1935 - Music

Music

Hollywood musicals: Mark Sandrich's Top Hat with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, choreography by Hermes Pan, Irving Berlin songs that include "Cheek to Cheek," "Isn't It a Lovely Day to Be Caught in the Rain," "Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails"; A. Edward Sutherland's Mississippi with Bing Crosby, W. C. Fields, Joan Bennett, music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart, songs that include "It's Easy to Remember but So Hard to Forget"; Busby Berkeley's Gold Diggers of 1935 with Dick Powell, choreography by Busby Berkeley, music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Al Dubin, songs that include "Lullaby of Broadway"; Roy Del Ruth's Folies Bergère with Maurice Chevalier, Ann Sothern, Merle Oberon.

Radio music: The Hour of Charm 1/3 on CBS with Phil Spitalny and His All-Girl Orchestra (Ukrainian-born conductor-composer Philip Spitalny, 43, whose wife, Evelyn, performs solos on her "magic violin") (to 1948); Your Hit Parade 4/20 on NBC with the Lucky Strike Orchestra playing the week's top 15 tunes (to 4/24/1959; see television, 1950).

Stage musicals: Glamorous Night 5/2 at London's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, with Mary Ellis, operatic contralto Olive Gilbert, Ivor Novello, book and lyrics by London-born actor and writer Christopher Hassall, 23, based on the exploits of the notorious Romanian adventuress Mme. Lupescu, music by Novello, songs that include "Fold Your Wings," 243 perfs.; At Home Abroad 9/19 at New York's Winter Garden Theater, with Beatrice Lillie, Eleanor Powell, Ethel Waters, Eddie Foy Jr., Jean Carson, music by Arthur Schwartz, lyrics by Howard Dietz, songs that include "Hottentot Potentate," 198 perfs.; Jubilee 10/12 at New York's Imperial Theater, with Melville Cooper, Mary Boland, Montgomery Clift, music and lyrics by Cole Porter, songs that include "Begin the Beguine," "Just One of Those Things," 169 perfs.; Seeing Stars at London's Gaiety Theatre, with music by Broones/John, 236 perfs.; Twenty to One 11/12 at the London Coliseum, with music by Billy Mayerl, 383 perfs.; Jumbo 11/16 at the New York Hippodrome, with Jimmy Durante, a live elephant, music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart, songs that include "Little Girl Blue," "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," 233 perfs.; May Wine 12/5 at New York's St. James Theater, with Walter Slezak, book by Frank Mandel from a story by Erich Von Stroheim and Wallace Smith, music by Sigmund Romberg, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, 213 perfs.; George White's Scandals 12/24 at the New Amsterdam Theater, with Bert Lahr, Willie and Eugene Howard, Rudy Vallée, music by Ray Henderson, lyrics by Jack Yellen, 110 perfs.

Charles E. Mack of Moran and Mack vaudeville fame is killed January 11 at age 46 near Mesa, Ariz., when a car driven by his wife overturns en route to New York. His partner Moran is unhurt.

Opera: Norwegian soprano Kirsten (Malfrid) Flagstad, 40, makes her Metropolitan Opera debut 2/2 singing the role of Siglinde in the 1870 Wagner opera Die Walküre and 4 days later sings the role of Isolde. She made her debut at Oslo in 1913 at age 15; Porgy and Bess 10/10 at New York's Alvin Theater, with Baltimore-born soprano Anne Wiggins Brown, 20, as Bess, Kentucky-born baritone (Robert) Todd Duncan, 32, as Porgy, music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward (whose 1927 stage play Porgy has provided the libretto), songs that include "Bess, You Is My Woman Now" and "It Ain't Necessarily So," 124 perfs.; Italian soprano Licia Albanese, 22, makes her debut 12/10 at Parma; Brazilian soprano Bidu Sayão, 33, her New York debut 12/30 in a recital at Town Hall.

Soprano Marcella Sembrich dies at New York January 11 at age 76; composer Alban Berg at Vienna December 24 at age 50 of an infection caused by a bee sting at the base of his spine.

The Paris Philharmonic is founded by French conductor Charles Munch, 44.

Composer Paul Dukas dies at Paris May 17 at age 69.

Chicago music lovers flock to Highland Park for the first Ravinia Festival, held at the site of an amusement park started by the Chicago & Milwaukee Electric Railroad in 1904 to attract ridership. Train noises often drown out performers at the summer concerts, which will continue into the next century.

Benny Goodman opens at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles August 21 and is hailed as the King of Swing. Using arrangements by Fletcher Henderson, 36, to introduce a new "big band" jazz style, Chicago-born clarinetist-band leader Benjamin David Goodman, 26, starts a Let's Dance radio program of "swing" music, and begins a long career that will be helped by such sidemen as Lionel Hampton, 22, Gene Krupa, 26, and Teddy (Theodore Shaw) Wilson, 23 (see 1938).

Jazz music of black or Jewish origin is banned from German radio beginning in October.

Popular songs: "The Music Goes Round and Round" by Edward Farley and Michael Riley, lyrics by "Red" Hodgson; "(Lookie, Lookie, Lookie) Here Comes Cookie" by Mack Gordon and Harry Revel (for the film Love in Bloom); "About a Quarter to Nine" and "She's a Latin from Manhattan" by Al Dubin, lyrics by Harry Warren (for the film Go Into Your Dance); "The Lady in Red" by Alie Wrubel, lyrics by Mort Dixon, "I Won't Dance" by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II; "Stairway to the Stars" by violinist Matt Malneck and Frank Signorelli, lyrics by Mitchell Parish; "Goody Goody" by Matt Malneck and Johnny Mercer; "I'm in the Mood for Love" by Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields; "A Little Bit Independent" by Joseph A. Boyle, lyrics by Edgar Leslie; "Moon Over Miami" by Joe Burke, lyrics by Edgar Leslie; "In a Sentimental Mood" by Duke Ellington; "Solitude" by Duke Ellington, lyrics by Eddie De Lange; "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter" by Fred E. Ahlert, lyrics by Joe Young; "Red Sails in the Sunset" by Hugh Williams (Will Grosz), lyrics by Jimmy Kennedy; "Roll Along Prairie Moon" by Ted Fiorito, Harry McPherson, and Albert von Tilzer.

New Orleans-born jazz singer Connee (née Connie) Boswell becomes a soloist at age 27 after several years of performing with her sisters. She had polio as a child and must use a wheelchair; Arkansas-born singer Patsy Montana (Rubye Blevins), 20, records "I Wanna Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart" and becomes the first woman in country music to have a record that sells more than 1 million copies.

Band leader-songwriter Russ (originally Ruggiero) Columbo is fatally wounded at Hollywood, Calif., September 2 at age 26 when his boyhood friend Lansing V. Brown accidentally drops a lighted match on the percussion cap of a Civil War cap-and-ball pistol. The ball hits a table top and ricochets into Columbo's head above his left eye (Columbo's popularity has rivaled that of Bing Crosby); songwriter Roy Turk dies of pneumonia following surgery for cancer at Hollywood November 30 at age 43.