Walter Jurmann

• Born: 1903
• Died: 1971
• Active: '20s, '30s
• Genres: Soundtrack
• Instrument: Composer
• Representative Albums: "Filmmusik: The Original Motion Picture Scores", "Ein Lied Aus Meiner Heimat

Biography

Vienna-born Walter Jurmann's career as a composer and songwriter took him from Berlin, where he made his name in the 1920s and early '30s writing hits for Richard Tauber and others, to exile and still greater success in Paris, and finally to America by way of Hollywood beginning in early 1935. From 1932 until the end of the decade, he frequently collaborated with Bronislaw Kaper, and the two were signed to MGM at the same time. While under contract to the latter studio in the 1930s, he wrote such hits as "San Francisco" (sung by Jeanette MacDonald) for the movie of that name, and "All God's Chillun Got Rhythm" (for A Day at the Races), both of which were very heavily recorded by the likes of Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, et al. Jurmann later wrote songs for Deanna Durbin, and in later years he saw considerable success with his "city songs," of which "San Francisco" had been the first; several, including that composition and one called "San Antonio," were adopted officially by the cities that inspired them.

Stylistically, Jurmann during his Austrian/German period bridged the gap between the Viennese operetta/light classical mode of Franz Lehár and Carl Zeller and the jauntiness and brashness of the Jazz Age. His songs were among the most popular written in Germany between the late '20s and the dawn of the Nazi era, which forced him and his writing partner Kaper to emigrate, first to Paris, where they enjoyed equal success utilizing French music influences, and then to America. He adapted well to American musical conventions and needs, and found his music sung by the likes of Ivie Anderson and Billy Eckstine, and in the repertoires of Bud Powell and other jazz greats. His one attempt at a stage musical, Windy City (to a book by Philip Yordan and lyrics by Paul Francis Webster) was a failure before ever reaching Broadway, but not because of its score, which received high praise. In 1998, Capriccio Records released new orchestral recordings of a cross section of Jurmann's music from Germany, France, and America. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide

Filmmusik: The Original Motion Picture Scores Buy this CD

Filmmusik: The Original Motion Picture Scores Buy this CD

• Active: '30s
• Major Genres: Comedy, Romance
• Career Highlights: A Day at the Races, Seven Sweethearts, The Perfect Gentleman
• First Major Screen Credit: Her Majesty Love (1931)

Biography

Walter Jurmann was a gifted songwriter best known for his film work, and his contributions to such Hollywood movies as San Francisco, Mutiny on the Bounty, and A Night at the Opera. Born in Vienna in 1903 to a wealthy and unusually progressive-minded family, Jurmann enjoyed the benefit of as fine a liberal arts education as there was to be had in that city. A natural pianist, he quickly developed virtuoso-level skill at the keyboard and also achieved some local renown as a singer. His intention to study medicine gave way to a career in music, and he first established himself in Berlin in collaboration with the lyricist Fritz Rotter, when the legendary singer Richard Tauber turned Jurmann's "Was Weisst Denn Du, Wie Ich Verliebt Bin" into a huge hit in the mid-'20s. Over the ensuing decade, Jurmann generated a string of hit songs, and he proved a natural fit as a film composer with the arrival of talking pictures. His film work only extended his string of successes, beginning with the movie Ihre Majestät die Liebe (1931), which was remade in America as Her Majesty Love. Jurmann's music from this period was akin to the music of his much older contemporary Franz Lehar, beautifully melodic, light-textured, and memorable in the extreme, reflecting both old-world Austrian charm and the influence of the Jazz Age in its brashness and jauntiness. Indeed, had he been born a few years earlier, and been more a man of the theater or the opera house, he might have been another Lehar or Emmerich Kalman -- but Jurmann was very much a man of the film world by the early '30s.

By 1932, Jurmann had so many commissions for songs coming his way, from publishers, singers, and movie producers, that (on Rotter's suggestion) he took on a partner in Bronislau Kaper; the two proved extremely compatible on a creative and personal level, and their partnership would eventually transform both their careers in wholly unexpected ways. The rise of the Hitler regime made it impossible for either composer to remain in Germany, and in 1933, Jurmann and Kaper moved to Paris, where the French film industry happily received them. Jurmann, in turn, proved extremely adept at absorbing French musical influences and shaping them into songs and film music, yielding a short string of screen successes over the next year. Their move to Paris proved doubly fortuitous when MGM president Louis B. Mayer approached Jurmann and Kaper while on a visit to the city late in 1934. Impressed with their music, he offered Jurmann and Kaper a long-term contract with the studio, which they accepted.

Jurmann began work at MGM in February of 1935, and his early credits included songs for A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Mutiny on the Bounty, and San Francisco, all among the biggest and most enduringly popular hit films to come from the studio in the entire decade. Jurmann took well to life in America and thrived there. He later worked for Universal, writing music for Deanna Durbin, and was one of the most respected of all the émigré songwriters to make a home in Hollywood. Alas, he was never to realize his one remaining goal, of writing for the stage successfully; in 1946, he wrote the score for Windy City, a musical authored in collaboration with Philip Yordan (book) and Paul Francis Webster (lyrics), but it closed before ever getting to New York, despite rave reviews for the show's music. He continued writing for the movies, and well past the time that many European artists had begun drifting away from industry, Jurmann was reportedly a delightful anachronism, displaying an old-world charm two or even three decades removed from the era in which it had been common in the film mecca. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The Great Commandment Buy this Movie

A Day at the Races Buy this Movie

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