Otto Harbach

Harbach, Otto [né Hauerbach] (1873–1963), librettist and lyricist. Born in Salt Lake City to Danish immigrant parents, he taught English and public speaking after graduating from Knox College, then came to New York in 1901 to work towards a doctorate at Columbia. But he abandoned his studies and took up journalism before he began to collaborate with composer Karl Hoschna in 1902. Their first success was Three Twins (1908), a huge success whose hit song was “Cuddle Up a Little Closer, Lovey Mine.” Thereafter, he collaborated with Hoschna on five more musicals, most memorably Madame Sherry (1910). Following Hoschna's death, Harbach worked with Rudolf Friml on The Firefly (1912), High Jinks (1913), and Katinka (1915). With Louis Hirsch he wrote Going Up! (1917) and Mary (1920). In 1923 he joined forces with his young protégé Oscar Hammerstein, Vincent Youmans, and Herbert Stothart to write Wildflower, then in 1924 worked with Hammerstein, Stothart, and Friml to create the biggest musical success of the 1920s, the operetta Rose‐Marie. Harbach's next effort was the greatest musical comedy hit of the era, No, No, Nanette (1925), although the lyrics for that show's most popular songs were by Irving Caesar. In that same year he worked with Jerome Kern and Hammerstein on Sunny and with Hammerstein, Stothart, and George Gershwin on Song of the Flame. With Hammerstein and Sigmund Romberg he created The Desert Song (1926). His last successful collaborations were with Kern: The Cat and the Fiddle (1931) and Roberta (1933). In all, he helped write over thirty musicals. Harbach's work was sometimes assailed as heavy‐handed and humorless but at best was fresh and even poetic. He was also one of the first librettists who attempted to integrate song and story, something his pupil Hammerstein would later accomplish with others.

(1873-1963)

1924	Rose-Marie. The popularity of this operetta, depicting the romance of a singer and a Mountie in the Canadian Rockies, sparks a revival of traditional operettas, which had, due to their German associations, fallen out of favor during the war.
1925	No, No, Nanette. The most successful musical comedy of the decade is this flapper farce set in Atlantic City, with popular songs such as "Tea for Two" and "I Want to Be Happy." Mandel would collaborate on the books for subsequent productions such as The Desert Song (1926), The New Moon (1928), Good News! (1927), and Follow Thru (1929).
1927	The Desert Song. No doubt capitalizing on the rage over Rudolph Valentino's performance in The Sheik, this operetta set in the Moroccan desert, with music by Sigmund Romberg, is one of the biggest hits of the decade.

• Born: August 18, 1873, Salt Lake City, UT
• Died: January 24, 1963, New York, NY
• Active: '10s, '20s, '30s
• Genres: Vocal Music
• Instrument: Lyricist, Songwriter, Librettist

Biography

American pop and Broadway lyricist-librettist Otto Harbach was in songwriting teams with Karl Hoschna, Rudolf Friml, and, most successfully, with Oscar Hammerstein II. Born in Salt Lake City, in 1873, Harbach studied at the Collegiate Institute, then at Knox College before becoming an English professor. He was on the staff of Whitman College from 1875-1901, then moved to New York, writing for the newspapers for one year, then for an ad agency for several years. Harbach met composer Karl Hoschna and the two became a songwriting team, scoring their first hit with 1908's "Cuddle Up a Little Closer," from their score for Broadway's The Three Twins. The duo collaborated on more successful shows -- including Bright Eyes and Madame Sherry (1910) -- until Hoschna's death in December 1911. After Hoschna was gone, Harbach began working with composer Rudolf Friml. In 1920, Harbach teamed up with another lyricist-librettist, Oscar Hammerstein II, for the most successful period of Harbach's career. Some of Harbach's best-known songs are "Every Little Movement" (1910), "Sympathy" (1912), "The Love Nest" (1920), "Rose-Marie" (1924), "The Desert Song" (1926), "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," and "Yesterdays" (1933). Some of the hit musicals he wrote for include High Jinks (1913), No, No, Nanette (1925), The Cat and the Fiddle (1932), and Roberta (1933). Besides his three main collaborators, Harbach also wrote with many others over the years, including Herbert Stothart, Vincent Youmans, George Gershwin, Sigmund Romberg, and Jerome Kern. He was vice president of ASCAP from the mid-'30s until 1940, and president for a few years in the early '50s. Many of the musicals that Harbach worked on were later turned into movies. He was later inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. ~ Joslyn Layne, All Music Guide

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