first great hit. A year later he collaborated in composing his first Broadway production “Piccadilly to Broadway”. In 1924 he turned to classical music with his ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ which was almost like cool jazz in its conception. He followed this up with a stage musical composed with his brother Ira called “Oh, Lady be Good” which as well as the titled song included ‘Fascinating Rhythm’ also with some jazz time music.
In 1925 he reverted to classical piano compositions with his ‘Concerto in F’ to enhance his versatility in musical compositions - classical, popular music and jazz. In 1927 he and his brother Ira wrote the music and words for “Funny Face” starring Fred Astaire, although the storyline of the film of the same name produced 30 years later and again featuring Fred Astaire with Audrey Hepburn was quite different. In the same year another Gershwin stage musical “Strike up the Band” was being performed in Philadelphia with the title song, as well as ‘The man I love’, ‘Soon’ and ‘I’ve got a crush on you’ featuring in the show. A year later he wrote another musical stage production “An American in Paris“ which was made into a film 23 years later featuring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron. Perhaps Gershwin’s greatest success though was the folk opera “Porgy and Bess”. At first the opera was controversial as it opened in Boston, a city which at the time was sceptical about Afro-American performers, but after moving to Broadway and then to Houston Grand Opera House it became a sellout with hit songs ‘It ain’t necessarily so’ and ‘Summertime’.
Gershwin himself best summed up his music in a statement he once made about Jazz - “Jazz is a word which has been used for at least five or six different types of music. It is really a conglomeration of ragtime, the blues, classical music and negro spirituals. Basically it is a matter of rhythm and has contributed an enduring value to America in the sense that it has expressed ourselves”. Very few composers have been able write classical compositions as well as modern compositions, maybe Arthur Sullivan and Leonard Bernstein spring to mind.
However Gershwin died very young before he could expand on his virtuosity as he began to complain about blinding headaches and a recurrent impression that he could smell burning rubber. In a special concert with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra he suffered co-ordination problems and blackouts whilst playing the piano. He later became uncoordinated when eating his food spilling it on the table. He eventually collapsed in July 1937 and fell into a coma where he was diagnosed with a brain tumour and died within days aged only 38 and America cried. A memorial concert was held in September at the Hollywood Bowl at which the second of his three preludes was played, and America cried again.
NOËL COWARD 1899/1973
Noël Coward was born in Teddington, Middlesex in 1899 and as a child actor played in some amateur concerts from 7 years old onwards and after joining a Dance Academy where made his first professional debut at the age of 12. Three years later he played in “Where the Rainbow Ends” at the Liverpool Repertory Theatre. However as well as being an actor, playwright and director of stage productions where his wit and flamboyant style shone through like a beacon, he also wrote over 200 songs and over 65 plays and stage musicals, the first of which was “London Calling” in 1923 followed by “On with the Dance” two years later. One of his earliest musical compositions was “A Room with a View”which he wrote in 1928.
However his longest musical operetta was “Bitter Sweet” running for two years in the West End from 1929 and including arguably two of Noel Coward’s biggest hits ‘I’ll see you again’ and ‘If love were all’ which were written originally for Gertrude Lawrence who found the vocal range too difficult for her, so Peggy Wood sang the song. Briefly the story was about a young woman’s elopement with her music teacher. The operetta then opened in Broadway, New York but to mixed reviews with Evelyn Laye taking the main part. “Bitter Sweet” was twice made into a film, firstly in black and white in 1933 featuring Anna Neagle and Fernand Gravet, and later in technicolour in 1940 starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. His next play was “Private Lives” written in 1942 about a divorced couple who were on holiday with their new partners but finding themselves in adjacent rooms on holiday, though eventually realising they still had feelings for their divorced partners. Although this was a comedy it did include the song ‘Someday I’ll find you’ which Noël Coward wrote.
In 1931 he wrote and sang ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun’ and in the following year ‘Mad about the boy’ as well also “Words and Music” featuring John Mills. It was in 1934 that he wrote and recorded the comic song ‘Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington’. One of his wartime musical compositions was ‘London Pride’ and the film “Blithe Spirit” featuring Rex Harrison and the eccentric Margaret Rutherford where a man and his wife are haunted by the ghost of his first wife. That was written in 1941 and followed a year later a play based roughly on Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” entitled “Present Laughter” which although first written in 1939 wasn’t performed at The Old Vic until three years later. Noël Coward then directed a patriotic naval war film in 1943 entitled “In which we serve” and was awarded an Academy Award for his performance in the film which also featured John Mills, Bernard Miles, Celia Johnson, Kay Walsh, Michael Wilding and Hubert Gregg.
Two more films followed - “This Happy Breed” a kitchen sink drama about a cockney family during the First World and their lives up to the early 1930s starring Robert Newton, Celia Johnson, John Mills, Kay Walsh and Stanley Holloway, and “Peace in Our Time” a story about what life would have been like under Nazi occupation starring Kenneth More, Bernard Lee and Elspeth March. Both these films were written by Noël Coward in 1944 and 1946 respectively. The first show to appear at London’s Drury Lane Theatre after the Second World War was a musical revue called “Pacific 1860” and set in Queen Victoria’s reign, which featured the American singer Mary Martin who was the mother of Larry Hagman later to play JR Ewing in the US television series “Dallas”.
These of course are only a few of Noël Coward’s works. During the Second World War he was criticised by the press for his flamboyant life style and foreign travel but was unable to reveal that he was working on behalf of the Secret Service. King George Vl wanted to make him a Knight of the Realm but was dissuaded not to by Winston Churchill because of the extra furore that might occur in the press who were ignorant of his cover for the Secret Service. After the War he continued writing plays such as “Ace of Clubs”, “After the Ball”, “Sailaway” and “The Girl who came to Supper” and appeared in films such as “Around the World in 80 Days”, “Our Man in Havana” and “The Italian Job”. He eventually received his Knighthood but in later life he suffered with arteriosclerosis and died at his Firefly Estate in Jamaica from heart failure in 1973 aged 74.
