Irving Berlin (born Israeli Beilin (Russian: ?????????? ) May 23 [OS 11 May] Ã, 1888 - September 22, 1989) is an American composer and lyricist, widely regarded as one of the greatest songwriters in American history. His music formed most of the Great American Songbook. Born in the Russian Empire, Berlin arrived in the United States at the age of five. He published his first song, "Marie from Sunny Italy", in 1907, received 33 cents for publishing rights, and got his first international hit, "Alexander's Ragtime Band" in 1911. He is also the owner of the Music Box Theater. on Broadway.
"Alexander's Ragtime Band" sparked an international dance frenzy in distant places such as the native Berlin city of Berlin, which also "threw itself into ragtime rhythms by leaving borders with mania." For many years he was known for writing music and lyrics in American: not complicated, simple and straightforward, with the stated aim being to "reach the heart of the average American," which he saw as "the true soul of the state." By doing so that, Walter Cronkite said, in honor of Berlin's 100th anniversary, he "helped write the story of this country, capturing the best of who we are and the dreams that shape our lives."
He wrote hundreds of songs, many of which became big hits, which made him a legend before he was thirty years old. During his 60-year career he wrote about 1,500 songs, including scores for 20 original Broadway shows and 15 original Hollywood movies, with his songs nominated eight times for the Academy Awards. Many songs become popular themes and anthems, including "Easter Parade", "White Christmas", "Happy Holiday", "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)", and "No Business Like Business Show ". Broadway musical and his 1943 movie, This is the Army , with Ronald Reagan, has Kate Smith singing the song "God Bless America" ​​Berlin was first performed in 1938.
Lagu-lagu Berlin telah mencapai puncak tangga lagu 25 kali dan telah banyak direkam ulang oleh sejumlah penyanyi termasuk The Andrews Sisters, Eddie Fisher, Al Jolson, Fred Astaire, Ethel Merman, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Dekan Martin, Deana Martin, Ethel Waters, Elvis Presley, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, Linda Ronstadt, Rosemary Clooney, Cher, Diana Ross, Bing Crosby, Rita Reys, Frankie Laine, Johnnie Ray, Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan, Ruth Etting, Fanny Brice, Marilyn Miller, Alice Faye, Rudy Valee, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Doris Day, Jerry Garcia, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Ella Fitzgerald, Diana Krall, Harry Connick Jr., CeeLo Green, Michael Buble, Seth MacFarlane, Kelly Clarkson , Martina McBride, Lady Gaga, dan Christina Aguilera.
Composer Douglas Moore made Berlin separate from all other contemporary songwriters, and included him as a substitute for Stephen Foster, Walt Whitman, and Carl Sandburg, as "great American companions" - someone "caught and enshrined in his songs what we say, what we think, and what we believe. "Composer George Gershwin calls him" the greatest songwriter ever alive ", and composer Jerome Kern concludes that" Irving Berlin has no place in American music - he is American music. "
Video Irving Berlin
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Berlin was born on May 11, 1888, in the Russian Empire. His exact birth place is unknown. Although the Berlin family came from the Tolochin shtetel (in lately Belarus), he was probably born in Tyumen, Siberia. He was one of the eight sons of Moses (1848-1901) and Lena Lipkin Beilin (1850-1922). His father, a singer in a synagogue, took off his family to America, as did many other Jewish families in the late nineteenth century. In 1893 they settled in New York City. Upon their arrival on Ellis Island, the name "Beilin" was changed to "Baline". According to the biographer Laurence Bergreen, as an adult Berlin admits there are no memories for his first five years in Russia except one: "he was lying on a blanket on the side of the road, watching his house burn to the ground." By day the House was in ashes. adult, Berlin says he is not aware of being raised in poverty because he does not know other lives.
Tsar Alexander III of Russia and then Tsar Nicholas II, his son, has been revived with the utmost brutality of anti-Jewish pogroms, which created a spontaneous mass exodus to America. The massacre continued until 1906, with thousands of other Jewish families also needing to escape, including George and Ira Gershwin, Al Jolson, Sophie Tucker, L. Wolfe Gilbert, Jack Yellen, Louis B. Mayer (from MGM), and Warner's brothers. It has been alleged that the Beilin family also fled because of this pogrom, although there is no evidence to suggest that there was a pogrom in Tolochin or Tyumen when Beilin went to America. When they arrived at Ellis Island, Israel was put in a pen with his brother and five sisters until the immigration officials declared that they were eligible to be allowed into the city.
Settling in New York City
Upon their arrival in New York City, the Balines lived briefly in the underground flat on Monroe Street, and then moved into a three-room tenement house on 330 Cherry Street. His father, unable to find a comparable job as a singer in New York, took a job at the kosher meat market and gave Hebrew lessons in addition, to support his family. He died a few years later when Irving was thirteen.
Now, with just a few years of schooling, an eight-year-old Irving began helping to support his family. He became a newspaper boy, hawking The Evening Journal. One day while delivering a newspaper, according to Berlin biography and friend Alexander Woollcott, he stopped to see a ship leaving for China and became so fascinated that he did not see a swinging crane, which dropped him into the river. When he was arrested after the third drop, he still held his fist five cents he got that day.
Her mother took a job as a midwife, and her three sisters worked on wrapping cigars, common to immigrant girls. His older brother works in a sweatshop assembly shirt. Every night, when the family come home from their daily work, Bergreen writes, "they will deposit the coins they got that day into Lena's stretched apron."
Music historian Philip Furia writes that when "Izzy" started selling newspapers in Bowery, he was exposed to music and voices coming from salons and restaurants lined the crowded streets. Young Berlin sang some songs he heard while selling paper, and people would throw some coins at him. He confessed to his mother one night that his latest ambition in life was to be a waitress singing in a salon.
