Otto Harbach

Otto Harbach (around 1920)

Otto Abels Harbach (born August 18, 1873 in Salt Lake City as Otto Abels Hauerbach ; † January 24, 1963 in New York ) was an American songwriter and librettist of more than 50 operettas and musicals . He wrote numerous songs that are now part of the repertoire of the Great American Songbook .

Live and act

Harbach was the child of the Danish migrants Adolph Hauerbach and Sena Olsen; he was trained at the Salt Lake Collegiate Institute and then continued his studies until 1895 at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois , where he became friends with Carl Sandburg . Then he was professor of English at Whitman College in Walla Walla , then to teach at Columbia University until 1901 . Due to an eye problem, he broke off this career and initially worked as a newspaper reporter and from 1903 to 1910 as an advertising copywriter.

Harbach initially worked with the composer Karl Hoschna and after his death with Rudolf Friml , Jerome Kern , Emmerich Kálmán , Herbert Stothart , Vincent Youmans , George Gershwin and Sigmund Romberg . He also wrote texts together with Oscar Hammerstein II , such as Rose-Marie and Indian Love Call in 1924 . Among other things, he wrote the lyrics of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes , Yesterdays , Cuddle Up a Little Closer, Lovely Mine , One Moment Alone , Try to Forget , The Night Was Made for Love , I Won't Dance (with Dorothy Fields ) or She didn't say yes .

In 1914 he was a founding member of the American copyright society ASCAP , in which he held functions as director (1920-1963), vice-president (1936-1940) and president (1950-1953).

In 1970 he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame .

Works (selection)

• • 1907: Three Twins (music by Karl Hoschna)
  • 1909: Bright Eyes (music by Karl Hoschna)
  • 1912: The Firefly (music by Rudolf Frim)
  • 1918: Going Up (music by Louis Hirsch)
  • 1924: No, No, Nanette (with Irving Caesar, music by Vincent Youman )

• with Jerome Kern
  • 1925: Who? , Number one hit for George Olsen and his Orchestra
  • 1925: Sunny
  • 1931: The Cat and the Fiddle
  • 1933: Roberta

• with Oscar Hammerstein II
  • 1924: Rose-Marie (music by Rudolf Friml)
  • 1926: The Desert Song (music by Sigmund Romberg)
  • 1927: Golden Dawn (music by Emmerich Kálmán and Herbert P. Stothart)
  • 1941: Sunny
  • 1943: Love Song of the Desert (The Desert Song)

Web links

• Biography (English)
• Otto Harbach at Allmusic (English)
• Otto Harbach in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Ken Bloom: The American Songbook - The Singers, the Songwriters, and the Songs - . New York City, Black Dog & Leventhal, 2005 ISBN 1-57912-448-8 . P. 290.
2. ↑ Portrait: Songwriter's Hall of Fame ( Memento of the original from June 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.