Paul Schoop (composer)

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Paul Schoop and his wife Bonnie Vallarino, 1957.

Paul Schoop (born July 31, 1909 in Zurich , † January 1, 1976 in Van Nuys , Los Angeles ) was a Swiss composer , pianist and conductor .

In the 1930s he was best known as a composer of ballet music for his sister Trudi Schoop's pantomime dances . In 1940 he emigrated to Los Angeles, where he worked as a freelance composer as well as a conductor and concert pianist, as he had before in Europe. Paul Schoop's works have been forgotten and are no longer performed.

Life

On the sources: life and work are documented up to 1951, the year in which the biographical article about Paul Schoop appeared in #Mize 1951 (the article is apparently based on personal interviews and information from Paul Schoop). There is hardly any evidence for the time after that.

origin

Paul Schoop was born on July 31, 1909 in Zurich as the son of Friedrich Maximilian Schoop (1871–1924) and Emma Olga Schoop. Böppli (1873–1959) born. On his father's side, Paul came from a family of scholars, professors and teachers, his grandfather Ulrich Schoop (1830–1911) was a teacher at the applied arts school in Zurich . Paul's father was an editor, among others at the “Zürcher Post”, and president of the Grand Hotel Dolder and, as Paul's sister Trudi reports, a respected and valued man in Zurich's intellectual circles. Paul's free-thinking and unconventional mother came from “ Toggenburg ischen miracle doctors” and was a warm-hearted woman with an insatiable thirst for freedom and life. The family lived on the Zürichberg , where the Dolder hotel was also located.

Paul was the youngest of four children. His older siblings were the painter Max Schoop (1902–1984), the dancer Trudi Schoop (1903–1999) and the cabaret artist and sculptor Hedi Schoop (1906–1995). The children were raised in a free and informal atmosphere, and the parents encouraged their children's artistic development, all of whom took up artistic professions. In 1958, Carl Seelig wrote about Paul Schoop: “Within the family he is considered a dreamer who sometimes hovers high above the cloudy earth. He is a sociable, dear person. "

  • Hedi Schoop's mother at the age of 84, 1957.

  • Grand Hotel Dolder, around 1905.

education

Paul Schoop attended the University of Music and Theater in Zurich and the Zurich Conservatory , which he graduated with a diploma in 1925, the École Normale de Musique de Paris in 1929 and the University of Music in Berlin from 1931 to 1934 . His teachers were:

job

In addition to his work as a composer (see #Werk ), Paul Schoop also worked as a pianist and conductor. As a twelve-year-old, he accompanied his sister Trudi Schoop to dance performances on the piano. He made his public debut as a concert pianist in 1930 while studying in Paris. In the USA he worked for some time as an operetta conductor in San Francisco and since 1943 has appeared in many concerts as a member of a piano duo .

During the war, Paul Schoop toured the "barracks, hospitals and camps" on behalf of the American soldiers' aid organization USO and delighted the soldiers with his piano playing. "With a piano running on rubber wheels, he drove from bed to bed with the wounded to play their favorite song."

family

Paul's sister Hedi Schoop had fled Germany with her Jewish husband Friedrich Hollaender and emigrated to the USA as early as 1933 . Her mother and her brothers Max and Paul followed her around 1939 into “voluntary emigration” (as Swiss citizens, they were not endangered by the Nazis), so that the “family that held together like a burdock” reunited almost completely in Los Angeles in 1940 at the latest (Trudi Schoop only rejoined the family after the death of her husband in 1951). At the time of the 1940 census, the mother and her two unmarried sons Max and Paul lived together in a rented apartment in Los Angeles at 8764 Lookout Mountain Drive, in the Hollywood Hills .

On July 27, 1945 Paul Schoop married the actress and ballet dancer Bonnie Vallarino (1914–1961). The daughter Paula, born in 1952, emerged from the marriage, who (1958) "already instinctively aspires to dance and the piano".