However, before Berlin was fourteen, his little income still added less than his sisters to the family budget, which made him feel worthless. He then decided to leave home and join the ragged city army from other young immigrants. She lives in Bowery, living in one of the inn houses that protects thousands of homeless boys on the Lower East Side. Bergreen describes them as an unusual residence, "Dickensian in their cruelty, filth, and insensitivity to ordinary people."
Initial work
With a bit of survival skills after leaving school around the age of thirteen, he realized that formal work is impossible. His only ability comes from his father's call as a singer, and he joins several other young people who go to salons in Bowery and sing for customers. Young singers traveling as they used to on the Lower East Side. Berlin will sing some of the popular ballads he heard on the street, hoping people will give him a few cents. From this lonely environment he became a street person, with a real and lasting education. Music is the only source of income and he takes the language and culture of the ghetto lifestyle.
Berlin studied the kind of song that appealed to the audience, Begreen wrote: "famous songs that express simple sentiments are the most reliable." He soon began to incorporate the songs in the Tony Pastor Music Hall at Union Square and in 1906, when he was 18 years old, got a job as a waitress singing at the Pelham Cafe in Chinatown. In addition to serving drinks, he sang a parody of "blue" hit songs that were made to please customers.
Biographer Charles Hamm writes that in his spare time in Berlin after hours, he taught himself to play the piano. Without a lesson, after the bar closed for the night, the young Berliner would sit on the piano in the back and start improvising the song. His first attempt at true songwriting was "Marie From Sunny Italy," written in collaboration with Pelham pianist resident Mike Nicholson, from which he earned 37 cents in royalties. Spelling mistakes on sheet music for published songs include the spelling of his name as "I. Berlin."
Berlin continues to write and play music at Pelham Cafe and develop an early style. She likes words for someone else's song but sometimes the rhythm is "somewhat damp," and she may change it. One night he presented several songs made by his friend, George M. Cohan, another child who began to be known on Broadway with his own songs. When Berlin ended up with Cohan, "Yankee Doodle Boy," Whitcomb said, "everyone in the pamphlets applauds to a vigorous boy."
The Nobel Prize-winning author, Rudyard Kipling, who lived on the beach during that period, said he was "shocked and curious about the shrill attachment he found in the dirty gray valley of New York immigrants." He described it as worse than the Bombay slums, but remained "impressed and moved by the Jews," Whitcomb said, noting how the songs by small immigrant children "salute the Stars and the Lines." Kipling writes, "For the Jews this immigrant is a surviving and growing race against all odds and flags."
Recognition as songwriter
Max Winslow (c) 1883-1942), a staff member at music publisher Harry Von Tilzer Company, saw Berlin singing on many occasions and became so enamored with his talent that he tried to give him a job at his company. Von Tilzer said that Max claimed to have "found a great child," and raved about him so much that Von Tilzer hired Berlin.
Then, in 1908, when he was 20 years old, Berlin took a new job at a salon named Jimmy Kelly in the neighborhood of Union Square. There, he is able to collaborate with other young songwriters, such as Edgar Leslie, Ted Snyder, Al Piantadosi, and George A. Whiting. In 1909, Zangwill's inaugural year The Melting Pot , he got a major breakthrough as a staff lyricist with Ted Snyder Company.
Maps Irving Berlin
Songwriting career
Before 1920
Alexander's Ragtime Band (1911) Alexander's_Ragtime_Band & quot; _ (1911) ">" Alexander's Ragtime Band "(1911) Alexander's_Ragtime_Band & quot; _ (1911) Alexander's Ragtime Band (1911)Berlin rose as a songwriter at Tin Pan Alley and on Broadway. In 1911, Emma Carus introduced her first world-famous hit, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", followed by a performance from Berlin herself at Friars' Frolic of 1911. She became an instant celebrity, and the late-year performer at Oscar Hammerstein's vaudeville house , where he introduced dozens of other songs. The New York Telegraph describes how two hundred of her street friends came to see their "boy" on stage: "All the little writers can do is to push a button on his coat while tears run down his cheeks. - at the vaudeville house! "
Richard Corliss, in the profile of Berlin Time magazine, described "Alexander's Ragtime Band" as a parade, not a cloth, "his most intelligent musicality consists of excerpts from trumpet calls and" Swanee River. "revived the spirit of ragtime that Scott Joplin had started a decade earlier, and made Berlin a songwriting star, from the first and subsequent releases, the song was near the top of the charts when others sang it: Bessie Smith, in 1927, and Louis Armstrong, in 1937, No. 1 by Bing Crosby and Connee Boswell, Johnny Mercer in 1945, Al Jolson, in 1947 and Nellie Lutcher in 1948. Added a big-band version of Ray Charles in 1959, and "Alexander" has a dozen hit versions in just under half a century.
Initially the song was not recognized as a hit, however; Broadway producer Jesse Lasky is not sure to use it, even though he put it in a "Follies" show. It was done as instrumental but did not impress the audience, and soon got off the show scores. Berlin considered it a failure. He then writes the lyrics for the score, plays it again in another Broadway Review, and this time the weekly news called it "the musical sensation of this decade." Composer George Gershwin, foreshadowed his influence, said it was "the first real American musical work," adding, "Berlin has shown us the way: it is now easier to achieve our goals."
Trigger national dance flare
Berlin was "stunned" by the sudden popularity of international songs, and wondered why it was a sudden hit. He decided it was partly because the lyrics, "silly though, are basically right... [and] melodies... starting heels and shoulders of all Americans and a good part of Europe to sway." In 1913, Berlin was featured in the London revue Hello Ragtime, where he introduced "That International Rag", a song he wrote for the event.
