Bronislaw Kaper
Encyclopedia
Bronisław Kaper was a Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 film composer who scored films and musical theater in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, and the USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The American immigration authorities misspelled his name as Bronislau Kaper. He was also variously credited as Bronislaw Kaper, Bronislaw Kapper, Benjamin Kapper, and Edward Kane.

Kaper is now perhaps best remembered as the composer of the jazz standards "Invitation" (with words by Paul Francis Webster
Paul Francis Webster
Paul Francis Webster was an American lyricist who won three Academy Awards for Best Song and was nominated sixteen times for the award.-Biography:...

) and "On Green Dolphin Street
On Green Dolphin Street (song)
"On Green Dolphin Street" is a 1947 popular song composed by Bronislau Kaper with lyrics by Ned Washington. The song, composed for the film Green Dolphin Street, went on to become a jazz standard after being recorded by Miles Davis...

" the latter for the 1947 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...

 film of the same name
Green Dolphin Street
Green Dolphin Street is a 1947 historic drama film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.-Plot summary:In the 1840s, two sisters fall in love with the same man...

. He also scored the MGM film musical Lili
Lili
Lili is an American film. An MGM release, it stars Leslie Caron as a touchingly naïve French girl, whose emotional relationship with a carnival puppeteer is conducted through the medium of four puppets...

(1953) and the TV series The F.B.I. (1965–1974).

Biography

Bronisław Kaper began playing the piano at the age of six, and soon demonstrated considerable talent on this instrument. He studied composition and piano at the Warsaw Conservatory, and law at Warsaw University, in deference to his father's wishes. Soon after completing his studies, Kaper went to Berlin - then a city with many theaters and cabarets, where many artists from Eastern Europe - mainly Russia, Poland and Hungary were trying their luck.

In Berlin, in the late 1920s, Kaper met another young composer, the Austrian Walter Jurmann
Walter Jurmann
Walter Jurmann was an Austrian-born composer of popular music renowned for his versatility who, after emigrating to the United States, specialized in film scores and soundtracks....

. The two decided to work as a team, first in Berlin and then, after the Nazis took power in Germany, in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. The emergence of sound film created a major market for their talents. In Paris, they composed music for films directed by persons who had fled Hitler.

In 1935, upon being offered a seven-year contract with MGM by Louis B. Mayer
Louis B. Mayer
Louis Burt Mayer born Lazar Meir was an American film producer. He is generally cited as the creator of the "star system" within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in its golden years. Known always as Louis B...

, Kaper and Jurmann emigrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, where they continued their work. One of their first American films was the Marx Brothers
Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act, originally from New York City, that enjoyed success in Vaudeville, Broadway, and motion pictures from the early 1900s to around 1950...

 comedy A Night at the Opera
A Night at the Opera (film)
A Night at the Opera is a 1935 American comedy film starring Groucho Marx, Chico Marx and Harpo Marx, and featuring Kitty Carlisle, Allan Jones, Margaret Dumont, Sig Ruman, and Walter Woolf King. It was the first film the Marx Brothers made for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer after their departure from...

(1935), for which they scored the song "Cosi-Cosa". Kaper went on to compose the music for nearly 150 Hollywood movies, and won an Oscar
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

 for the musical Lili
Lili
Lili is an American film. An MGM release, it stars Leslie Caron as a touchingly naïve French girl, whose emotional relationship with a carnival puppeteer is conducted through the medium of four puppets...

. His score for the Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

 film The Stranger
The Stranger (1946 film)
The Stranger is an American film noir directed by Orson Welles and starring Welles, Edward G. Robinson, and Loretta Young. The film was based on an Oscar-nominated screenplay written by Victor Trivas. Sam Spiegel was the film's producer, and the film's musical score is by Bronisław Kaper...

(1946) is an interesting example of how much the soundtrack can contribute to a classic Hollywood film. With Walter Jurmann
Walter Jurmann
Walter Jurmann was an Austrian-born composer of popular music renowned for his versatility who, after emigrating to the United States, specialized in film scores and soundtracks....

 he co-wrote the theme song
Theme from San Francisco
The theme from San Francisco, also known as "San Francisco", was a song from the 1936 American film San Francisco. The song had music written by Bronislaw Kaper and Walter Jurmann, with lyrics by Gus Kahn. The film is set in San Francisco before and after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake...

 for the 1936 film San Francisco
San Francisco (film)
San Francisco is a 1936 musical-drama directed by Woody Van Dyke, based on the April 18, 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The film, which was the top grossing movie of that year, stars Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, and Spencer Tracy. The then very popular singing of MacDonald helped make this film...

, and the theme music and several scores for the Quinn Martin
Quinn Martin
Quinn Martin was one of the most successful American television producers. He had at least one television series running in prime time for 21 straight years , an industry record.-Early life:...

 television series The F.B.I.

In 1959, Kaper composed most of the music for MGM's production on Green Mansions
Green Mansions (film)
Green Mansions is a 1959 American romantic adventure film directed by Mel Ferrer. Based upon the 1904 novel Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson, the film starred Audrey Hepburn as Rima, a jungle girl who falls in love with a Venezuelan traveller played by Anthony Perkins. Also appearing in the...

with Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...

 and Anthony Perkins
Anthony Perkins
Anthony Perkins was an American actor, best known for his Oscar-nominated role in Friendly Persuasion and as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho , and its three sequels.-Early life:...

