1934 - Music

Music

Hollywood musicals: Ray Enright's Dames with Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, choreography by Busby Berkeley, music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Al Dubin, songs that include, "I Only Have Eyes for You," "When You Were a Smile on Your Mother's Lips and a Twinkle in Your Father's Eye"; Mark Sandrich's The Gay Divorcee with Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Alice Brady, Edward Everett Horton, choreography Hermes Pan, music from the Broadway musical (whose title has been changed to conform to the new Hays Office code); Elliott Nugent's She Loves Me Not with Bing Crosby, Miriam Hopkins, New Orleans-born singer Kitty Carlisle (originally Catherine Holzman), 20, music by Ralph Rainger, lyrics by Leo Robin, songs that include "Love in Bloom"; Basil Dean's Sing as We Go with Gracie Fields, John Loder.

Stage musicals: The New Ziegfeld Follies 1/4 at New York's Winter Garden Theater, with Fanny Brice, Jane Froman, Vilma and Buddy Ebsen, Eugene and Willie Howard, Mill Valley, Calif.-born ingénue Eve Arden (originally Eunice Quedens), 21, Jean Carson, in a production staged by Ziegfeld's widow, Billie Burke, music by Vernon Duke and others, lyrics by E. Y. Harburg and others, songs that include "I Like the Looks of You" by Billy Hill, 182 perfs.; Mr. Whittington 2/1 at London's Hippodrome, with London-born film star Elsie Randolph, now 30, Jack Buchanan, music by Jack Waller and Joseph Tunbridge, 298 perfs.; Conversation Piece 2/16 at His Majesty's Theatre, London, with Noël Coward, Louis Hayward, George Sanders, book, music, and lyrics by Coward, songs that include "I'll Follow My Secret Heart," 177 perfs.; Life Begins at 8:40 8/27 at New York's Winter Garden Theater, with comedian Bert Lahr, dancer Ray Bolger, 30, Irish-born actor Brian Donlevy, 31, music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and E. Y. Harburg, songs that include "You're a Builder Upper," "Let's Take a Walk Around the Block," 237 perfs.; Yes, Madam? 9/27 at London's Hippodrome, with Bobby Hawes, music by Jack Waller and Joseph Tunbridge, lyrics by R. P. Weston and Bert Lee, 302 perfs.; Anything Goes 11/21 at New York's Alvin Theater, with William Gaxton, Ethel Merman, Victor Moore, Mary Philips, book by Guy Bolton, P. G. Wodehouse, New York-born playwright Howard Lindsay, 45, and Findlay, Ohio-born playwright author Russel Crouse, 41, music and lyrics by Cole Porter, songs that include "The Gypsy in Me," "I Get a Kick Out of You," "You're the Top," "Blow, Gabriel, Blow," "All Through the Night," and the title song, 420 perfs.; Thumbs Up 12/27 at New York's St. James Theater, with Bobby Clark, Ray Dooley, Sheila Barrett, scenic design by Staten Islander Raoul Pène Du Bois, 22, book by Alan Baxter, songs that include "Autumn in New York" by Vernon Duke, "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart" by James Hanley, 156 perfs.

The Grade Organisation founded by Ukrainian-born London dancer Lew Grade (originally Winogradsky), 28, and his brother Leslie will book entertainers such as Jack Benny, Judy Garland, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, and Mario Lanza into the London Palladium. Grade became the world's champion Charleston dancer 8 years ago; he will make his firm Britain's leading show-business agency (see Associated Television, 1955).

Opera: Lady Macbeth of the Mzensk District 1/22 at Leningrad's Maly Opera House, with music by Dmitri Shostakovich. Pravda runs a headline that reads "Muddle Instead of Music" and denounces the work, calling it "a deliberate and ugly flood of confusing sound . . . a pandemonium of creaking, shrieking, and clashes"; another critic calls it "un-Soviet, unwholesome, cheap, eccentric, tuneless, and leftist." Shostakovich is declared an enemy of the people and will spend the next 2 years in abject fear, sleeping in the hallway outside his apartment so that his young family will not be disturbed if the NKVD should take him away; Merry Mount 2/10 at New York's Metropolitan Opera House, with music by Howard Hanson; Four Saints in Three Acts 2/20 at New York's 44th Street Theater (after opening at Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum), with music by Kansas-born composer Virgil (Garnett) Thomson, 37, sets and costumes by Florine Stettheimer, libretto by Gertrude Stein, whose opera is not about saints, is not presented in three acts, but adds to the fame of Gertrude Stein with such bewildering lines as "Pigeons in the grass, alas." Lotte Lehmann makes her Metropolitan Opera debut 12/31 at age 46 singing the role of Sieglinde opposite tenor Lauritz Melchior in the 1870 Wagner opera Die Walküre; Marjorie (Florence) Lawrence sings the role of Brünnhilde in her own debut at the Met.

The Glyndebourne Festival Opera has its first season 54 miles south of London on the 640-acre estate of Audrey and John Christie. The London Philharmonic provides music for the June to August performances in the Christies' 800-seat opera house.

Ballet: English ballerina Margot Fonteyn (Margaret Hookham), 15, makes her debut dancing in the Nutcracker Suite at London's Vic-Wells Ballet; Soviet ballerina Galina Sergeyevna Ulanova, 24, makes her debut with the Kirov Ballet.