- "Watch Your Steps"
Furia writes that the international success of "Alexander's Ragtime Band" gave ragtime "a new life and sparked a national dance frenzy." The two dancers who claimed that the craze were Irene and Vernon Castle. In 1914, Berlin wrote ragtime revue, "Watch Your Step," which starred in the couple and showcased their talents on stage. The musical performances became the first complete score in Berlin with songs that "exude the sophistication of music and lyrics." Berlin's songs signify modernism, and they signify the cultural struggle between the Victorian nobility and the "supplier of freedom, pleasure, and pleasure," Furia said. The song "Play a Simple Melody" became his first famous "double" song in which two different melodies and lyrics were opposed to each other.
Variety titled "Watch Your Step" "first sync music," in which "beautiful set and girl." Berlin was twenty-six years old, and the success of the show depended only on his name. Variety said the show was a "great hit" of the opening night. It compares the new status of Berlin as a composer with the Times building: "The miracle of the young syncopated melody that proves things in" Watch Your Steps ", first that he is not alone as a composer, and that he is one of the greatest, lyric writers ever produced America. "
Whitcomb also pointed out the irony that Russia, a country whose Berlin family was forced to leave, threw itself into a "ragtime rhythm by leaving a boundary bordering on mania." Prince Felix Yusupov, for example, a recent Oxford scholar of Russian nobility and the greatest estate heir of Russia, is portrayed by his dance partner as "wiggling around the ballroom like a crazy worm, shouting for 'more ragtime and more champagne'."
Simple and romantic ballads
Some of the songs that Berlin created out of his own sorrow. For example, in 1912 he married Dorothy Goetz, sister songwriter E. Ray Goetz. He died six months later because of typhoid fever contracted during their honeymoon in Havana. The song he wrote to express his sadness, "When I Lost You," was his first ballad. It was a popular hit and sold over a million copies.
He began to realize that ragtime is not a good musical style for serious romantic expressions, and over the next few years adjusting his style by writing more love songs. In 1915 he wrote the song "I Love a Piano", a funny and erotic ragtime love song.
In 1918 he had written hundreds of songs, mostly topics, that enjoyed a brief popularity. Many of those songs for new dances then appear, such as "grizzly bear", "running chicken", or fox running. After the Hawaiian dance frenzy began, he wrote "That Hula-Hula", and then performed a series of southern songs, such as "When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam". During this period, he created several new songs each week, including songs devoted to various immigrant cultures coming from Europe. On one occasion, Berlin, whose face is still unknown, is on a train journey and decides to entertain fellow passengers with music. They asked how he knew so many hit songs, and Berlin simply replied, "I wrote it."
An important song written by Berlin during its transition from writing ragtime to lyrical ballads is "A Pretty Girl Like Like Melody," which became one of Berlin's "first big guns", says historian Alec Wilder. The song was written for Ziegfeld's Follies of 1919 and became the main song of the music. Its immense popularity then became the theme for all Ziegfeld shows, and the theme song in the 1936 movie The Great Ziegfeld. Wilder puts it on the same level as Jerome Kern's "pure melody", and compared to the previous music in Berlin, saying "it's remarkable that developments in such style and sophistication should occur within a year."
World War I
On April 1, 1917, after President Woodrow Wilson declared that America would enter World War I, Berlin felt that Tin Pan Alley should do his job and support the war with inspiring songs. Berlin wrote the song, "For Your Country and My Country," which states that "we must speak with a sword instead of a pen to show our appreciation to America for opening his heart and welcoming every immigrant group." He also co-wrote a song aimed at ending the ethnic conflict, "Let's All Be American Now."
- "Yip Yip Yaphank"
In 1917, Berlin was recruited into the United States Army, and news of his influence made headlines, with a headline, "The Army Bringing Berlin!" But the Army wants Berlin, now 30, to do what he knows best: writing songs. When placed with the 152nd Brigade Depot at Camp Upton, he later made a musical song called "Yip Yip Yaphank", written to be patriotic to the US Army. The following summer, the show was brought to Broadway where it also included a number of hits, including "Mandy" and "Oh! How I Hate to Rise in the Morning", which he did himself.
The event generated $ 150,000 for the camp service center. One song he wrote for the show but decided not to use it, he would introduce twenty years later: "God Bless America."
1920 to 1940
Berlin returned to Tin Pan Alley after the war and in 1921 established a partnership with Sam Harris to build the Music Box Theater. He retained an interest in the theater throughout his life, and even in his later years was known to call the Shubert Organization, his colleague, to check the receipt. In the early years, the theater was an exhibition for revues by Berlin. As a theater owner, producer and composer, he keeps every detail of his show, from costumes and sets to casting and musical arrangements.
According to Berlin biography David Leopold, the theater, located at 239 West 45th St., is the only Broadway house built to accommodate the works of a songwriter. It was Berlin's "Music Box Revue" from 1921 to 1925 and "As Thousand Cheer" in 1933 and today includes an exhibition aimed at Berlin in the lobby.
Various hit songs by Berlin
In 1926, Berlin wrote scores for two editions of the Ziegfeld Follies and four "Music Box Revues." "Music Box Revues" Berlin stretched out in 1921-1926, "Say It With Music", "Everybody Step", and "Pack Up Your Sings and Go to the Devil". Life Magazine called it "Lullaby Kid", noting that "the couple in the country-club dance grew fogged when the band entered" Always ", because they were positive that Berlin had written it just for When they quarreled and parted with sweet in the 1920s, was Berlin who gave their heartfelt frustration with "What I Will Do" and "Remember" and "All Alone."
- "What Will I Do?" (1924)
This ballad of love and longing became a hit record for Paul Whiteman and had several other successful recordings in 1924. Twenty-four years later, the song went to no. 22 for Nat Cole and no. 23 for Frank Sinatra.