, after MGM had asked Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date. He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works...

 to write the score. Only some of Villa-Lobos' music was actually used in the film; much of the rest was later arranged as the secular cantata Forest of the Amazons
Green Mansions (film)
Green Mansions is a 1959 American romantic adventure film directed by Mel Ferrer. Based upon the 1904 novel Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson, the film starred Audrey Hepburn as Rima, a jungle girl who falls in love with a Venezuelan traveller played by Anthony Perkins. Also appearing in the...

, which Villa-Lobos recorded in stereophonic sound
Stereophonic sound
The term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective...

 for United Artists Records
United Artists Records
United Artists Records was a record label founded by Max E. Youngstein of United Artists in 1957 initially to distribute records of its movie soundtracks, though it soon branched out into recording music of a number of different genres.-History:...

 with the Symphony of the Air. One of Kaper's last projects under his MGM contract was also his most ambitious: scoring the massive 1962 remake of Mutiny on the Bounty
Mutiny on the Bounty (1962 film)
Mutiny on the Bounty is a 1962 film starring Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard based on the novel Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. The film retells the 1789 real-life mutiny aboard HMAV Bounty led by Fletcher Christian against the ship's captain, William Bligh...

, involving epic sea themes and native Polynesian music. Kaper's interest in melding exotic indigenous music with traditional cues continued in Lord Jim
Lord Jim (1965 film)
Lord Jim is a 1965 adventure film made by Columbia Pictures. It was produced and directed by Richard Brooks with Jules Buck and Peter O'Toole as associate producers, from a screenplay by Brooks...

, which introduced the unique sound of gamelan
Gamelan
A gamelan is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, typically from the islands of Bali or Java, featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings. Vocalists may also be included....

 orchestras to Western audiences for the first time in the mid-1960s.

In Los Angeles during the 1940s, Kaper was part of a significant community of exiles, including Thomas
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...

 and Heinrich Mann
Heinrich Mann
Luiz Heinrich Mann was a German novelist who wrote works with strong social themes. His attacks on the authoritarian and increasingly militaristic nature of pre-World War II German society led to his exile in 1933.-Life and work:Born in Lübeck as the oldest child of Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann...

, Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...

, Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

, Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger was a German-Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht....

, Max Reinhardt
Max Reinhardt
----Max Reinhardt was an Austrian theater and film director and actor.-Biography:...

, Hanns Eisler
Hanns Eisler
Hanns Eisler was an Austrian composer.-Family background:Eisler was born in Leipzig where his Jewish father, Rudolf Eisler, was a professor of philosophy...

, and Berthold
Berthold Viertel
Berthold Viertel , born in Vienna, Austria was a screen writer and film director.-Arrival in America:He was married to screenplay writer and actress Salka Viertel from 30 April 1918 to 20 December 1947. The pair came to Los Angeles in 1928 planning to stay for just three years...

 and Salka Viertel
Salka Viertel
Salka Viertel was an actress and screenwriter. The pianist and composer Eduard Steuermann was her brother. Mrs. Viertel was born Salomea Steuermann in Sambor, a city then in the province of Galicia, which was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but today is in western Ukraine.-Career:She...

.

Credits on Broadway

  • Polonaise (1945) – musical – composer
    Composer
    A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

  • Mostly Sondheim (2002) – concert
    Concert
    A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...

     – featured songwriter
    Songwriter
    A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...


Recordings - Film Scores

Fewer recordings of Kaper's music were made and sold in his lifetime than was the case with other classic Hollywood composers. This has changed recently, as Them! has been released on compact disc in a re-recording by the Monstrous Movie Music label. Recent changes in the copyright status of older music has made it possible for more of his film soundtracks to be released on compact disc, primarily by another specialty label, Film Score Monthly (Lili
Lili
Lili is an American film. An MGM release, it stars Leslie Caron as a touchingly naïve French girl, whose emotional relationship with a carnival puppeteer is conducted through the medium of four puppets...

, Home from the Hill
Home from the Hill (film)
Home from the Hill is a 1960 film directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Robert Mitchum, Eleanor Parker, George Peppard, George Hamilton, Everett Sloane, and Luana Patten....

, and others).

The Bronisław Kaper Awards

The Bronisław Kaper Awards For Young Artists are held annually by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the piano and strings instrumental categories, which alternate each year. Named in honor of Bronisław Kaper, who served for more than 15 years as a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association's Board of Directors, the Awards encourage the development of young and gifted musicians. Award winners receive monetary awards: first place receiving $2,500, second place receiving $2,000 and Most Promising Musician winning $500.

The 2007 Bronisław Kaper Awards competition has been for string players.

Sources

  • Viertel, Salka
    Salka Viertel
    Salka Viertel was an actress and screenwriter. The pianist and composer Eduard Steuermann was her brother. Mrs. Viertel was born Salomea Steuermann in Sambor, a city then in the province of Galicia, which was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but today is in western Ukraine.-Career:She...

    , The Kindness of Strangers (New York: Rinehart,1969), pp. 250–251
  • Elisabeth Buxbaum: Veronika, der Lenz ist da. Walter Jurmann – Ein Musiker zwischen den Welten und Zeiten. Mit einem Werkverzeichnis von Alexander Sieghardt. Edition Steinbauer, Wien 2006, ISBN 3-902494-18-2

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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