Arthur Lange (composer)

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Arthur Lange (born April 16, 1889 in Philadelphia , † December 7, 1956 in Washington, DC ) was an American film composer , band leader , arranger and songwriter .

Life

From 1914 to 1927 Arthur Lange worked as a conductor and arranger on New York's Broadway . He also worked as a contemporary music composer for Cameo Records in Manhattan's Tin Pan Alley and was director of several dance orchestras. He was best known for his arrangements for small music ensembles. His book Arranging for the Modern Dance Orchestra (1926), which stood in the tradition of symphonic jazz by Paul Whiteman , was a standard work of its time and was also appreciated by professional jazz musicians in the Weimar Republic , where it was difficult to access. When he was young, composer Egon Wellesz also referred to Lange's jazz band arrangements, in which Lange was one of the first to divide the dance orchestra into rhythm , saxophone and brass groups.

In 1929 he went to Hollywood, where he was signed as a composer with MGM . He later also worked at other film studios such as 20th Century Fox . In the course of his career he was nominated a total of five times for the Oscar in the category Best Film Music, among other things together with Hugo Friedhofer for the film noir Dangerous Encounter ( The Woman in the Window , 1944). By 1954 he was involved in more than 100 feature films. In the 1940s he also founded the American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers (ASMAC), an association that campaigned for better contractual terms for arrangers and composers. From 1946 he conducted the Santa Monica Civic Symphony Orchestra, which he had put together.

Lange had two sons with his first wife Charlotte, from whom he was divorced in 1931. In 1932 he married Marjorie Joesting. Arthur Lange died in Washington DC in 1956 at the age of 67. His grave is in Fort Lincoln Cemetery in Brentwood, Maryland .

Filmography (selection)

Awards

  • 1940: Oscar nomination for Best Score for Three-Four Time on Broadway
  • 1944: Oscar nomination in the category of best film music for Lady of Burlesque
  • 1945: Oscar nomination in the category Best Film Music for Such a Papa
  • 1946: Two Academy Awards nominations for Best Score for Belle of the Yukon and Dangerous Encounters

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bryan Randolph Gilliam: Music and Performance During the Weimar Republic . Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-42012-1 , pp. 125-127.
  2. ^ Jeannie G. Pool: American Composer Zenobia Powell Perry: Race and Gender in the 20th Century . Scarecrow Press, 2009, p. 246.
  3. ^ Gary Marmorstein: Hollywood Rhapsody: Movie Music and Its Makers, 1900 to 1975 . Schirmer Books, 1997, p. 50.
  4. ^ Lee Stern: Who Is Who in Music: A Complete Presentation of the Contemporary . Lee Stern Press, 1951, p. 266.
personal data
SURNAME Long, Arthur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film composer, band leader, arranger and songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia
DATE OF DEATH 7th December 1956
Place of death Washington, DC