- "Always" (1925)
Written when he fell in love with Ellin Mackay, who later became his wife. The song became a double hit (for Vincent Lopez and George Olsen) in his first incarnation. There are four more hit versions in 1944-45. In 1959, Sammy Turner took the song to no. 2 on the R & amp chart B. This became Patsy Cline's postmortem song and hit no. 18 on the country map in 1980, 17 years after his death, and a tribute music called "Always... Patsy Cline", played a two-year Nashville run ending in 1995. Leonard Cohen included this cover song on his book. 1992 release The Future (album of Leonard Cohen) .
- "Blue Skies" (1926)
Written after the birth of her first daughter, she filtered her feelings about marriage and dad for the first time: "Blue days, they all go; nothing but blue sky, from now on." The song was introduced by Belle Baker at Betsy , production of Ziegfeld. It became a hit record for Ben Selvin and one of several Berlin hits in 1927, it was performed by Al Jolson in the first voice feature film, The Jazz Singer , the same year. In 1946, he returned to the top 10 on the charts with Count Basie and Benny Goodman. In 1978, Willie Nelson made the no. 1 hit country, 52 years after it was written.
- "Puttin 'On the Ritz" (1928)
An instant standard with one of Berlin's "most harmonious choruses", the song is associated with Fred Astaire, who sang and danced in the 1946 film Blue Skies. The song was written in 1928 with a series of separate lyrics and was introduced by Harry Richman in 1930 with the same name. In 1939, Clark Gable sang it in the movie Idiot's Delight . In 1974 it was featured in the film Young Frankenstein by Mel Brooks, and no. 4 hits for techno artist Taco in 1983. In 2012 it was used for wedding flash mob event in Moscow.
- "Marie" (1929)
The waltz-time song was a hit for Rudy Vallee in 1929, and in 1937, updated to a four-quarter swing arrangement, was a top hit for Tommy Dorsey. It's on the no. 13 in 1953 for The Four Tunes and no. 15 for Bachelors in 1965, 36 years after his first appearance.
- "Say It Is not So" (1932)
Rudy Vallee did that on his radio show, and the song was a hit for George Olsen, Connee Boswell (he is still known as Connie), and the band Ozzie Nelson. Aretha Franklin produced one song in 1963, 31 years later. Furia noted that when Rudy Vallee first introduced the song on his radio show, "the song not only became a hit last night, it saved the Vallee's marriage: The Vallees had planned for a divorce, but after Vallee sang Berlin's romantic lyrics in the air," both he and his wife wet the tears "and decided to stay together.
- "I Have My Love to Keep Me Warm" (1937)
Performed by Dick Powell in the 1937 movie On the Avenue . Then he has four top-12 versions, including by Billie Holiday and Les Brown, which took him to no. 1
"God Bless America" ​​â € <â € < <(1938)
The song was written by Berlin twenty years earlier, but he kept it until 1938 when Kate Smith needed a patriotic song to mark the 20th anniversary of the Armistice Day, celebrating the end of World War I. His release neared the end of the Depression, which has been passed for nine years immortalized "an official patriotic strain associated with religious beliefs that run in the American psyche," the New York Times said.
The daughter of Berlin, Mary Ellin Barrett, stated that the song was actually "very personal" to her father, and intended as an expression of deep gratitude to the nation to simply "allow" her, an immigrant who grew up in poverty, to become a successful songwriter. "To me," Berlin said, "'God Bless America' is not just a song, but an expression of my feelings toward the country where I owe what I have and what it is." The Economist magazine writes that "Berlin produces a deep pent for the country that has given him what he will say is everything."
It quickly became the second Anthem after America entered World War II a few years later. For decades, this has generated millions for Scouting and Scouting, to whom Berlin commissioned all royalties. In 1954, Berlin received a special Congressional Gold Medal from President Dwight D. Eisenhower to donate the song.
The song was heard after September 11, 2001, when senators and members of the US Congress stood on the steps of the Parliament building and sang it after a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. It is often played by sports teams like major league baseball. The Philadelphia Flyers hockey team started playing it before the crucial contest. When the 1980 US Olympic hockey team drew "the biggest disappointment in the history of the sport," called the "Miracle on the Ice", the players spontaneously sang it when Americans were overrun by patriotism.
Other songs
Although most of his work for the Broadway stage takes the form of revues - a collection of songs without a unifying plot - he wrote a number of book shows. The Cocoanuts (1929) is a light comedy with players featuring, among others, Marx Brothers. Face the Music (1932) is a political allusion to a book by Moss Hart, and Louisiana Purchase (1940) is an allusion to a Southern politician who is clearly based on Huey's exploits Long. As Thousands of Cheers (1933) is a revue, also with a book by Moss Hart, with the theme: each number is presented as an item in a newspaper, some of them touching on the issues of the day. The show produced a series of hit songs, including "Easter Parade" sung by Marilyn Miller and Clifton Webb, "Heat Wave" (presented as a weather forecast), "Harlem on My Mind" and "Supper Time", a song about racial violence who was inspired by newspaper headlines about the death penalty without trial, sung by Ethel Waters. He once said about the song, "If one song can tell the whole history of tragic race, 'Dinner Time' is the song In singing it I tell my comfortable, well-fed, and well dressed listeners about my people..those who have become slaves and those who are now oppressed and oppressed. "
1941 to 1962
Patriotism of World War II - "This is a Force Armed "(1943)
Berlin loves his country, and writes many songs that reflect his patriotism. Finance Minister Henry Morgenthau asked for a song to inspire Americans to buy war bonds, which he wrote "Any Any Bonds Today?" He commissioned all royalties to the US Treasury. He then wrote songs for various government agencies and also assigned all the profits to them: "The Angel of Compassion" to the American Red Cross; "Arms for American Love", for the Department of Armament Army; and "I Pay My Income Tax Today," again to the Treasury.