HOAGLAND HOWARD CARMICHAEL 1899/1981
Carmichael was born in Bloomington, Indiana in 1899 and was taught to play the piano by his mother at an early age, but also learned to sing. He spent most of his early childhood living with his parents in Indianapolis, although the family moved to Missoula, Montana when young ‘Hoagy’ was only 10 years old. His christian name was taken from a circus act that stayed at his parents home during his mother’s pregnancy, but quickly became Hoagy as he reached maturity. Hoagy Carmichael’s musical career started in 1918 playing the piano at a Fraternity Dancehall. However his parents had a different career marked out for their only son as a lawyer, so he attended Indiana University where he earned a bachelor degree in 1925. After graduating he moved to Florida where he spent most of his time devoted to music, especially jazz influenced compositions. As a singer/pianist he made a living selling most of his compositions to lyricists, music publishers and film producers.
From then on Hoagy Carmichael became one of the most talented, inventive and sophisticated composers of jazz-orientated and popular songs in the first half of the 20th century. He wrote several hundred songs, 50 of which achieved record sales. Here is a list of some of these songs which are still popular today:-
Stardust (1928), Georgia on my mind (1930), Up a lazy river (1931), Daybreak (1932), In the still of the night (1932), Lazybones (1933), The nearness of you (1937), Heart and Soul (1938), Small Fry (1938), Two sleepy people (1938), I get along without you very well (1938), Skylark (1941) and In the cool, cool, cool of the evening I’ll be there (1951).
Some of the lyricists of these songs were Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael himself, and recorded by Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Bobby Darin, Liza Minnelli, Billlie Holiday, Fats Waller, Kay Starr, Matt Monro and Hoagy Carmichael. He also appeared in 14 cinematograph films, singing at least one of his songs as an actor in each of them.
In 1960 Hoagy Carmichael was inducted in the Hollywood Walk of Fame in California. He died of a heart attack aged 82 in Rancho Mirage, California and buried in his home town of Bloomington in 1981.
Thanks, Ken, for your tireless work on this thread. Your work on Porter, Gershwin, Berlin et al, creators of what is now recognised as the Great American Songbook reflects one of the greatest bodies of work in any of the Arts of the 20th century. What distinguished it from any previous artistic endeavour was that it was not elitist, but popular, created not only for an educated minority but for everyone. And popular without being populist, without dumbing down and appealing to the lowest common denominator, or to fear and prejudice. It was a remarkable achievement, emulated in the cinema by artists such as Chaplin, Keaton and Harold Lloyd.
What is also remarkable is that the Songbook proved to be an extraordinary repository of work which was taken up and developed further by the great jazz artists who improvised upon its main themes, so that every jazz instrumental version of, say, Body and Soul, or Georgia carried within it the echo of the songs' original meanings, both lyrically and musically. Indeed it's no exaggeration to say that it is difficult to get any kind of grasp of jazz unless the listener is steeped in the great musical tradition of the Songbook.
That is a double-edged sword, of course. On the one hand it can make the appreciation of jazz somewhat elitist. You need some degree of cultural capital to understand it, in a way not necessary for pop music. On the other hand it keeps a great cultural tradition alive and relevant.
I'm especially glad that you did something on Hoagy, Ken, He is one of my great heroes. A modest, low-key genius whose work is still widely loved and appreciated by people who know nothing of him. Many thanks.
Thanks Len and OFB, it’s been tiring but enjoyable researching all these classical composers as in my opinion all of them are classical if their musical compositions are still remembered today. It’s been a project that at least has kept me sane together with watching as many André Rieu concerts as I can find which keep me awake especially the recorded Christmas concerts from all over the world. I’m quite surprised when listening to a piece of music I particularly enjoy that research leads to other works that I hadn’t even thought of. I’ve tried to write about all composers in chronological order of their birth and I’ve probably written about 60 of them so far. I reckon I can find another 14 composers to write about yet excluding those that are still alive, but I may also write about some of the lyricists also. What amazes me is not only the versatility of the majority of these composers, but how young they were when starting to learn to play the piano, violin, etc or I ndeed write musical compositions. I now wish I’d continued my piano lessons, but I guess most people of my age have regrets about not making the most of any talents they might have possessed. C’est la vie!
FREDERICK LOEWE 1901/1988
I’ve now reached the point of writing about composers who were born in the 20th century and some of them were responsible for composing music for stage and film musicals. Some like Cole Porter wrote both the lyrics as well as the music, but most of them needed to find a partner to collaborate with. Opera and operetta composers usually wrote the music and the words for their compositions as arias didn’t need to rhyme, but for the modern composer of stage musicals the words had to rhyme as well so partnerships were formed and never more so for Frederick Loewe.
He was born in Berlin and attended a Prussian Cadet School from the age of 5 until 13 and learned to play the piano by ear and composing songs from the age of 7. He later attended the Berlin Conservatory and became in fact the youngest piano soloist to appear with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. However the world was changing from operas and operettas to stage musicals in which the story could be understood by predominantly English speaking audiences. He then attended Harvard University and also studied at Juilliard School of Music. Later Frederick Loewe worked in German clubs in Yorkville, USA and movie theatres as accompanist for silent films and then began to visit Lambs Club which was a hangout for theatre performers, producers, managers and directors which kept him in work until his career progressed to providing music for the film industry, and that’s how he met the younger Alan Jay Lerner 17 years his junior. Their friendship and partnership spanned three decades as they wrote a succession of musicals.
The earliest was “Brigadoon” in 1947 about a couple of American tourists who came across a historical Scottish village that only opened its doors for one day every 100 years. It was later made into a fantasy film starring Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, but not really my taste although it did include one memorable duet ‘It’s almost like falling in love’. Four years later “Paint Your Wagon” a Western musical was given its stage premiere. It was set in the American Gold Rush era but not made into a film musical until 18 years later starring Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin who actually had a hit with his gravelly rendition of ‘Wandrin’ Star’.
