1941 - Music

Music

Hollywood musical: Ben Sharpsteen's Dumbo with Walt Disney animation, music by Frank Churchill, lyrics by Oliver Wallace.

Stage musicals: Lady in the Dark 1/23 at New York's Alvin Theater with Gertrude Lawrence, New York-born actor-singer Danny Kaye (originally David Daniel Kaminsky), 28, Louisville, Ky.-born actor Victor Mature, 28, Sioux City, Iowa-born Macdonald Carey, 27, music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, songs that include "Jenny (the Saga of)," "My Ship," "Tchaikovsky," 162 perfs. (Kaye has married Sylvia Fine while working in the Catskill Mountain "borscht circuit" and she has helped him with her witty songs); Rise Above It (revue) 6/5 at London's Comedy Theatre, with Henry Kendall, Hermione Baddeley, Wilfred Hyde-White, 236 perfs. (a second edition opens in December for another 144 perfs.); Jump for Joy, A Sun-Tanned Revu-sical 7/10 at the Mayan Theater, Los Angeles, with an all-black cast, music by Duke Ellington, a social message designed (in Ellington's words) "to take the Uncle Tom out of the theater, eliminate the stereotyped image that has been exploited by Hollywood and Broadway, and say things that would make the audience think"), lyrics by Paul Francis Webster, Sid Kuller, Henry Newman, and Irving Mills, songs that include "I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good"; Best Foot Forward 10/1 at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater, with Rosemary Lane, Philadelphia-born actress Nancy Walker (originally Ann Myrtle Swoyer), 20, June Allyson, songs by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane that include "Buckle Down, Winsocki," 326 perfs.; Let's Face It 10/29 at New York's Imperial Theater with Danny Kaye, Eve Arden, Seattle-born ingénue Carol Channing, 20, San Diego-born actress Nanette Fabray (originally Nanette Fabares), 21, music and lyrics by Cole Porter, songs that include "You Irritate Me So," and Danny Kaye patter songs with lyrics by Sylvia Fine, 547 perfs.; Sons O'Fun 12/1 at New York's Winter Garden Theater with Olsen and Johnson, Carmen Miranda, Ella Logan, music by Sammy Fain and Will Irwin, lyrics by Jack Yellen and Irving Kahal, songs that include "Happy in Love," 742 perfs.

Budapest-born comic Joe Penner (originally Josef Pinter) dies of a heart attack in his Ritz-Carlton Hotel room at Philadelphia January 10 at age 36; Joseph Coyne in Surrey outside London February 17 at age 73; Jenny (Yansci) Dolly of the Dolly Sisters hangs herself in her Beverly Hills apartment after a long illness April 30 at age 48; Lew Fields of the comedy team Weber and Fields dies of pneumonia at Beverly Hills July 20 at age 73 with Weber at his bedside; minstrel Eddie Leonard (originally Lemuel Gordon Tonay) is found dead in a New York hotel August 29 at age 70; torch singer Helen Morgan dies penniless after a kidney operation at Chicago October 8 at age 41.

First performances: Symphonie Dances for Orchestra by Sergei Rachmaninoff 1/4 at Philadelphia's Academy of Music; Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra by Paul Hindemith 2/7 at Boston's Symphony Hall, with Gregor Piatigorsky as soloist; Concerto for Violin and Orchestra by Samuel Barber 2/7 at Philadelphia's Academy of Music, with Albert Spalding as soloist; Symphony No. 1 by New York-born composer Paul Creston (originally Joseph Guttoveggio), 34, 2/22 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music; Latin-American Symphonette by New York-born composer Morton Gould, 27, 2/22 at Brooklyn; Ballad of a Railroad Man for Chorus and Orchestra by Roy Harris 2/22 at Brooklyn; Sinfonia da Requiem by Benjamin Britten 3/29 at New York's Carnegie Hall (Tokyo commissioned the work in 1939 for the 2,600th anniversary of the imperial dynasty in 1940 but rejected it, calling it too Christian); A Symphony in D for the Dodgers by Kansas City-born composer Robert Russell Bennett, 46, 5/16 in a radio concert from New York (Bennett has been orchestrating Broadway musical scores since 1919); Piano Sonata by Aaron Copland 10/21 at Buenos Aires; Symphony No. 2 by Virgil Thomson 11/17 at Seattle; Symphony in E flat major by Hindemith 11/21 at Minneapolis; Scottish Ballad for Two Pianos and Orchestra by Britten 11/28 at Cincinnati; Symphony No. 1 by U.S. composer David Diamond, 26, 12/21 at New York's Carnegie Hall.

English concert pianist Myra Hess, 51, is named Dame Commander of the British Empire.

