Charles Rudolf Friml

Background

He was born in Prague, Austria-Hungary, the son of Frantisek Friml, a baker, and Marie Kremak. Rudolf's father, an amateur musician, watched over his son's musical development and purchased a small piano for him.

Education

At the age of ten Rudolf published his first composition, and at age fourteen he was admitted to the Prague Conservatory of Music, where he studied piano under Josef Jiranek, theory and composition under Josef Foerster, and advanced composition under Antonin Dvořák. Shortly after his graduation in 1896, Friml was engaged by Jan Kubelik as piano accompanist for his violin recitals.

Career

The duo toured Europe with great success between 1897 and 1900; while they were performing in London, impresario Daniel Frohman "happened to attend their concert and signed them up" for an eighty-concert American tour in 1901.

After teaming with Kubelik for a decade, Friml decided to explore the possibility of a virtuoso career by engaging Walter Damrosch's New York Symphony Orchestra to accompany his American solo debut at New York's Carnegie Hall on November 17, 1904.

On this program Friml played a number of short pieces and two major works, the Grieg Piano Concerto and his own B Flat Major Piano Concerto, a piece that New York Times critic Richard Aldrich called "a thing of shreds and patches. "

Friml concluded his program by playing an improvisation of a theme submitted from the audience. Although this concert and two solo recitals in Mendelssohn Hall on December 7 and 14, 1904, received mixed reviews, the majority of the critics praised Friml's unique improvisational skills.

In early 1905, Friml rejoined Kubelik for two more seasons before settling permanently in the United States in 1906 to launch his own career. For the next six years Friml gave piano lessons, composed, performed in solo recitals, and appeared on an occasional symphony program.

In 1912, Friml obtained national recognition through a fortunate circumstance. Victor Herbert had been hired by producer Arthur Hammerstein to write an operetta expressly for soprano Emma Trentini. Before Herbert could write the music though, the temperamental and uncooperative diva so incensed Herbert that he vowed to have nothing further to do with her.

A composer had to be found on short notice, and Friml was engaged by Hammerstein upon the recommendation of music publishers Max Dreyfus and Rudolph Schirmer.

The resulting Firefly, whose musical score Friml composed in less than a month, opened in New York on December 12, 1912 for a 120-performance run. Its many popular tunes, such as "Giannina Mia" and "Sympathy, " established Friml's reputation and launched a meteoric career in which he wrote thirty-three operettas between 1912 and 1934, eleven in conjunction with lyricist Otto Harbach.

Friml reached the pinnacle of success during the 1920's--he became an American citizen in 1925--with Rose Marie, which opened on September 2, 1924, for a 557-performance run; The Vagabond King, on September 21, 1925, for a 511-performance run; and The Three Musketeers, on March 13, 1928, for a 319-performance run. Musical tastes soon changed though, and the depression years of the early 1930's ushered in the age of the musical comedy.

Friml's compositional style, which utilized "a full-bodied libretto with luscious melody, rousing choruses and romantic passions, " became passe. The public now preferred comedic plots in contemporary settings with ongoing stage action. Friml refused to adjust to the times. To him a Broadway musical was "a play with a little music" which, instead of featuring "pure rich voices, " employed "a lot of voiceless people" trying to "do everything in singing, dancing and talking. "

Consequently, after the failure of his last two operettas, Luana in 1930 and Music Hath Charms in 1934, Friml moved to Hollywood, where he spent the next decade adapting his operettas to the screen and composing music for Music for Madame (1937) and Northwest Outpost (1947).

His two most successful film efforts were Rose-Marie (1936), starring Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald, and Firefly (1937), featuring tenor Allan Jones, whose recording of the movie's "Donkey Serenade" sold more than a million copies. Friml devoted the post-World War II years to composing and performing his own music.

During his lifetime he wrote thousands of pieces for, as Otto Harbach marveled, Friml "poured melody out of his sleeve. "

And although most of his concert music "was never performed or recorded, " Friml published numerous classical works, including a song cycle, an Easter cantata, two piano concerti, three orchestral suites, and a "Round the World Symphony. " Friml performed and conducted throughout Europe in the 1950's and 1960's, including a U. S. State Department-sponsored tour in 1963, but he was "particularly in love with the Orient, " and traveled there many times.

A short, dapper man with a pencil-thin mustache, Friml, through proper diet and exercise, retained his physical vigor to the end of his life.

Friml died in Los Angeles.

Achievements

• Friml wrote his most famous operettas in the 1920s. In 1924, he wrote Rose-Marie. This operetta, on which Friml collaborated with lyricists Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto Harbach and co-composer Herbert Stothart, was a hit worldwide, and a few of the songs from it also became hits including "The Mounties" and "Indian Love Call". The use of murder as part of the plot was ground-breaking among operettas and musical theatre pieces at the time. After Rose-Marie's success came two other hit operettas, The Vagabond King in 1925, with lyrics by Brian Hooker and William H. Post, and The Three Musketeers in 1928, with lyrics by P. G. Wodehouse and Clifford Grey, based on Alexandre Dumas's famous swashbuckling novel. In addition, Friml contributed to the Ziegfeld Follies of 1921 and 1923. Friml wrote music for many films during the 1930s, often songs adapted from previous work. The Vagabond King, Rose-Marie and The Firefly were all made into films and included at least some of Friml's music. Oddly enough, his operetta version of The Three Musketeers was never filmed, despite the fact that the novel itself has been filmed many times. In 1930, he wrote a new operetta score for film, The Lottery Bride. Like his contemporary, Ivor Novello, Friml was sometimes ridiculed for the sentimental and insubstantial nature of his compositions and was often called trite. Friml was also criticized for the old-fashioned, Old World sentiments found in his works. Friml's last stage musical was Music Hath Charms in 1934. During the 1930s, Friml's music fell out of fashion on Broadway and in Hollywood. A charter member (1914) of ASCAP, his music has been recorded by RCA Victor, Columbia, and Decca. In 1971, he was elected to the Songwriters' Hall of Fame and in 1972 to the Theater Hall of Fame.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• During this time he was billed as "the greatest improvisateur since Mozart, " and while admitting later that "it was very silly, " his improvisational playing often gave him a competitive edge in the struggle for artistic survival.

Connections

Friml was married four times.

In 1909, he married Mathilde Baruch; they had two children and divorced in 1915. He then wed Blanche Betters, with whom he had no children and whom he divorced in 1919. He then married Elsie Lawson in 1919, with whom he had one child; they were divorced in the mid-1920's. Finally, he married his Chinese-born secretary, Kay Ling, in 1952; they had no children.

Father:

Frantisek Friml

mother Marie Kremak

1st wife:

Mathilde Baruch

2nd wife Blanche Betters 3rd wife Elsie Lawson 4th wife Kay Ling

References

• Rudolf Friml (American Composers)