When the United States joined World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Berlin immediately began to compose a number of patriotic songs. His most important and valuable contribution to the war effort was a stage show he wrote entitled "This is the Army". It was taken to Broadway and then to Washington, D.C. (where President Franklin D. Roosevelt is present). It was eventually displayed on military bases around the world, including London, North Africa, Italy, the Middle East, and the Pacific countries, sometimes near the battle zone. Berlin wrote nearly three dozen songs for a show that contains 300 players. He oversees production and travels with it, always singing "Oh! How I Hate to Rise in the Morning". The show kept him away from his family for three and a half years, during which he did not take any salaries or fees, and surrendered all his profits to the Army Emergency Assistance Fund.
The drama was adapted into a film of the same name in 1943, directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Joan Leslie and Ronald Reagan, who was then an army lieutenant. Kate Smith also sings "God Bless America" ​​in a movie with a background that shows families anxious over the coming wars. This show became a popular movie and road-boosting event that spurred the battle in Europe. The combined shows and films garnered more than $ 10 million for the Army, and in recognition of his contribution to troop morale, Berlin was awarded the Medal of Merit by President Harry S. Truman. Her 15-year-old daughter Mary Ellin Barrett when she was at the opening night show "This is the Army" on Broadway, recalls that when her father, who usually avoided the spotlight, appeared in the second half in soldier clothes to sing, "Oh, how I hate waking up, "he was greeted with a standing ovation for 10 minutes. He added that he was in his 50s at the time, and then declared those years with the show was "the most stressful time of his life."
"Annie Get Your Gun" (1946)
The grueling tour of Berlin doing "This Is The Army" made him exhausted, but when his old and close friend Jerome Kern, who is the composer for "Annie Get Your Gun", died suddenly, producer Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II persuaded Berlin. to take over the composition of the score.
Loosely based on the life of sniper Annie Oakley, music and lyrics written by Berlin, with a book by Herbert Fields and her sister Dorothy Fields, and directed by Joshua Logan. At first Berlin refused to take a job, claiming he did not know anything about "hillbilly music", but the show went for 1,147 shows and became his most successful score. It is said that the showstopper song, "There No Business Like Show Business", is hardly displayed at all because Berlin mistakenly thought that Rodgers and Hammerstein did not like it. However, it became "a major uptempo tad event."
About the origin of other prominent songs, Logan describes how he and Hammerstein personally discussed the wishes of another duet between Annie and Frank. Berlin heard their conversation, and although the show would be done in a few days, he wrote the song "Anything You Can Do" a few hours later.
One reviewer commented on the drama's score, that "the loud and rough lyrics are the same as the melodies, nailed in the rough syncopation lines that have been copied - but never equal in melodic memory - by hundreds of theatrical composers ever since." music expert Susannah McCorkle writes that the score "means more to me than before, now I know that she wrote it after a grueling world tour and years of separation from her wife and daughter." Historian and composer Alec Wilder said that the perfection of the score, when compared to his earlier works, was "a big surprise."
Apparently the "creative bursts" in which Berlin produces several songs to score in one weekend is an anomaly. According to his daughter, he usually "sweats the blood" to write his songs. Annie Get Your Gun is considered the best musical theater score in Berlin not only because of the number of hits it contains, but because the songs successfully combine the development of characters and plots. The song "There No Business Like Show Business" became "Ethel Merman trademark."
Last show
The subsequent show in Berlin, Miss Liberty (1949), was disappointing, but My Call Mistress in 1950, starring Ethel Merman as Sally Adams, a Washington, DC socialist based on The famous hostess in Washington, Perle Mesta, fared better, giving her the second greatest success. After a failed attempt at retirement, in 1962, at the age of 74, he returned to Broadway with Mr. President . Although it lasted for eight months, (with the premiere attended by President John F. Kennedy), it was not one of his successful games.
After that, Berlin officially announced his resignation and spent the rest of his life in New York. He did, however, write a new song, "An Old-Fashioned Wedding," for the Broadway revival of 1966 from Annie Get Your Gun , starring Ethel Merman. Although he lives over 23 years, this is one of the final compositions published in Berlin.
Berlin maintained a low profile through the last decade of his life, almost never appearing in public after the late 1960s, even for events held in his honor. However, he continues to maintain control of his songs through his own music publishing company, which remains in operation for the rest of his life.
Movie score
1920s-1950s
In 1927, the song "Blue Skies", featured in the first long talkie, The Jazz Singer , with Al Jolson. Later, films like Top Hat (1935) became the first of a series of typical musical films by Berlin starring Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Ginger Rogers and Alice Faye. Top Hat shows new scores, as do some more, including Follow the Fleet (1936), On the Avenue (1937), Carefree (1938), and Second Fiddle (1939). Beginning with Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), he often incorporated new songs with songs from his catalog. He continued this process with the films of Holiday Inn (1942), Blue Skies (1946) and Easter Parade (1948), with Judy Garland and Fred Astaire, and No Business Like Business Show (1954).
"White Christmas" (1942)
The 1942 movie Holiday Inn introduced the "White Christmas", one of the most recorded songs in history. First sung in the film by Bing Crosby (along with Marjorie Reynolds, whose voice was nicknamed by Martha Mears), has sold over 50 million records and remains nonexistent. 1 on pop and R & amp; B for 10 weeks. The Crosby version is the best-selling single of all time. Music critic Stephen Holden praised this partly for the fact that "the song also awakens primal nostalgia - like children who yearn for roots, homes and childhood - far beyond the image of speech."