Lüftwaffe night raiders destroy the Queen's Hall, London, with incendiary bombs May 10.

A BBC broadcast from London June 27 urges the subjugated peoples of Europe to adopt the Morse code signal for the letter V (for Victory)—three dots and a dash—and to whistle the opening motive of Symphony No. 5 by Ludwig van Beethoven whenever Nazi soldiers are around. London's Westminster chimes have added the four notes on the hour.

Composer Frank Bridge dies at Eastbourne, England, January 10 at age 61; pianist (and former Polish prime minister) Jan Paderewski at New York June 29 at age 80.

Popular songs: "Lili Marlene" by German composer Norbert Schultze (who also wrote "Bombs on England"), lyrics by World War I German soldier Hans Leip, now 45, who wrote them before going to the Russian front in 1916, combining the name of his girlfriend with that of a friend's girl), English lyrics by London publisher Jimmy Phillips and lyricist Tommy Connor, who adapt the song Allied troops have learned from prisoners of war and from German radio (German publishers will receive royalties beginning in 1958); "Blues in the Night" by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Johnny Mercer; "(There'll Be Blue Birds Over) the White Cliffs of Dover" by English songwriters Nat Burton and Walter Kent; "We Did It Before (and We Can Do It Again)" by Cliff Friend, lyrics by Charlie Tobias; "I Don't Want to Walk Without You" by London-born Hollywood composer Jule Styne, 36, and Frank Loesser; "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" by Eddie Seiler, Sol Marcus, Bennie Benjamin, Eddie Durham; "Take the A Train" by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn (see transportation [New York subway], 1933); "(I Like New York in June) How About You?" by Burton Lane, lyrics by Ralph Freed; "Oh Look At Me Now" by Joe Bushkin and John De Vries; "It's So Peaceful in the Country" by Alec Wilder; "Elmer's Tune" by Chicago undertaker's assistant Elmer Albrecht, lyrics by Duluth, Minn.-born writer Sammy Gallop, 26, and bandleader Dick Jergens; "Racing with the Moon" by Johnny Watson, lyrics by Watson's wife, Pauline Pope, and bandleader Vaughn Monroe; "This Love of Mine" by Sol Parker and Henry Sanicola, lyrics by Frank Sinatra; "Perfidia" by Mexican composer Alberto Dominguez, lyrics by Milton Leeds; "Why Don't You Do Right?" by blues songwriter Joe McCoy; "Yes Indeed!" by Sy Oliver; "Deep in the Heart of Texas" by Don Swander, 36, and his wife, June (née Hershey), 32 (who has never been in Texas); "Jersey Bounce" by Billy Plate, Tony Bradshaw, Edward Johnson, Robert B. Wright; "The Hut-Sut Song" by Leo V. Killion; "Cow-Cow Boogie" by Don Raye, Gene DePaul, and New York-born instrumenalist Bennett Lester "Benny" Carter, 34; "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" by Harry Warren, lyrics by Mack Gordon; "I, Yi, Yi, Yi, Yi (I Like You Very Much)" by Harry Warren, lyrics by Mack Gordon (for Carmen Miranda to sing in Irving Cummings's film That Night in Rio); "Why Don't We Do This More Often" by Allie Wrubell, lyrics by Charlie Newman; "Let's Get Away from It All" by Seattle-born Tommy Dorsey protégé Matthew Loveland "Matt" Dennis, 27, lyrics by Tom Adair; "Anniversary Waltz" by Al Dubin and Dave Franklin; Billie Holiday records "God Bless the Child" and "Gloomy Sunday"; Chicago-born jazz singer Anita O'Day (Anita Belle Colton), 21, records "Let Me Off Uptown" with the Gene Krupa band (O'Day began her career singing at a dance marathon during the Depression); the Andrews Sisters record "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" by Don Raye and Hughie Prince.

Coalinga, Calif.-born singer Jo Stafford, 23, joins the Tommy Dorsey band after several years' singing with the Stafford Sisters; Georgia-born jazz singer Joe Williams (né Joseph Goreed), 22, joins the Coleman Hawkins big band, which will be dissolved next year.

Songwriter A. B. "Banjo" Paterson of 1903 "Waltzing Matilda" fame dies at Sydney February 5 at age 76; Howard E. Johnson at New York May 1 at age 53; jazz pianist-composer Joseph La Menthe "Jelly Roll" Morton alone and penniless at Los Angeles July 10 at age 55, having blamed his failing health on a voodoo spell; songwriter Clifford Grey at Ipswich, England, September 26 at age 54; Gus Kahn at his Beverly Hills home October 8 at age 54.