Friml's calling

Synopsis

Imagine a crisp, blue Northern sky, a Canadian Mountie in a bright red tunic, and — what else? — an elaborately coiffed operatic soprano singing in the middle of the woods. Yes, it was on today’s date in 1924, at the Imperial Theater in New York that Indian Love Call was first heard in Rose-Marie, a musical written by American composer of Bohemian birth named Rudolf Friml.

This one-time Dvořák pupil was born in Prague in 1879. He scored such a hit when he debuted his own Piano Concerto at Carnegie Hall in 1904 that he decided to make America his home. His early years as an American composer were disappointing, but in 1912, The Firefly, his first musical, proved a hit.

Friml followed that with a string of increasingly popular Broadway shows, including Rose-Marie in 1924 and The Vagabond King in 1925, but by the mid-1930s Friml’s old-world musical style was judged too old-fashioned for the hip New York of George Gershwin and Cole Porter.

Ironically, it was just then that Nelson Eddy and Jeannette MacDonald films based on Friml musicals broke box office records. These campy films are now treasured precisely for their sweet, if rather affected, “period” flavor.

Music Played in Today's Program

Rudolf Friml (1879-1972): Indian Love Call from Rose Marie; Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald, vocalists; Pro Arte 491

On This Day

Births

• 1661 - German composer and organist Georg Böhm, in Hohenkirchen (near Ohrdruf), Thuringia

• 1862 - Dutch composer Alphons Diepenbrock, in Amsterdam

• 1917 - Brazilian composer and guitarist Laurindo Almeida, in São Paulo

• 1953 - American composer John Zorn, in New York City

Deaths

• 1875 - Depressed by the failure of his commercial ventures, violinist and conductor Ureli Corelli Hill, 73, dies by suicide in Patterson, New Jersey. Hill had played in the pit orchestra for the first performances of Italian opera in New York City staged by Manuel Garcia in 1825. He conducted the first American performance of Handel’s Messiah with orchestral accompaniment in 1831. In 1842, he was one of the founding members of the New York Philharmonic, served as its first president, conducted portions of its first concert, and performed with the orchestra until 1873, when he retired due to his age.

• 1996 - American composer Otto Luening, 96, in New York

Premieres

• 1924 - Rudolf Friml: operetta, Rose-Marie, to rave reviews, in New York

• 1960 - Walton: Symphony No. 2 at the Edinburgh Festival by the Royal Liverpool Orchestra conducted by John Pritchard

• 1966 - Nino Rota: ballet, La Strada (The Road) (after his score for the Fellini film), at La Scala in Milan

• 1972 - Penderecki: Cello Concerto, at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland

• 1975 - Kokkonen: opera The Last Temptations in Helsinki

• 1980 - Peter Maxwell Davies: opera The Lighthouse, in Edinburgh

• 1992 - Reimann: opera Das Schloss (The Castle), after the novel by Franz Kafka, in Berlin at the Deutsche Opera

Others

• 1773 - The Empress Maria Therese is entertained by Haydn’s chamber orchestra at the country estate of Prince Nicholas of Esterhazy. It is possible, but not certain, that Haydn’s Symphony No. 48 was performed on this occasion (The symphony known today by the nickname Maria Therese).