In 1959 Paul Schoop's mother died at the age of 86. Two years later, in 1961, his wife died at the age of only 47. After her death he married Frances Schoop, with whom he published two songs together in 1973. Paul Schoop died on January 1, 1976 at the age of 66 in Los Angeles, Van Nuys . He was cremated as requested, there is no grave.

plant

At the end of the 1920s, Trudi Schoop and her brother Paul were desperately looking for suitable music for their self-invented pantomimes. “One day my brother Paul sat down with me and started translating my ideas into musical sequences. My composer was found! ”In the 1930s, Paul composed the ballet music for Trudi's pantomimes (see #Ballettmusik ) , mostly in collaboration with Huldreich Früh (1903–1945), especially for her ballet“ Fridolin on the move ”with Trudis He made a breakthrough and won second prize at the “Grand Concours Internationale de Chorégraphie” in Paris in 1932. A dance critic judged the harmony between dance and music: "The music is apparently created for her and her particular style of dancing and is very definitely subjected to the dancing."

According to Carl Seelig, "it became increasingly clear that Paul, as a musician, had a pronounced sense of pantomimic and" musicals ", that is, operettas." Royal Danish Ballet, which he conducted himself. In 1939 his operetta "Der Glückstrompeter" was premiered in Solothurn , but it was unsuccessful because of the "rather pathetic" libretto . During his emigration he wrote the Eulenspiegel scherzo “Imp's Holiday”, the orchestral suite “Fata Morgana”, a parodic circus ballet, the Indian dance drama “Maria del Valle” and the march-like ballet “Satire on Radetzky”.

In 1933 Paul Schoop had already composed his first film music for the Swiss feature film “Wie d'Wahrheit würkt”. In Hollywood, however, he did not manage to achieve a lucrative position as a film composer. He had hoped that his former brother-in-law Friedrich Hollaender (who had been divorced from his sister Hedi since 1938) could help him, but "could not support Paul as he hoped". Only three films are known in which compositions by him without Attribution was used (see #Filmmusik ).

Selection of works

In #Mize 1951 , #Saunders 1948.2 and #Seelig 1958 , pages 108-108, the titles of other works are listed. Information on reception is rare and there seem to be no reviews of Paul Schoop's works. Apparently Paul Schoop's works are forgotten today and are no longer performed.

General

  • 1929: Impressions for piano, Opus 5, 10 and 12.
  • 1939: The Knight of Fortune, operetta, libretto: Eva Thorsten, world premiere: February 25, 1938, Solothurn City Theater.
  • 1939: At the Zürisee ... at the Zürisee ...! Foxtrot song, music: Paul Schoop, text: Max Werner Lenz.
  • The Wishing Tree, Musical Fantasy, cast: Narrator, 2111-1100-timp + 2, pno, str. - Introduction to orchestral instruments for children.

Ballet music

Film music

  • 1933: How d'truth works, Switzerland.
  • 1941: Here Comes Mr. Jordan, USA, additional music, without attribution.
  • 1942: The Man Who Returned to Life, USA, production music (stock music), no attribution.
  • 1948: Triple Threat, USA, production music (stock music), no attribution.

Dance education

Anne Lief Barlin, a “leading pioneer of creative dance for children”, published a series of picture books from 1964 onwards, which should serve as a guide for children to creative dance. For some of the titles in the series, Paul Schoop provided the background music on the included LPs .

  • Anne Lief Barlin; Paul Barlin; Paul Schoop (music); Lois Zener Thomas (illustration): Dance-a-story ... , one book each with LP, Ginn & Company, Boston Mass. / RCA Victor
    • ... about Noah's ark , 1964.
    • ... about Little Duck , 1964.
    • ... about the magic mountain , 1964.
    • ... about balloons , 1964.
    • ... about at the beach , 1966.

Publications

Memberships

  • The National Society of Music and Art, member of the National Board of Directors.
  • American Federation of Musicians (AFM).

literature

life and work

  • JTH Mize (Editor): Schoop, Paul. In: The international who is who in music. Chicago 1951, 370.
  • Richard Drake Saunders (Editor): Music and dance in California and the West. Hollywood 1948, online: .
  • Richard Drake Saunders (Editor): Schoop, Paul. In: #Saunders 1948.1 , page 252.
  • Carl Seelig : The composer Paul Schoop. In: Original characters from the Schoop family. In: Thurgauer Jahrbuch , 33rd year, 1958, pages 108-109. ( e-periodica )