In 1955 “My Fair Lady” opened on Broadway and at the time became the longest ever running show at the famous theatre. It was adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play “Pygmalion” about a cockney flower-selling girl who became the subject of a bet between an Hungarian phonetician and an English professor who was determined to pass the flower-girl off as a princess. It was such a success that the stage version starring Julie Andrews, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway and Robert Coote was christened ‘the perfect musical’. It later ran just as successfully in Drury Lane, London. However the film version in 1961 replaced Robert Coote with Wilfred Hyde White, but more controversially Julie Andrews with Audrey Hepburn, a fine actress but not a singer. What’s more to add insult to injury the producer wanted Julie Andrews to dub Audrey Hepburn’s singing voice. Naturally Miss Andrews refused and Marni Nixon was chosen as her replacement. The musical included ‘Why can’t the English learn to speak?’, ‘Wouldn’t it be loverly’, ‘’I’m getting married in the morning’, ‘The rain in Spain’, ‘The Ascot Gavotte’, ‘I could have danced all night’, ‘On the street where you live’, and many others. The stage show was also such a success that it was revived on Broadway 6 times and at Drury Lane 3 times, one of which my wife and I saw with Petula Clark playing the part of Eliza Doolittle.
In 1960 Loewe and Lerner wrote the film musical ‘Gigi’ starring Leslie Caron, Louis Jourdon, Hermione Gingold, Eva Gabor and Maurice Chevalier who sang ‘Thank Heaven for little girls’. In this case the film was written in 1958 and the stage production 15 years later. The legend of “King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table” was then portrayed in a stage production of “Camelot” in 1960 starring Richard Burton and Julie Andrews running for 873 performances on Broadway featuring the songs ‘How to handle a woman’ and ‘If ever I would leave you’. The film version was written seven years later and featured Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave. The last Loewe and Lerner musical was “The Little Prince” in 1974, but this stage production closed after only a few performances.
However Frederick Loewe’s musical career would probably have stalled if he had not met Alan Jay Lerner. Loewe died in Palm Springs, California aged 86 and was buried in Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California. Lerner died two years earlier suffering with lung cancer aged 67, but as a partnership they were probably only bettered by Rodgers and Hammerstein although arguably “My Fair Lady” was better than any of the latter’s musicals.
JOAQUIN RODRIGO 1901/1999
Joaquin Rodrigo was born in Sagunto, Valencia and I have to admit that I had never heard of him until visiting Valencia whilst he was still alive. What drew my attention to him was that he had lost his sight at 3 years old due to contacting diphtheria. How could he compose music with such an impediment left me in awe of the man, but learned that he had studied the piano and violin by the age of 8, and harmony and compositions by his mid-teens and having his compositions written in Braille transcribed for publication all left me astounded. He had studied musicology at the School of Music in Paris and started writing his first compositions in 1923. The only piece of music of his works that I had been aware of was his Aranjuez Concerto written for classical guitar and orchestra written in 1939 which I had heard played in a film the name of which escapes me, though it could have been a Western. Apparently he dedicated this concerto to his wife after she had suffered a miscarriage of their first child. Later in 1947 he became a professor of musical history, but although composing over 90 pieces of music including 28 for the classical guitar, none of his works achieved as much popular and critical acclaim as the Aranquez Concerto. It and the ‘Fantasia for a Gentleman’ are the only pieces of his compositions played outside of Andalucia today, although he has dedicated some of his works to Andres Segovia, Julian Lloyd Webber and James Galway.
Joachim Rodrigo later received the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award, Spain’s highest civilian honour before he died aged 97 and was appropriately buried in the cemetery in Aranquez.
RICHARD RODGERS 1902/1979
Richard Rodgers was born with the surname Rogazinsky in Averne, New York City into a German Jewish family in 1902 but always considered himself to be an atheist, hence the change of his surname. As a teenager he spent his years at Camp Wigwam in Waterford, Maine and his music was influenced by watching operettas with his father. He then attended Columbia University where popular music was the norm and he later met Lorenz Hart, seven years his senior at reunions at Columbia University and the two of them teamed up writing musical operettas with Hart providing the lyrics.
Lorenz Hart was born in Harlem, New York City in 1895 and had attended Columbia Grammar School before the University and had written a few songs of his own. Their first production together was a stage musical called “A Lonely Romeo” followed by “Poor little rich girl” in 1920. In 1924 they collaborated in writing “The Melody Man” but their final breakthrough came a year later with “The Garrick Gaities” which included the song ‘Manhattan’. The first of their 26 Broadway musicals composed together was “Dearest Enemy” which had its premiere in 1925 followed by “The Girl Friend” which ran for over 300 performances to much acclaim. “Heads Up” which opened on Broadway in 1930 was considered to be a flop yet was surprisingly the first of Rodgers and Hart’s productions to be made into a film. In the meantime the pair wrote “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” and several songs such as ‘My Heart stood still’, ‘Love me tonight’ and especially ‘Mountain Greenery’ sung by Mel Torme which was a big hit even after the Second World War. Definitely though the film musical “Pal Joey” which starred Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak was their greatest production with songs like ‘I could write a book’, ‘Theres a small hotel’, ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’ and ‘My Funny Valentine’. Sadly though the partnership broke up as Hart had suffered from depression for much of his life and became unreliable through alcoholism and died three years later.
Meanwhile Richard Rodgers was only 41 and needed a lyricist to write the words for his musical compositions. Jerome Kern had had a successful partnership with Oscar Hammerstein writing a stage and cinematograph musical hit with “Showboat” but was dying after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage. So began the famous Rodgers and Hammerstein partnership. Oscar Hammerstein II was born in Doylestown, Pennsylvania in the same year as Lorenz Hart but had been christened Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein and like both Rodgers and Hart had attended Columbia University. He later studied at Columbia Law School until 1917 and performed in several varsity shows, though he quit to pursue his theatrical bent and had also wrote the lyrics for two more Jerome Kern productions “Sweet Adeline” and “Music in the Air” as well as with Sigmund Romberg in two other musical stage productions “The Desert Song” and “The New Moon”.