Richard Corliss also notes that the song was even more important after it was released as soon as America entered World War II: it was connected with... GI in their first winter away from home For them it voiced the pain of their separation and wistfulness feel for the girl back home, for the innocence of youth.... "Poet Carl Sandburg writes," We have learned to be a little sad and a little lonely without being sick about it.The feeling is caught in the song of a thousand jukeboxes and songs whistle on the streets and homes. "I Dream of a White Christmas." When we sing that we do not hate anyone, and there are things we like that sometimes we have if the break is not too bad for us. this latest attack, Irving Berlin catches us where we love peace. "
"White Christmas" won the Berlin Academy Award for Best Music in the Original Song, one of the seven Oscar nominations he received during his career. In the following years, it was re-recorded and became a top-10 seller for many artists: Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford, Ernest Tubb, The Ravens and The Drifters. It will also be the last time the Berlin song goes to no. 1 when released.
Berlin is the only Academy Award presenter and Academy Award winner to open the "envelope" and read his own name (for "White Christmas"). This result was very awkward for Berlin (because he had to present an Oscar for himself) that the Academy changed the protocol rules the following year to prevent this situation from reappearing.
Speaking of "White Christmas" Irving Berlin, composer-lyricist Garrison Hintz stated that although songwriting can be a complicated process, the end result should sound simple. Consider the fact that "White Christmas" has only eight sentences throughout the song, lyrically Mr. Berlin achieved all it needed to eventually sell over 100 million copies and capture the hearts of the American public at the same time.
Songwriting method
According to Saul Bornstein (a.k.a. Sol Bourne, Saul Bourne), manager of the Berlin publishing company, "It was a ritual for Berlin to write songs, words, and complete music, every day." Berlin says that he "does not believe in inspiration," and feels that although he may be gifted in a certain field, "the most successful composition is" the work. "He says that he does most of his work under pressure, he will usually start writing after dinner and continue until 4 or 5 am" Every day I will attend the rehearsal, "he said," and at night write another song and lower it the next day. "
Not always sure about his own writing skills, he once asked a friend of the songwriter, Victor Herbert, whether he should study the composition. "You have a natural gift for words and music," Herbert told her. "The learning theory may be of little help to you, but it can make you stiff." Berlin received his advice. Herbert then became a force that moved behind the creation of ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. In 1914, Berlin joined him as a charter member of the organization that has protected the royalties of composers and writers ever since. In 1920, Irving Berlin became a member of SACEM, French Writers, Composers, and Publishers.
In later years, Berlin emphasized his belief, saying that "it is the lyrics that make a song a hit, although the song, of course, is what keeps it going." He plays almost entirely in F sharp keys so he can stay on the black note and have three piano transposing so change the lock by moving the lever. Although Berlin eventually learned to write music, he never changed his method of dictating the song to "musical secretary".
As a result, Wilder says that many of Jerome Kern's music fans, Richard Rodgers and Cole Porter might not consider Berlin's work in the same category because they forgot or never realized that Berlin wrote many popular songs, such as "Soft Lights and Sweet Music," "Time Dinner, "and" Cheeks to the Cheeks. "Some are even more confused because she also writes more romantic melodies, such as" What's I Do? " and always. "Wilder adds that" in his lyrics as in his melody, Berlin expresses a constant awareness of the world around him: the pulse of the times, the society in which he functions. Nothing from the greenhouse about his job, urban though possible. "
Music styles
Composer Jerome Kern acknowledges that the essence of Irving Berlin's lyrics is "his conviction in American" and so profound that his most famous songs "seem inseparable from the country's history and self-image." Kern, along with George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II and Cole Porter bring together Afro-American, Latin American, rural pop, and European operetta.
Berlin, however, did not follow that method. By contrast, musical critic Stephen Holden, Berlin's songs have always been simple, "the beautifully dictionary street songs that feel so natural that people rarely see them... they seem to flow directly from the rhythm and inflection of the conversation daily." He led composer George Gershwin to claim that he learned from Berlin that ragtime, which later became jazz, "is the only musical idiom that can express America exactly."
Among Berlin contemporaries is Cole Porter, whose musical style is often considered more "smart, sophisticated, [and] dirty," according to music expert Susannah McCorkle. Of the top five songwriters, only Porter and Berlin are writing their own words and music. However, he noted that Porter, unlike Berlin, was a Yale-educated Midwesterner and wealthy whose songs did not work until he was in his thirties. He noted further that it was "Berlin [who] got Porter a show that launched his career."
Personal life
Wedding
In 1912, he married Dorothy Goetz, sister of songwriter E. Ray Goetz. He died six months later because of typhoid fever, which he contracted during their honeymoon in Havana. The song he wrote to express his sadness, "When I Lost You," was his first ballad.
Years later in the 1920s, he fell in love with a young heir, Ellin Mackay, the daughter of Clarence Mackay, the head of the socially reputable Telegraph Cable Company, and an author in its own right. Since Berlin is a Jew and he is a Catholic of Irish descent, their lives are followed in every possible detail by the press, which finds the romance of an immigrant from the Lower East Side and a good young heir to the story.
They met in 1924, and his father opposed the game from the start. He went so far as to send him to Europe to find other applicants and forget Mr. Berlin. However, Berlin seduced him with letters and songs on airwaves like "Remember" and "All Alone," and he wrote to him every day. Biographer Philip Furia writes that newspapers reported that they were engaged before he returned from Europe, and some Broadway shows even featured theatrics of "telling songwriters." After he returned, he and Berlin were surrounded by the press, who followed them everywhere. Variety reports that his father swears that their marriage "will only happen" on my dead body. "" As a result, they decided to elope and marry in a simple civil ceremony at the City House away from media attention.