The School of American Ballet is founded at New York by Boston-born Filene's department store heir Lincoln Kirstein, 27, an aesthete who has persuaded George Balanchine to come to America. Charter members of the new American Ballet Company include San Diego-born, Italian-trained ballerina Gisella Caccialanza, 19 (see New York City Ballet, 1946).

The Berkshire Music Festival has its first season, using the 210-acre Tappan family estate "Tanglewood," outside Lenox, Mass., whose grounds can accommodate up to 14,000 concertgoers. The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) will take over the Festival in 1936 under the direction of Serge Koussevitzky, a disastrous rainstorm will halt a concert August 12, 1937, and the BSO will erect a 6,000-seat "Shed" with fine acoustics in 1938.

First performances: Sacred Music (Avodath Hakodesh), a Sabbath Morning Service for Baritone Cantor, Chorus, and Orchestra by Ernest Bloch 1/12 at Turin (radio broadcast); Symphony—1933 by Roy Harris 1/26 at Boston's Symphony Hall; The Enchanted Deer (Cantata Profane) by Béla Bartók 5/25 at London in a performance by the BBC Wireless Chorus and BBC Symphony; Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra after the Concerto Grosso Op. 6 No. 7 by G. F. Handel by Arnold Schoenberg 9/26 at Prague (Schoenberg has been in the United States since October of last year); Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini for Piano and Orchestra by Sergei Rachmaninoff 11/7 at Baltimore in a concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Composer Sir Edward Elgar dies at Worcester February 23 at age 76; Gustav Holst at London May 25 at age 59; Frederick Delius at Grez-sur-Loing June 10 at age 71.

Popular songs: "The Beer Barrel Polka" ("Skoda Lasky") by Czech songwriters Jaromir Vejvoda, Wiadimir A. Timm, and Vasek Zeman (English lyrics by Lew Brown will appear in 1939); "What a Difference a Day Makes" ("Cuando vuelva a tu lado") by Spanish composer Marcia Greves, English lyrics by Stanley Adams; "Miss Otis Regrets" by Noël Coward, who has written it for Bricktop (see 1925); "June in January" by Ralph Rainger, lyrics by Leo Robin; "Blue Moon" by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart; "Stars Fell on Alabama" by Frank Perkins, lyrics by Mitchell Parish; "Moonglow" by Barstow, Calif.-born composer Will Hudson, 26, and Irving Mills, lyrics by Long Island City, N.Y.-born writer Eddie De Lange, 30; "The Very Thought of You" by Ray Noble; "For All We Know" by J. Fred Coots, lyrics by Sam M. Lewis; "Love Thy Neighbor" by Harry Revel, lyrics by Mack Gordon; "Deep Purple" by Peter DeRose, lyrics by Mitchell Parish; "Little Man You've Had a Busy Day" by Mabel Wayne, lyrics by Maurice Sigler and Al Hoffman; "The Object of My Affection" by Arkansas-born vocalist-songwriters Truman "Pinky" Tomlin, 25, Coy Poe, and band leader Jimmie (James W.) Grier, 36; "Hands Across the Table" by French composer Jean Delettre, English lyrics by Mitchell Parish; "Alla en el Rancho Grande" by Mexican composer Sylvano R. Ramos, lyrics by Bartley Costello; "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" by Bob Nolan; "Carry Me Back to the Lone Prairie" by Carson Robinson; "You and the Night and the Music" by Arthur Schwartz, lyrics by Howard Dietz (for the film Revenge with Music); "With My Eyes Wide Open I'm Dreaming" by Mack Gordon and Harry Revel (for the film Shoot the Works); "You Oughta Be in Pictures" by Kansas City-born composer Dana Suesse, 22, lyrics by Edward Heyman; "On the Good Ship Lollipop" by Richard Whiting, lyrics by Sidney Clare (for the film Bright Eyes); "Isle of Capri" by Will Grosz, lyrics by Jimmy Kennedy; "Winter Wonderland" by Felix Bernard, lyrics by Dick Smith.

Le Jazz Hot by French critic Hugues Panassié, 22, is the first book of jazz criticism.

Paris-born violinist and jazz improviser Stéphane Grappelli, 26, joins with gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt, now 24, two other guitarists, and a bass to form the Quintette du Hot Club de France. The group will continue until 1939, making records that will be prized by jazz lovers.

Cairo singer Umm Kulthum Ibrahim makes her broadcast debut on the newly founded Egyptian Radio (see 1926). Now 30, she has cultivated an Egyptian-Arab style of song, made numerous recordings, and beginning in 1937 will broadcast monthly live concerts that will reach audiences throughout the Middle East for nearly 40 years.

Newport News, Va.-born jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, 16, lands a job with the Chick Webb Orchestra and begins a notable career after winning first prize in an amateur contest November 21 at Harlem's Apollo Theater singing two songs in the style of Connee Boswell (see 1939).

The Hammond organ patented by Chicago clock maker Laurens Hammond, 39, is the world's first pipeless organ. The 275-pound instrument has a two-manual console with pedal clavier and power cabinet but no reeds, pipes, or vibrating parts; it costs less than 1¢ per hour to operate and will lead to a whole generation of electrically-amplified instruments.