The first Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway production was “Oklahoma!” in 1943 followed two years later by “Carousel” with the former starting with the song ‘Oh what a beautiful mornin’ and including ‘People will say we’re in love’, ‘Kansas City’, ‘Many a new day’, ‘I caint say no’ and ‘Judge Fry is dead’ and the latter including ‘If I loved you’, ‘June is busting out all over’ and of course ‘You’ll never walk alone’. The film versions in 1955 and 1956 respectively both featured Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. “State Fair” released in 1945 was purely a film musical starring Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Dick Haymes and Vivian Blaine and included such songs as ‘It’s a grand night for singing’ and ‘It might as well be Spring’. The next blockbuster on Broadway was ‘South Pacific’ in 1949 but made into a film in 1958 featuring Rossano Brazzi, Mitzi Gaynor and John Kerr with the songs ‘Bloody Mary’, ‘Younger than springtime’, ‘Some enchanted evening’ and the show stopper ‘There is nothing like a dame’.
In 1951 along came ‘The King and I’ made into a film in 1956 starring Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr with Marni Nixon dubbing Kerr’s voice in the musical numbers ‘Shall we dance?’ and ‘I whistle a happy tune’. In 1958 “Flower Drum Song” was premiered on Broadway and made into a film three years later starring Nancy Kwan with notable songs such as ‘I enjoy being a girl’, ‘A hundred million miracles’ and ‘You are beautiful’. But Rodgers and Hammerstein’s biggest hit was “The Sound of Music” which opened on Broadway in 1959 but the film version in 1965 starring Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Richard Haydn, Peggy Wood, Charmian Carr and Eleanor Parker netted a world record 286 million dollars, and included a selection of the greatest songs of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s repertoire ‘The hills are alive’, ‘What are we going do about Maria’, ‘Do-re mi’, ‘Edelweiss’ and ‘Climb every mountain’.
Rodgers and Hammerstein was said to have brought Broadway musicals to a new maturity by telling stories about characters and drama. Altogether their musicals earned a total of 37 Tony Awards, 15 Academy Awards, 2 Pulitzer Awards, 2 Grammy Awards and 2 Emmy Awards. As well as musicals they collaborated in writing over 900 songs including ‘No other love’ and ‘The most beautiful girl in the World’. Oscar Hammerstein died in 1960 aged 65, whilst Richard Rodgers kept on writing songs such as ‘No Strings’. After surviving cancer of the jaw, a heart attack, and laryngectomy he died in 1979 aged 77 and was cremated with his ashes scattered over the sea.
WILLIAM WALTON 1902/1983
William Walton was born in Oldham, Lancashire in 1902 and took early lessons learning to play the violin and piano but failed to master either effectively. He trained at the Royal College of Music under Charles Halle, the founder of the famous Hallé Orchestra. However Walton made a living at first as a singing teacher and church organist, but became more successful as a singer as a probationary chorister at Christ Church Cathedral School in Oxford where he became an undergraduate for six years.
His first major work was ‘Portsmouth Point’ in 1925 followed by finishing his ‘Façade Suites’ a year later. In 1929 he wrote the first of his three ballets ‘The First Shoot’ but he was best remembered for writing musical scores for cinema graphic films such as Shakespeare’s ‘As you like it’ in 1936 starring Laurence Olivier and ‘Dreaming Lips’ starring Raymond Massey a year later. However this type of music was not really what his supporters were expecting. The coronation of King George Vl in 1937 provided him with a different outlook as he was commissioned to write an anthem and he succeeded with ‘Crown Imperial’. His Violin Concerto followed two years later, but it was profitable writing musical scores for the film industry and in the early 1940s he wrote incidental music for one of George Bernard Shaw’s plays ‘Major Barbara’ when it was made into a film starring Wendy Hiller, Rex Harrison, Robert Morley and Deborah Carr, ‘The next of kin’ featuring Mervyn Johns, Stephen Murray and Jack Hawkins, ‘The foreman went to France’ featuring Clifford Evans, Tommy Trinder and a young Gordon Jackson, ‘The first of the few’ starring Leslie Howard and David Niven, and ‘Went the day well?’ featuring Leslie Banks, Mervyn Johns, David Farrar and Thora Hird followed, all propaganda films to support the war effort.
Walton’s two other ballets ‘The Wise Virgin’ and ‘The Quest’ were also written in the early 1940s but none of them made much of an impact and are rarely performed today. After the end of the Second World War Walton wrote some vocal and choral music including ‘Under the greenwood tree’ and incidental music for films of three Shakespearean plays ‘Henry V’, ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Richard III all starring Laurence Olivier and was knighted for his service to music in 1951. He then wrote his Cello Concerto in 1956, but it took him several years to complete his Second Symphony in 1960. He was very slow and pedantic with composing long pieces of music seemingly distracted to compose musical scores for the film industry. The Granada Prelude for the opening of Granada Television was written in 1962 and his Orb and Sceptre March in the following year, but the most satisfying score for the film industry was for his music for ‘Battle of Britain’ released in 1969 with an all star cast including Laurence Olivier, Trevor Howard, Michael Redgrave, Patrick Wymark, Kenneth More, Nigel Patrick, Ralph Richardson, Michael Caine, Christopher Plummer and Susannah York.
In total William Walton wrote over 90 pieces including 10 pieces of chamber music and 28 vocal and choral music. He died in 1983 aged 80.
ARAM ILYICH KHACHATURIAN 1903/1978
Khatchaturian was born in what is now Tbilisi, Georgia and received most of his primary education at a local school where he was considering a career in either medicine or engineering, two diverse occupations. However without any musical training and after moving to Yerevan he became interested in Armenian folk music. However during the Russian Revolution he moved to Moscow and after the Bolsheviks came into power he later attended the Moscow Conservatory in 1929 and graduated using his knowledge of Armenian folk mus
ARAM ILYICH KHACHATURIAN 1903/1978
Khatchaturian was born in what is now Tbilisi, Georgia and received most of his primary education at a local school where he was considering a career in either medicine or engineering, two diverse occupations. However without any musical training and after moving to Yerevan he became interested in Armenian folk music. However during the Russian Revolution he moved to Moscow and after the Bolsheviks came into power he later attended the Moscow Conservatory in 1929 and used his knowledge of Armenian folk music in his compositions. His First and Second Symphonies were part of his test pieces towards graduation but also established his reputation throughout the Soviet Republic. He then wrote a Cello Concerto and a Violin Concerto, but it was his ballet entitled ‘Gayane’ which was premiered in the Leningrad Opera House which made him internationally famous, as it included “The Dance of the Rose Maiden” and the vivacious “Sabre Dance”.
