Rudolf Friml / William Everett.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Everett, William A., 1962-

Series:

American composers

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Friml, Rudolf, 1879-1972.

Friml, Rudolf.

Composers--United States--Biography.

Composers.

United States.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xii, 132 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2008]

Summary:

Rudolf Friml (1879-1972) is best known as the composer of romantic 1920s operettas. Born in Prague where he studied with Dvorak, he moved to the United States in 1906 and pursued careers as a concert pianist and a composer. Beginning in 1912 he wrote music in different styles for Broadway, and in 1914, along with Irving Berlin and Victor Herbert, he became a charter member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).

Friml was skilled at evoking far-away times and places through music. Rose Marie, set in Canada, used formulaic Native American motifs in "Totem Tom Tom" and the popular "Indian Love Call." The Vagabond King and The Three Musketeers were set in France's distant past and featured emblematic marches and Viennese waltzes. Friml also composed music for films, often based on his popular musicals, as well as piano concertos, orchestral works, and piano pieces and songs. William Everett discusses Friml in the larger historical contexts of the American operetta, the Indianist movement, Francophilia, Orientalism, and romantic nostalgia.

Contents:

From Prague to America

The emergence of a Broadway composer

Envisioning the West: Rose Marie

A francophile musical: The vagabond king

The challenge of success

Away from Broadway

Reputation and legacy.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (page 121), discography (pages 117-119), and index.

ISBN:

9780252033810

0252033817

OCLC:

215173163