swell

  • Verna Arvey: Choreographic Music: music for the dance. New York 1941, page 398 - About Trudi and Paul Schoop.
  • Paul Barlin: In White America: Interracial Children and Adoption. Bloomington 2011, page 67-68, 145, 154, online: .
  • Sol Hurok: A Swiss Comedian. In: The World of ballet. London 1955, pp. 46-47. - Trudi Schoops Manager about Trudi Schoop.
  • Bruno Oetterli: The two lives of Trudi Schoop. In: Music, Dance and Art Therapy , Volume 20, 2009, pages 162–164.
  • Hugo Wolfgang Philipp : Letter to Margherita Gonzenbach, September 8, 1938. In: I just want to get away from here: Letters and writings from exile. Göttingen 2005, page 278 (Paul Schoops operetta "The soldiers of fortune"), online: .
  • Trudi Schoop ; Peggy Mitchell; Hedi Schoop (illustration): Won't you join the dance? A dancer's essay into the treatment of psychosis. Palo Alto, Calif. 1974 Excerpt: .
  • Trudi Schoop ; Peggy Mitchell; Hedi Schoop (illustration); Marigna Gerig (translation): Come and dance with me! : come, come on, come on, come on, come and dance with me !; an attempt to help the psychotic person through the elements of dance. Zurich 2006, excerpt . - German translation of #Schoop 1974 .
  • Karl Toepfer: Empire of Ecstasy: Nudity and Movement in German Body Culture, 1910-1935. Berkeley 1997. pp. 199-200, online .

Web links

Commons : Paul Schoop  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ #Mize 1951 .
  2. ↑ #Oetterli 2009 , page 162.
  3. ↑ Friedrich Maximilian Schoop's brothers Max Ulrich Schoop and Paul Schoop were well-known technicians and inventors. Max Ulrich Schoop's son was the sculptor Uli Schoop .
  4. ↑ #Schoop 1974 , #Seelig 1958 , page 100.
  5. ↑ #Schoop 1974 .
  6. ↑ #Seelig 1958 .
  7. ↑ The two institutions are now combined in the Zurich University of the Arts .
  8. ↑ #Mize 1951 , #Saunders 1948.2 .
  9. ↑ #Mize 1951 , #Seelig 1958 , page 108.
  10. ↑ #Seelig 1958 , page 108.
  11. ↑ #Seelig 1958 , page 101.
  12. ↑ ancestry.com .
  13. ↑ #Seelig 1958 , page 103 (photo), 109, #Mize 1951 , #Saunders 1948.2 , the latter two wrongly give the family name as Vallarina or Vallarini, IMDb .
  14. ↑ California Death Index: born October 22, 1914 in England, died December 25, 1961 in Los Angeles ( familysearch.com ).
  15. ^ Catalog of Copyright Entries 1973 .
  16. ↑ Find A Grave .
  17. ↑ #Schoop 2006 , #Arvey 1941 .
  18. ↑ Dominik Sackmann: Huldreich Georg Früh. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . April 14, 2005 , accessed July 8, 2019 .
  19. ↑ #Arvey 1941 . - Translation: "The music is obviously tailor-made for you and your particular dance style and unconditionally subordinates itself to the dance."
  20. ↑ #Mize 1951 , #Seelig 1958 , pages 108-109, #Philipp 2005 . - Carl Seelig also ascribes the music for Thornton Wilder's piece "The merchant of Yonkers" to Paul Schoop, which is said to have premiered in Los Angeles in 1943. In fact, the premiere took place in New York on Broadway in 1938 (English Wikipedia: en: The Merchant of Yonkers ).
  21. ↑ #Seelig 1958 , page 108.
  22. ↑ #Mize 1951 .
  23. ↑ #Philipp 2005 .
  24. ↑ #Mize 1951 .
  25. ↑ See: shorthand for orchestras .
  26. ↑ #Toepfer 1997 , pp. 199-200.
  27. ↑ #Toepfer 1997 , page 200.
  28. ↑ #Toepfer 1997 , page 200.
  29. ↑ #Toepfer 1997 , page 200.
  30. ↑ Paul Schoop , at www.filmportal.de, accessed on October 22, 2018
  31. ↑ a b c Paul Schoop (1909–1976) , at www.imdb.com, accessed on October 22, 2018
  32. ^ Center for Movement Education and Research .
  33. ↑ # Saunders 1948.1 , page 308.
  34. ↑ #Mize 1951 .
personal data
SURNAME Schoop, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss composer, pianist and conductor
DATE OF BIRTH July 31, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 1976
Place of death Van Nuys