Wedding News creates the front page of the New York Times . The marriage shocked his father, and he was astonished to read about it. However, the bride's mother, who at that time divorced from Mr. Mackay, wanted her daughter to follow her own conscience. Irving actually went to his mother's house before the wedding and got his blessing.
Some have followed reports that the bride's father now does not recognize her daughter for marriage. In response, Berlin gave the right to "Always", a song still played at the wedding today, to her as a wedding present. Thus, Ellin Mackay guarantees a steady income regardless of what might happen with the marriage. Over the years, Mr. Mackay refused to speak with Berlins, but they reconciled after Berlins lost their first son, Irving Berlin Jr., on Christmas Eve in 1928, less than a month after he was born.
Their marriage remained a love affair and they were inseparable until he died in July 1988 at the age of 85. They had four children during their 63 year marriage: Irving, who died at infancy on Christmas Day 1928; Mary Ellin Barrett and Elizabeth Irving Peters from New York, and Linda Louise Emmet, who lives in Paris.
Lifestyle
In 1916, in the early phase of his career, producer and composer Berlin, George M. Cohan, toast to young Berlin at a Friar Club dinner in his honor, said, "The thing I like about Irvie is that even though he has moved in town and make a lot of money, it does not change his head.He does not forget his friends, he does not wear funny clothes, and you will find his watch and his handkerchief in his pocket, where they are.
Furia said that throughout Berlin's life he often went back to his old neighborhoods in Union Square, Chinatown, and Bowery. He never forgot the years of childhood when he "slept under step step, ate leftovers, and put on used clothes," and described the years as hard but good. "Everyone should have the Lower East Side in his life," he said. He used to visit the The Music Box Theater , which he founded and who still stood at 239 West Forty-Fifth St. From 1947 to 1989, Berlin's home in New York City was 17 Beekman Place.
George Frazier from Life magazine found Berlin to be "very nervous," with the habit of pressing his audience with his index finger to emphasize the point, and keep pressing his hair back "and" taking the remaining wild crumbs on the table after eating. "Listening," he leans forward tensely, his hands lying beneath his knees like a fighter waiting on his bend for a bell.... For a man who has known so much glory, "writes Frazier," Berlin somehow succeeded maintaining the enthusiasm of a beginner. "
The Berlin Princess writes in her memoirs that her father is a loving family man, if a workaholic, who is "basically a cheerful person, with tough times." In the last few decades, he has withdrawn from public life. His parents like to celebrate every holiday with their children, and "They seem to understand the importance, especially in childhood, on the special day, the same every year, the special stories, the food, and the decorations and the special flavors are good - to be which accompanies the holidays. "Though she commented to her daughter about her mother's luxurious Christmas expenses," I give up trying to make your mother save, easier just to make more money. "
Berlin elected a Democratic and Republican presidential candidate, but he supported the nomination of president Dwight Eisenhower, and his song "I Like Ike" featured prominently in Eisenhower's campaign. In his final years, he has also become more conservative in his view of music. According to his daughter, "He is consumed by patriotism." He often said, "I owe all my success to my adopted country" and once rejected his lawyer's advice to invest in a tax shelter, insisting, "I want to pay taxes, I love this country."
Berlin is a Freemason, and member of Munn Lodge no. 190, New York City, Scottish Rite Valley in New York City, and Temple of Mecca Temple.
Berlin is a staunch supporter of civil rights. Berlin was honored in 1944 by the Christian and Jewish National Conference to "advance the objectives of the conference to eliminate religious and racial conflict." The 1943 production "This Is The Army", is the first integrated unit of army division in the United States. In 1949, the Young Men Hebrew Association (YMHA) honored him as one of the twelve "most prominent Americans of Jewish faith." While he was Jewish culture, he was an agnostic religion. The support of the Berlin Civil Rights Movement also made it the target of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who has been constantly investigating him for years.
Death
Berlin died in his sleep on 22 September 1989, due to a heart attack and natural cause, in New York City, at the age of 101. He was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City. She survived by three daughters: Mary Ellin Barrett and Elizabeth Irving Peters from New York, and Linda Louise Emmet (born 1932), who lives in Paris. He also survived by nine grandchildren: Edward Watson Emmet (born May 1968), Ellen Emmet (born 1966), and Caroline Emmet (born in 1963) from Linda's daughter; Elizabeth Matson (born 1953), Irving Barrett (born 1955), Mary Ellin Barrett Lerner (born 1956), and Katherine Swett (born 1960), from Mary Ellin's daughter; and Emily Anstice Fletcher (born around 1967) and Rachel Thomas (born 1970), from Elizabeth's daughter and fourteen great-grandchildren Peter and James Matson; Benjamin Lerner; Rachel, Nicholas and William Swett, Madeleine and Isobel Fletcher; Henri, Tristan, and Louisa Emmet; Samuel Emmet Bourgois; Lily and Charlotte Thomas.
At night after the announcement of his death, the theater lights of Broadway playhouses were dimmed before the time of the curtain in his memory. President George H. W. Bush said Mr. Berlin is "a legendary man whose words and music will help define the history of our nation." Just minutes before the President's statement was released, he joined a crowd of thousands of people to sing the song "God Bless America" ​​in Berlin at lunchtime in Boston. Former President Ronald Reagan, who starred in the music of Berlin in 1943 This Is the Army, said, "Nancy and I are deeply saddened by the death of a very talented man whose musical genius delighted and moved millions of people and will live forever. "
Morton Gould, composer and conductor who is president of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), where Irving Berlin was a founder, said, "What appeals to me about this unique genius is that he touches so many people- insider, sadness, celebration, loneliness. "Ginger Rogers, who danced with Berlin songs with Fred Astaire, told The Associated Press after hearing of his death that work with Mr. Berlin has been "like heaven."