After joining the Communist Party in 1943 Khachaturian then composed his ‘Masquerade Suite’ which included a dance simply called “Galop” before writing his Third Symphony. He then turned his attention to writing background music for Russian films including ‘The Battle of Stalingrad’ in 1949 and a Russian version of Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’ and ‘Spring Carnival’ in 1956. In total he composed over 80 pieces of work including 17 film scores, 21 instrumental pieces, 17 piano pieces and 7 pieces or brass bands. He died in Moscow in 1978 aged 74.
RICHARD ADDINSELL 1904/1977
Richard Addinsell was born in Woburn Square, London in 1904. He was educated at home before attending Hertford College, Oxford to study Law but that only lasted for 18 months before he became interested in music and in 1925 enrolled at the Royal College of Music, but only stayed for two terms before leaving without any qualification. He might well have been lost to music forever if he hadn’t met Clemence Dane. The two musicians met up and wrote “Adam’s Opera“ which was premiered at the Old Vic in London. In 1938 they teamed up together to write the music for “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass” but Addinsell then went solo as he wrote the introductory music for the original 1939 film version of “Goodbye, Mr Chips” starring Robert Donat, Greer Garson and John Mills about a kindly schoolmaster at a public school who rose through the ranks to become headmaster.
In 1941 the writers of the romantic war film “Dangerous Moonlight “ were looking for a music composer to write a piano concerto to be featured in the film and had approached Sergei Rachmaninoff to write the score, but were turned down and settled for Richard Addinsell to produce the score. Addinsell certainly did that with arguably his best composition ever called ‘Warsaw Concerto’, a piece of music I never tire of listening to. He then went on to write his ‘Invitation Waltz’ but it was his 47 pieces of music for the film industry that made him famous. The following is a selection of those films:-
1945 version of Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” starring Rex Harrison and Kay Hammond.
1951 version of “Scrooge” starring Alistair Sim, Mervyn Johns, Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison.
1951 version of “Tom Brown’s Schooldays” starring John Howard Davies and Robert Newton.
1965 “Life at the top” featuring Laurence Harvey, Jean Simmons, Honor Blackman and Michael Craig.
Richard Addinsell became one of the most prolific of British screen film music, and for those who are familiar with Southern Television he wrote the opening music for that Television network entitled ‘Southern Rhapsody’. He died in Brighton in 1977 aged 73.
DMITRI DMITRIYEVICH SHOSTAKOVICH 1906/1975
I have previously mentioned how much I love Russian music especially the compositions for Kossack dancers, Shostakovich was different as he went through different phases altogether. I confess to having not owned any of his recordings and not a connoisseur of his music. He was born in in the city of Petrograd in 1906, a Russian city named after Peter the Great. Shostakovich displayed significant musical talent after learning to play the piano from his mother when only 9 years old. He had a remarkable ability to remember what his mother had played at a previous lesson. At the age of 12 he wrote a Funeral March and a year later enrolled at the Petrograd Conservatory. On the 26th of January 1924 Petrograd was renamed Leningrad 5 days after the death of Vladimir Lenin and Shostakovich wrote his First Symphony two years later, not only as a tribute to the ex-Russian leader, but his first major work for his graduation composition. In 1927 he wrote his Second Symphony in the presence of Lenin, but the Russian leader was not impressed. After that the Fourth Symphony was withdrawn and Shostakovich kept a low profile turning his attention to writing introductory and background music for the Russian film industry which apparently Lenin eventually approved off.
After Stalin’s death Shostakovich returned to composing symphonic works which brought him more in favour with the Russian population. By then he had also composed the first of his 15 string quartets but in late September he needed to begin teaching at the newly named Leningrad Conservatory to provide him with some financial security. Altogether though his works were considered to be composed in the romantic tradition as he was responsible for writing almost 200 pieces of work including 15 symphonies, 28 suites, 13 choral pieces, 31 vocal pieces, 10 operas, 5 ballets and 6 concertos none of them were particularly noteworthy outside of Russia. Some of his compositions for the Russian film industry became popular outside of the Russian speaking public, but it was his waltzes that caught my attention. His First Waltz is a pleasant piece of music, but it’s his Second Waltz which has become one of the best waltzes ever written and on a par with Johann Strauss’s Blue Danube and Emperor Waltzes.
Just to complete the story when I visited Leningrad in the winter of 1974 Dmitri Shostakovich was still alive, but died 8 months later aged 68 in Moscow and it wasn’t until Christmas Day 1991 that Leningrad was renamed St Petersburg after the USSR’s flag of the hammer and sickle was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time.
FRANK HENRY LOESSER 1910/1969
Frank Loesser was born into a German Jewish family in Manhattan, New York City in 1910 and from the age of 4 was reputed to be able to play any song by heart on the piano without a musical score that he had heard his mother play. However after entering Townend Harris High School he preferred to play the harmonica and was expelled. He then attended the New York City College, but his rebellious nature resulted in his being expelled again. It appeared that he didn’t like the refined taste of music that his father played, but when his father died rather suddenly in 1925 it looked as if young Frank’s musical career was doomed before it had really begun as he had to work in various jobs to support the family. These jobs included being a restaurant reviewer for the New York Herald Tribune, a process worker, a classified advertising salesman, a cartoonist, a press representative, and an editor for a provincial newspaper.
