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Rudolf Friml
His father, a baker, loved music and played both the accordion and the zither. Rudolf took up the piano as a child, and by age ten, his first composition was published "Barcarolle", a piano instrumental.At age 14, he passed the entrance examination for the Prague Conservatory (then under the direction of Anton Dvorak), and was placed in the 'third year' grade, so completed the six year course in just three years. (His tuition was paid by friends and relatives.)
One of his fellow students at the conservatory was Jan Kubelik, and after graduation, the two men toured Europe giving concerts. Friml was Kubelik's assisting pianist for close to ten years. During this time, Kubelik achieved his reputation as a brilliant violin virtuoso. In 1901, Daniel Frohman brought Kubelik to the U.S. for an eighty concert tour. Friml again was the accompanist. In 1904, Friml had his American Debut with a concert in New York's Carnegie Hall, where he premiered one of his own works, the "Concerto (Piano) in B-Flat".He repeated the concerto that same year with the New York Symphony Society.
It was pure chance that brought Rudolf Friml to the Broadway stage. Victor Herbert was to compose an operetta for Emma Trentini, and Oscar Hammerstein was to produce the show. Herbert then had a bitter quarrel with Trentini, and adamantly refused to write the score. Music publishers Max Dreyfuss and Rudolph Schirmer induced Hammerstein to take a chance on using Friml to score the show.
His last two Broadway musical shows were failures.
In 1934, Friml became resident in Hollywood, where he worked on many film scores. Mostly be adapted his own successful Broadway scores for film, but he also did some original film scores, including 'Music For Madame' and 'Northwest Outpost'. But he was never again to achieve the same success he had on Broadway. In 1937, the film adaptation of his operetta 'The Firefly' was released. One of the songs was "The Donkey Serenade". He was assisted by composer Herbert Stothart with a lyric added by Chet Forrest. Friml had originally written the song as an instrumental in 1923.Every subsequent revival of the operetta has had this tune included. Friml's best known popular songs include:
Rose Marie became a successful movie in 1936 and again in 1954, as did The Vagabond King, in 1930 and 1956; and The Firefly, in 1937. In 1952, he married Kay Ling, his Chinese-American secretary. Friml had always had a fascination with the orient, and husband and wife made many trips to the far east, at which times, Friml made sound recordings and films of native music and dances.He even wrote some concert pieces in the Chinese idiom. Rudolf Friml was one of the most famous composers of music for the Broadway stage. It was his good fortune to be actively writing operettas for Broadway when such 'Old Europe' type music was in vogue with the American public. He began to lose favor when his type of Romantic Idealism gave way to Realism.Another great composer, Jerome Kern, began (in 1934) to integrate the music with the play's text, and this spelled the demise ofthe traditional operetta on the American stage.
Dean Fuller
Among his songs are:
On May 19, 1973, the musical 'Smith' opened in New York's Eden theatre. It had 18 performances. The book was by Dean Fuller, Tony Hendra and Matt
Dubey, with music and lyrics by Matt Dubey and Dean Fuller.The cast included Don Murray, Virginia Sandifur. Among the songs he wrote were:
Here's a partial list of songs written by Dean Fuller in collaboration with Marshall Barer
The score for the 1957 musical 'Appearances' based on 'The Emperor's New Clothes.'
The score of 1975 musical 'Dancing On The Air', based on 'The Devil's Disciple.'
"Dancing on the Air" the theme song
From 1958 revue 'Joy Ride'
From the show 'Dancing On The Air'
From the show 1958'Once Over Lightly'
From the Show 'New Faces of 1956'
"A Man in My Pocket", on an India Adams lp record.
Reg Fulton
Reg has written a great deal with Louis Rey, who was Chef du Musique Legere, for Radio-Geneve, Switzerland. But perhaps, most of Reg's work has involved writing translations of songs for Dante Panzuti (Danpa). Dante was the Italian lyricist of "Concerto d'Autonno" known here as "And That Reminds Me" ("I hear the sound of music, your favorite kind of music and that reminds me, dear of you....") The tune was a world-wide hit for Della Reese. Dante and his late brother, Virgilio, had one of the largest Italian publishing houses. (Virgilio studied piano with Verdi and was A&R man for Telefunken in Germany.)Among his other work, Reg Fulton wrote hundreds of English language versions of songs for Dante. While most never became hugely successful, there was one song "Mezzanotte di Natale" for which Reg wrote an English language version that got some play: "Your Special Christmas Angel." Fulton had a big hit with another of his own tunes, "Paris in the Rain," for which he wrote both the words and the music. It was featured on Italian television, with the Afro-American expatriate Henry Wright doing a great job singing it while dressed in a trench coat. The tune was a big hit for Wright who had both an Italian version of the song on records, as well as one with Fulton's original English lyric, -albeit somewhat garbled. The song also appeared on a few other Italian LPs and managed to climb all the way up to number six on the Italian charts. Happily, Reg Fulton continues to be quite active, enriching the world with his delightful lyrics and melodies. Dolores Fuller
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