Wilhelm Grosz

Wilhelm Grosz (11 August 1894 – 10 December 1939) (sometimes credited as Hugh Williams) was an Austrian composer, pianist, and conductor who from 1934 worked in the UK before moving to the USA in 1938. Grosz composed both classical concert works and (from exile) internationally successful popular songs.

Wilhelm Grosz

Life

Wilhelm Grosz was born in Vienna. He studied music with Richard Robert (piano), Franz Schreker (composition) and Guido Adler (musicology). In 1921 he was appointed conductor of the Mannheim Opera, but returned to Vienna in 1922, where he worked as a pianist and composer. From 1927 he was the artistic manager of the Ultraphone Gramophone Company (Deutsche Ultraphon AG) in Berlin, where he was involved with more popular music forms. In 1933 he became conductor of the Kammerspiele Theater in Vienna.[1]

Forced to flee his native land because of the Nazi takeover, Grosz resettled in England in 1934.[2] Finding little interest there for his avant garde musical style he instead applied his very considerable melodic gift to setting the lyrics of popular songs, some of which became international successes. Most of his most popular titles were written with lyricist Jimmy Kennedy: "Harbour Lights", "Red Sails in the Sunset", "When Budapest Was Young", and "Isle of Capri".[3] "Tomorrow Night" was written with Sam Coslow. For these songs he used the name Will Grosz, and later Hugh Williams.[4]

Music

He emigrated to the United States in 1938, but died in 1939 in New York City, aged 45, only a few months after arriving. He had been en route to Hollywood. His children were still in Europe.[2] Grosz's classical compositions include three operas. The one act opera buffa Sganarell, after Molière, was first produced in Dessau in 1925. Der arme Reinhold (Berlin, December 1928), is sub-titled "a danced fable". Achtung, Aufmahme! (Frankfurt, March 1930), a zeitoper to a libretto by Bela Balazs, is a modern musical comedy.[5] There were also two ballets, incidental music for three plays, scores for a number of films, orchestral works, a Symphonic Dance for piano and orchestra, chamber music (including a violin sonata, 1925), piano pieces and songs (including the song cycle Liebeslieder).[5] Some works, such as Jazzband for violin and piano (1924), introduced jazz elements into concert music.[1]

Afrika-Songs, a song cycle for two vocal soloists and chamber ensemble, was first performed in 1930. It utilizes texts by Afro-American poets, mainly Langston Hughes, and a strongly blues-flavored sound. Both Afrika-Songs and a selection of popular tunes along with other of Grosz's works, were recorded in the mid-1990s by Decca Records, as part of their series called Entartete Musik (subtitled "Music Suppressed By the Third Reich").[6]

Selected filmography

References
  1. Andrew Lamb. 'Grosz, Wilhelm', in Grove Music Online (2001)
  2. Michael Hass. 'Wilhelm Grosz: From Mahler Successor to the Santa Fe Trail', Forbidden Music, 26 February, 2015
  3. Peter Watts. Denmark Street: London's Street of Sound (2023), p. 46-7
  4. E Rogers and M. Hennessey. Tin Pan Alley (1964)
  5. Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 7th edition (1984), p. 897
  6. Entartete Musik, Discogs
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