Inheritance and influence
The New York Times , after his death in 1989, wrote, "Irving Berlin set the tone and tempo for American songs played and sung and danced for much of the 20th century." An immigrant from Russia, his life became "a rich classic story that he never forgot only happens in America." During his career he wrote about 1,500 songs and was a legend by the time he was 30 years old. He went on to write scores for 20 original Broadway shows and 15 original Hollywood movies, with his songs nominated for the Academy Awards on eight occasions. Music historian Susannah McCorkle writes that "in its scope, quantity, and quality of work is remarkable." Others, such as Broadway musician Anne Phillips, say that "the man is an American institution."
During his six decades of career, from 1907 to 1966, he produced sheet music, Broadway shows, recordings, and scores played on the radio, in movies and on television, and his songs continued to evoke strong emotions for millions around the world. He wrote songs like "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "Cheek to Cheek", "No Business Like Business Show", "Blue Skies" and "Puttin 'On the Ritz." Some of the songs have become national anthems, such as "Easter Parade", "White Christmas" and "Happy Holiday". "White Christmas" alone sold over 50 million records, the top-selling song in record history, won the ASCAP and Academy Award, and is one of the most played songs ever written.
In 1938, "God Bless America" ​​became an unofficial US anthem, and on September 11, 2001, members of the House of Representatives stood on the Capitol ladder and sincerely sang "God Bless America" ​​â € < â € In 1934, Time placed him on the cover and in praising "the traveling son of a Russian singer" as "an American institution." And again, in 1943, the same magazine described the following songs:
They have an immortality that is generally unrelated to Tin Pan Alley's products and it's more than likely that in the future Berlin will be seen as Stephen Foster in the 20th century.
On numerous occasions, his songs also cried for a variety of reasons: He produced a music editorial supporting Al Smith and Dwight Eisenhower as a presidential candidate; he wrote songs against the Prohibition, defended the gold standard, calmed the Great Depression wounds, and helped the war against Hitler, and in 1950 he wrote the national anthem for the state of Israel. Biographer David Leopold adds that "We all know the songs... they're all part of who we are."
On his 100th birthday celebration in May 1988, violinist Isaac Stern said, "Irving Berlin's career and American music are forever - American music was born in his piano," while songwriter Sammy Cahn pointed out: "If a man, in time 50 years old, can point to six songs that can be identified immediately, he has accomplished something.Irving Berlin can sing 60 songs that can be immediately identified... [Y] You can not enjoy vacations without permission. "Composer Douglas Moore added:
This is a rare gift that distinguishes Irving Berlin from all other contemporary songwriters. It is a gift that qualifies him, along with Stephen Foster, Walt Whitman, Vachel Lindsay, and Carl Sandburg, as a great American singer. He has captured and immortalized in his songs what we say, what we think, and what we believe.
The ASCAP notes show that 25 Berlin songs reached the top of the charts and were re-recorded by dozens of famous singers over the years, such as Eddie Fisher, Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Linda Ronstadt, Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day, Diana Ross , Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald. In 1924, when Berlin was 36 years old, his biography, The Story of Irving Berlin, was written by Alexander Woollcott. In a letter to Woollcott, Jerome Kern offers what one writer says "might be the last word" of the importance of Irving Berlin:
Irving Berlin does not have place in American music - he is American music. Emotionally, he honestly absorbs the vibrations that come from the people, the manners, and life of his day and, in turn, gives these impressions back to the world - simplified, clarified and glorified.
Composer George Gershwin (1898-1937) also tried to illustrate the importance of Berlin's composition:
I want to say at once that I really believe that Irving Berlin is the greatest songwriter who ever lived.... The songs are the brilliant acting of perfection, and each one of them is as beautiful as his neighbor. Irving Berlin remains, I think, Schubert from America. But apart from his sincere talent for writing songs, Irving Berlin has a greater influence on American music than any other man. It was Irving Berlin who was the first to create real and inherent American music.... Irving Berlin was the first to release American songs from the sickening sentimentalities that had previously characterized him, and by introducing and perfecting the ragtime he possessed. actually giving us the first germ of American music idiom; he has sown the first seed of American music.
Awards and honors
- Won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1943 for "White Christmas" at "Holiday Inn".
- Received Medal of Merit from General George Marshall to President Harry S. Truman.
- Won Tony's Award in 1951 for Best Score for musical My Call Mistress .
- Received a special 1954 Congressional Gold Medal from President Dwight D. Eisenhower for donating many patriotic songs, including "God Bless America."
- Won Tony's Special Award in 1963.
- Grabbed the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1968.
- Inaugurated in the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, which "celebrates the Annual Induction and Annual Award Ceremony in New York City."
- Presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 by President Gerald Ford. The quote reads, among other things: "Musician, Composer, Humanity, and Patriot, Irving Berlin Has Catch the Most Beautiful Dreams and Emotions of Americans in Popular Musical Form."
- Won the Lawrence Langner Tony Award in 1978.
- Awarded (in absentia,) Medal of Liberty during the centenary celebration for the Statue of Liberty in 1986.
- The 100th anniversary concert was for the benefit of Carnegie Hall and ASCAP on May 11, 1988.
- Inaugurated as the Jewish-American Hall of Fame in 1988.
- Won the Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 1, 1994.
- Being inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
Music score
The following list includes scores mostly produced by Berlin. Although some of the dramas that use the songs are then adapted to the movie, this list will not include movies unless he is the main composer.
Stage
Movie score
* Show movies originally written for stage
List of songs
Note
References
Source
- Barrett, Mary Ellin (1994). Irving Berlin: A Princess's Memoir . ISBNÃ, 0-671-72533-5.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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