Eventually he started composing not only musical works but also the lyrics of his songs, his first composition being ‘In love with the memory of you’ in 1931. Sometimes he wrote the lyrics for other composers as he did for Hoagy Carmichael with the song ‘Heart and Soul’ and ‘Two sleepy people’ which became a hit duet for Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee in 1938. He later started writing musical stage shows such as “Where’s Charley?” which was based on a stage farce called “Charley’s Aunt” first staged in 1892 but later into a film starring comedian Jack Benny. In 1948 Loesser wrote ‘Baby it’s cold outside’ which was sung by the swimmer and actress Esther Williams in “Neptune’s Daughter”. Other notable songs from Frank Loesser include ‘Spring will be a little late this year’ and ‘I’d like to get you on a slow boat to China’ a duet famously recorded by Bing Crosby and Peggy Lee.
However Frank Loesser’s major musical hit was “Guys and Dolls” initially staged on Broadway in 1950 and five years later made into a film starring Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra, Vivian Blaine and Stubby Kaye. Strangely one of the songs from the stage version ‘A Bushel and a Peck’ was omitted from the film, though several numbers such as ‘The Oldest Established Crap Game’, ‘I’ll know when my love comes along’, ‘If I were a bell I’d be ringing’, ‘I’ve never been in love before’ and ‘Sit down, you’re rocking the boat’ were still retained. This is one of my favourite film musicals.
In 1952 Loesser wrote his second film musical “Hans Christian Andersen” starring Danny Kaye and Farley Granger about the true story of the cobbler who had a wonderful array of children’s stories all set to music such as ‘The King’s new clothes’, ‘Thumbelina’, ‘Inchworm’, ‘The Ugly Duckling’ and the hit song ‘Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen’. In 1956 Loesser wrote his second stage musical “The most happy fella” but after several attempts a film version of the musical was aborted, although it did provide a hit song for the King Brothers ‘Standing on the corner watching all the girls roll by’. His 1961 play “How to succeed in business without really trying” opened at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit in 1961 and provided a record run for a musical outside of Broadway with 1,417 stage performances and was made into a film 6 years later.
Frank Loesser was a heavy smoker and subsequently died with lung cancer in 1969 aged 59.
Thanks yet again, Ken for some enjoyable reads.
Loesser had a reputation as being a bit of a rebel, but his wife was supposedly even more anti-social and was widely known as the evil of two Loessers.
After a two week break through health problems I’m almost reaching the climax of my review of classical composers so now I continue with:-
LEONARD BERNSTEIN 1918/1990
At the insistence of his grandmother Bernstein was actually christened Louis and it wasn’t until his grandmother died when he changed his name by deed pole to Leonard when he was 18, however to his contemporaries he was called Lenny. He was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1918 to Jewish Ukrainian parents and didn’t have any formal teaching in music until at the age of 10 his elder sister wished to get rid of an upright piano which presumably she had no use for when she got married. So the young Louis self taught himself on playing the piano until his formal education continued at a couple of public schools before enrolling at Harvard University where he became the instigator of enlisting his colleagues into performing operettas such as Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ and Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Pirates of Penzance’.
Most of his early compositions were classical, his first notable one being his Jeremiah Symphony in 1942 followed by his Second Symphony entitled ‘The Age of Anxiety’. But he always felt that he needed further outlets for his prodigious talent. In deep despair and practically penniless he had been on the verge of quitting music altogether when he was then offered the post of Assistant Conductor to the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and so began one of the most spectacular careers in the history of music, one that was to encompass the multiple roles of conductor, composer, pianist and author which became more evident in his own output. Simultaneously almost he was composing classical and light music. He wrote a very successful ballet in 1944 named ‘Fancy Free’ at the same time as one of his stage musicals ‘On the town’ which was made into a film in 1949 starring Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Vera Ellen and Ann Miller. In 1950 he completed the incidental music for ‘Peter Pan’ and three years later the musical score for ‘On the Waterfront’ starring Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger and featuring Eve Marie Saint on her debut appearance. He was still also writing classical music including 3 Choral works, his Violin Serenade and several piano works. What’s more he took the New York Philharmonic Orchestra on tour to Europe and was the first American to conduct at the famous La Scala Opera House in Milan.
However his most famous musicals were ‘Candide’ in 1954 and earlier ‘West Side Story’ in 1949 but made into a high box office film with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim in 1961. The former was based on a Voltaire novel, but the latter roughly on Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ but brought up to date featuring a territorial warring battle in New York’s West End between American youths called ‘The Jets’ and immigrant settlers from Costa Rica called the ‘The Sharks’ starring Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Rita Moreno,
George Chakiris and Russ Tambyn. ‘West Side Story’ included a plethora of famous songs such as “Something’s coming”, “Maria”, “Tonight”,”America”, “I feel pretty”, the Maria’s final death scene “There’s a place for us”, but my favourite when the Jets realise what a real set of delinquents they really were as they sing “Gee, Officer Krukpee” but still blaming society for their delinquency.
Leonard Bernstein though still carried on writing classical compositions with his Kaddish Symphony in 1963 and still remained a leader in the Civil Rights Movement almost to his dying days. He had suffered with asthma since his 50s and later suffered from emphysema finally dying aged 72 in Manhattan in 1990. When the cortège of his funeral drove through Manhattan, even the construction workers stopped working doffing their helmets and shouting “Goodbye, Lenny”.
NELSON SMOCK RIDDLE 1921/1985
Nelson Riddle was born in Oradell, New Jersey in 1921 and later he and his parents moved to nearby Ridgewood where he began piano lessons at the age of 8 and trombone lessons 6 years later which continued when he continued his education at Ridgewood High School. He always fancied himself as a trombone player but lacked musical co-ordination so started his career arranging ‘Swing Band’ music particularly which was becoming the rage at that time with the likes of Glenn Miller. In fact he wrote the music for “Little Brown Jug”. He also dabbled in Jazz and in 1944 joined the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra until he was drafted into the US Army for almost a year. Thereafter he spent several years arranging music for albums of some of the most popular singers at the time such as Doris Day in 1949. However his longest associations were with Nat ‘King’ Cole where he arranged one of his biggest hits “Mona Lisa” and after joining Capitol Records in 1953 with Frank Sinatra with hits such as “I’ve got the World on a string”. Other singers on the Capitol label were Jonny Mathis, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Peggy Lee, Keely Smith, Matt Munro, Linda Ronstadt and Rosemary Clooney with whom he had a much publicised affair which caused the break-up of his marriage.
Although he was principally an arranger whose role was to arrange an existing composition, adapting the voice, instruments and tempo to create a new sound for a piece of music onto a record, he also was a composer with his song “Lisbon Antigua” written in 1955 probably his most successful. In 1962 he orchestrated two albums for Ella Fitzgerald and when Frank Sinatra opened his new Reprise Record label, it was Nelson Riddle he turned to for the arrangement of his recordings, “Fly me to the Moon” and “Strangers in the night” being two of the greatest hits. The wonderful duet “Well, did you evah?” sung by Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra in Cole Porter’s musical film ‘High Society’ was due to the arrangement of Nelson Riddle as was most of the musical score of Rodgers and Hart’s ‘Pal Joey’. Of course he was a bandleader also, and although his output of his own compositions was sparse when compared to Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Hoagy Carmichael and Richard Rodgers he is worthy of an inclusion of great American composers.
However Nelson Riddle will forever be associated with Frank Sinatra.
He died aged 64 due to cardiac and kidney failure in 1985 and was cremated in Hollywood, California.
LIONEL BART 1930/1999
I’d always had it in mind to finish my memories of great composers with Lionel Bart. I’m aware that there are still some great English composers especially Andrew Lloyd Webber, Elton John and Paul McCartney but they’re all still alive and I’m sure if one is interested one can soon find out about how they have progressed their careers from Wikipedia or other sources. So that leaves me with whom I consider to be the greatest composer of light classical music of all time.
Lionel Bart was born in 1930, the youngest of seven surviving children of Galician Jewish parentage. He wasn’t actually English as he was christened Lionel Begleiter and was Ukrainian but he and his family were forced to evacuate his homeland because of the persecution by Ukrainian Cossacks and young Lionel spent all his early childhood living in Stepney, London. He was discovered for his musical talents by the impresario Joan Littlewood and started his career writing comic songs for the Sunday lunch time radio broadcast ‘The Billy Cotton Band Show’ which ran from 1949 to 1968. Lionel Bart then gained widespread recognition writing lyrics and music for some of the famous pop singers of the time. He wrote several songs for Tommy Steele including “Handful of Songs”, “Butterfingers” and “Little White Bull”, also one of Cliff Richard’s first hits “Living Doll”. He also wrote the theme music for the James Bond movie “From Russia with Love” subsequently recorded by Matt Monro. In 1957 he won three Ivor Novello Awards for services to popular music, and a year later won four more. In 1959 he wrote the lyrics for the comedy ‘Lock Up Your Daughters’ but thereafter wrote both the music and lyrics for a succession of stage musicals starting with ‘Maggie May’ in 1964, a musical about the famous Liverpool prostitute also recorded in a song by the Beatles.
However his greatest stage musical was ‘Oliver!’ which was premiered at the Wimbledon Theatre in 1960 but continued in the West End before even opening on Broadway. This of course was the story of Charles Dickens’s famous book ‘Oliver Twist’, and ‘Oliver!’ was eventually made into a musical movie starring Mark Lester as Oliver, Jack Willde as the Artful Dodger, Oliver Reed as Bill Sykes, Harry Secombe as Mr Bumble, the delectable Shani Wallis as Nancy, and of course Ron Moody as Fagin. It included great songs such as “Food, Glorious Food”, “Where is Love”, “Consider Yourself”, “I’d do Anything”, “As Long as He Needs Me” and “It’s a Fine Life”, plus the two comic songs sung by Fagin “You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two” and “I’m Reviewing the Situation” which for me stole the show.
Bart also wrote ‘Twang!!’ in 1965, a stage musical of the exploits of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, but at the same time as ‘Oliver!’ was being performed at the Wimbledon Theatre along came ‘Blitz! which I was lucky to see performed twice, once at London’s Adelphi Theatre in 1962 and by the Northern Stage Company in 1991 at the Tyne Theatre and Opera House in Newcastle where Lionel Bart made an appearance on stage at the end of the show.
I make no apologies now for giving a review of the original stage performance in London, but I found it the most wonderful stage show I have ever witnessed, and if I can remember correctly the story starts during an air raid with searchlights ablazing with parents looking for their children to gather them to the Bank Underground Railway Station used as a refuge during the blitz. The story is projected through the personality of a Jewish Momma Mrs Blitzein (played by Amelia Bayntun), a widow who rules her pickled herring stall and her family with a salty hand and tongue. Her pitch in Petticoat Lane adjoins widower Alfred Locke’s fruit stall, and her hostility to Adolf Hitler only marginally surpasses the unrelenting war she rages on Alfred. At the Underground Station the two protagonists only converse with each other through their respective children, Mrs Blitzein’s youngest daughter Carol and Alfred’s son Georgie with a ‘go-between’ song “Tell Him, Tell Her!”, each throwing insults at eachother through their respective offsprings.
Inevitably of course Carol falls in love with Georgie as they sing a duet “Opposites”. However Mrs Blitzein then rallies her neighbours with a song entitled “Who’s this Geezer Hitler, who does he think he is? “ As she continues with the words “He’s a nasty little basket with a thin moustache, and we don’t want him here”. Of course a bomb demolishes several houses, but the men aren’t bothered too much as long as it hasn’t demolished the ‘boozer’. But sadly Carol loses her eyesight in the blast, and Mrs Blitzein then sings a soliloquy to her deceased husband “Tell Me Jack, what do I do now?” although at that time she is unaware that Carol and Georgie are lovers. Mrs Blitzein is further enraged that her son Harry returns home on leave from the Army with what she calls a ‘Goy pick-up’. Elsie (Harry’s girlfriend) then teams up with Mrs Blitzein to rid this extra ‘invasion’ which leads to the neighbours blaming Hitler and singing “Be what you wanna be”. What’s more Mrs Blitzein then discovers that Harry is now a deserter adding more fuel to her soliloquy to her deceased husband, Jack. Act One then ends with a reprise of Vera Lynn singing “The Day After Tomorrow” on the radio.
Meanwhile the children have been evacuated to the Country all singing happily in unison “We’re going to the Country, we’re going on a tryn’, let’s hope it doesn’t ‘ryn”. Meanwhile Carol sings “Far Away” which became a big hit for Shirley Bassey, and later the children return home singing “We’ve all been to the Country, etc” but not all happy to be back home, and subsequently play Mums and Dads and again sing in unison about the squabbles between their parents. Georgie also returns home from the front embittered with what he has witnessed and sings “Who Wants to Settle Down?”. He is overheard by Mrs Blitzein who is now fearful about his relationship with Carol feeling that he has jilted her. However after another talk to her deceased husband Jack, she manages to persuade Georgie to marry her daughter. Meanwhile Harry decides to rejoin the Army before he is found absent without leave and sings “Duty Calls!”. Late after the end of the war the ladies sing a song “Bake a Cake” for the wedding and another song “Petticoat Lane on a Saturday is no good, but on a Sunday is a Height of Industry” meaning that even in the peace times following the end of the War wedding presents would still be available even if ‘under the counter’. The men however were less positive and sang “Is this Gonna be a Wedding, is this Gonna be a Farce”. However the Kosher Wedding went ahead despite Alfred and his morose ally Ernie bringing their own fish and chips.
After the wedding party disperses an unexplored bomb shatters the cafe, and Alfred returns with the firemen lamenting in verse “There’ll always be an Engerland” before the wardens realised that Mrs Blitzein had stayed behind in the cafe and with the help of Alfred clawed her from the wreckage. Her eyes opened weakly on to Alfred’s anxious face as she gasps “You took your ruddy time in getting here, didn’t you?” The crowd relaxes, as they sing “It’s all right, she’s at it again!”
Now I particularly loved this stage musical, not just because of the lyrics and music but also because of the Jewish and Cockney humour as of course I lived through the Second World War and have always admired the fortitude and steadfulness shown by the citizens of our Capital City. However that is not the end of the Lionel Bart story as it was suggested that he was romantically involved with Judy Garland and the vivacious Alma Cogan for whom he wrote several songs, although only his closest friends were aware that he was in fact a homosexual. What is it about homosexuals that they can be so talented and often sets them apart from other playwrights and musicians? I’m thinking here of Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward and Terence Rattigan, and several classical composers.
Lionel Bart died aged 68 with liver cancer in 1999 and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium. He was revered by Andrew Lloyd Webber as at the forefront of composing not only the music of British stage musicals, but also the lyrics and that can’t be overstated. A workshop of a musical based on his life called “It’s a Fine Life” (one of his hits from ‘Oliver!’) was staged at the Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch. All I can add is that he was to the musical stage what Oscar Wilde was to theatrical plays, and I can’t pay a higher complement than that.
RIP Lionel.
Great post Ken
I’ve enjoyed writing about all these composers including the more recent ones whom I hold in the highest regard as their forbearers. I keep on hearing that during lockdown one should find some alternative hobby to keep one sane, and as music has always played a part in my life as much as football, the research has kept me awake sometimes well after midnight. I have an extensive collection of erecord on compact disc and old vinyl records of everyone of the 73 composers I have listed. I could well have written about another 23 composers of which I have only limited knowledge but decided as I’m not really enamoured about those 23 I decided research was too laborious. Those 23 other composers in chronological order are as follows:-
Claudio Monteverdi 1567/1643
Henry Purcell 1659/1695
Domenico Scarlatti 1685/1757
Niccolo Paganini 1782/1840
Carl Maria von Weber 1786/1826
Gaetano Donizetti 1797/1848
Anton Bruckner 1824/1896
Gustav Holst 1824/1936 (although I have a recoding of his Planet Suite) Emil Waldteufel 1837/1915 (who wrote the wonderful Skaters Waltz)
Pietro Mascagni 1863/1945
Charles Ives 1874/1854
Arnold Schoenberg 1874/1951
Maurice Ravel 1875/1937 (although I have a recording of his Bolero)
Bela Bartok 1881/1945
Igor Stravinsky 1882/1971
Percy Grainger 1882/1961
Charles Williams 1893/1978
Aaron Copland 1900/1990
Dmitry Kabalevsky 1904/1987 (who wrote the Comedian’s Galop)
Olivier Messiaen 1908/1992
Benjamin Britten 1913/1976
Ennio Marricone 1928/2020 (who wrote the music for many film scores) Marvin Hamlisch 1944/2020 (who wrote the music for ‘A Chorus Line’)
So many more composers who I haven’t got recordings of. My apologies for not being able to accommodate all these, but I think that 73 composers are my limit although it would have been nice to reach a century.
Excellent work, Ken.
I hope you get your vaccination soon. And that we others can follow soon. I hope the summer is better as the weather will get warmer and the viruses are less effective. I hope the vaccinations will start to have an effect before Autumn. But of course a lot depends how they will be available from the medicine companies.
I hope the get the one made in Billingham, but it could be that I have to take what is availabe one day. Take care, Ken.
Up the Boro!
Jarkko
I had my first covid injection a couple of weeks ago and luckily it was at Redcar less than a mile from my home. I’ve not yet been given a date for my second jab, just a letter stating that it will be in 12 weeks time. Also I’ve been advised that I will need to have regular winter jabs each year. I’ve not been too well lately following a cracked rib after a recent fall, but am well on the way to recovery now.
Thanks for your kind thoughts.
And finally a quote from Andre Rieu which I have just come across. “I don’t see the difference between classical music and other music. Some people are very strict stating that some music isn’t classified music. I even hear people state that some music isn’t pop music. For me there are no borders in music; there’s only good music and bad music. Good music is music that touches my heart”.
I hadn’t heard that quote until quite recently, but that is exactly what I tried to convey when I started this project last September. I then wrote that classical music is any music that is as popular today as it was when first composed; in other words music that has stood the test of time. I wish I had been aware of Andre Rieu’s comments last September, because it would have been a good quote to use when starting this project.