Ирвинг Берлин

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Ирвинг Берлин (англ. Irving Berlin; наст. имя Израиль Исидор Бейлин, Израиль Моисеевич Бейлин^[1]; 11 мая 1888, Тюмень, Российская империя — 22 сентября 1989, США) — американский композитор, который написал более 900 песен, 19 мюзиклов и музыку к 18 кинофильмам, в том числе знаменитую песню «God Bless America» ("Боже, благослови Америку"), считается одним из величайших композиторов в американской истории..

Биография

Считается, что Ирвинг Берлин родился в Тюмени^[2][3][4][5] в семье Моисея и Леи Бейлиных. В то же время в своих интервью 1930-1940 годов И. Берлин рассказывал, что появился на свет в Могилёве. Ну а когда Стивен Спилберг в 1980-х годах задумал снимать фильм о Берлине и встречался по этому поводу с композитором, тот неожиданно поведал, что на самом деле он родом из Тобольска.^[6]

Вскоре после рождения будущего композитора семья переехала в белорусский Толочин. Уже оттуда Бейлины через порт Антверпен на корабле "Rhynland" отправились в Нью-Йорк, США, куда прибыли 14 сентября 1893 года.

Израиль Бейлин вырос на Манхэттене, в районе Нижнего Ист-Сайда (Lower East-Side), где жило много иммигрантов из России и Восточной Европы. Рано оставшись без отца, И. Бейлин пошёл работать, проучившись в школе только 2 года. Будущий композитор успел поработать посыльным в лавке, разносчиком газет, официантом в музыкальном кафе. По заказу хозяина кафе 16-летний официант написал свою первую песню, «Мэри из солнечной Италии». Гонорар автора составил 37 центов.^[7]

В 1907 году будущий композитор захотел впервые издать песню, а наборщики в типографии по небрежности исказили имя заказчика. Благодаря этой ошибке композитор вошёл в историю под фамилией Берлин. Правда, история умалчивает о причине превращения имени Израиль в Ирвинг.

Ирвинг Берлин умер во сне 22 сентября 1989 года. Его зять известил об этом прессу, и когда его спросили, умер ли Берлин от какой-либо болезни, он ответил: «Нет, ему был 101 год, он просто уснул».

Незадолго перед этим покинувший пост президента США Рональд Рейган, которому Берлин когда-то советовал подумать о карьере артиста, прислал на смерть композитора соболезнование. А действующий президент Джордж Буш-старший на похоронной церемонии в Бостоне возглавил траурную колонну, певшую «God Bless America», а затем выступил с речью, в которой назвал И. Берлина «легендарным человеком, чьи слова и музыка будут помогать пониманию истории нашего народа».^[8]

По мотивам жизни Ирвинга Берлина, символизирующей собой воплощение «американской мечты», в 1986 году снят мультфильм «Американский хвост» (An American Tail), продюсером которого выступил Стивен Спилберг.

Творчество

Американский композитор Джером Керн заявил:

Говорить о месте Ирвинга Берлина в истории американской музыки невозможно, ибо он сам — эта история![9]

Композитор Джордж Гершвин назвал его "величайшим песенным композитором, который когда-либо жил",^[10]

Влияние И. Берлина на создание американской песни вполне сравнимо с влиянием Исаака Дунаевского на создание советской песни. Он писал музыку и тексты в американском народном стиле.

За свою жизнь И. Берлин создал полторы тысячи песен (из которых 50 считаются хитами), написал музыку для 19 театральных постановок и 15 фильмов. Его песни 25 раз занимали первые места в хит-парадах, их исполняли самые знаменитые певцы Америки.

Первое признание композитору принесла песня «Александр рэгтайм бенд» (1912), вызвавший "танцевальное безумие" во всей Европе, вплоть до России.

Самое же известное произведение Берлина — гимн «Боже, благослови Америку» (God Bless America), считающийся неофициальным гимном США (1918). Гимн написан для бродвейского шоу «Гип-гип, Яфанк!», но автор посчитал песню не соответствующей юмористическому характеру спектакля. Поэтому премьера песни отсрочилась ровно на 20 лет, к кануну Второй мировой войны. Причём И. Берлин с трудом разыскал потом песню и изменил в ней несколько фраз.

Впервые песня прозвучала по радио вечером 11 ноября 1938 года. А уже через 7 месяцев во время исполнения песни на День Поминовения в Бруклине собравшиеся встали и сняли шляпы, как при исполнении национального гимна. В том же 1939 году Кейт Смит спела «God Bless America» на Всемирной выставке в Нью-Йорке. К этому времени было продано свыше 400 тысяч экземпляров песни.

Песня «Боже, благослови Америку» вошла в патриотический мюзикл «Это армия». Посмотрев мюзикл в феврале 1944 года, генерал Эйзенхауэр настоял на том, чтобы спектакль показывали на всех фронтах. В итоге за полтора года мюзикл увидели 2,5 млн. зрителей по всему американскому театру военных действий.

Права на песню и все доходы (на ней заработано шесть миллионов долларов) Берлин подарил скаутской организации «New York City Scouts Youth Organization» со словами:

На патриотизме зарабатывать нельзя.

Также среди наиболее известных произведений Берлина — песня «Puttin' on the Ritz» (1929), которую называют неофициальным гимном Голливуда, и «The White Christmas» ("Белое Рождество") — один из культовых символов рождественских праздников в Америке.

Песня «White Christmas» дебютировала в 1942 году в фильме «Отель на праздники» («Holiday Inn») в исполнении Бинга Кросби. Поначалу песня не произвела впечатления. Но затем её стали петь американские солдаты, сражающиеся за рубежом на полях Второй мировой войны. Песня выражала их тоску по дому и родным. Уже будучи глубоким стариком, Берлин услышал «White Christmas» в исполнении Элвиса Пресли и пришёл в ужас. «White Christmas» вошла в Книгу рекордов Гиннесса как самая продаваемая песня XX века: продано более 30 миллионов пластинок.^[11][12]

Рождению своего первого ребёнка автор американского гимна посвятил «Русскую колыбельную» (Russian Lullaby), которая была признана лучшей песней 1927 года.

Музыкальные произведения

Приведенный ниже список включает в себя основные производения Берлина. Хотя некоторые из пьес, где звучат его песни были позже переделаны в сценарии к фильмам, список не будет включать в себя фильм, если он не был основным композитором.^[13]

Произведения

Список фильмов

Списки песен

Основная статья: List of Irving Berlin songs

Шаблон:Further2

Записи

• "Irving Berlin In Hollywood (Film Score Anthology)" Song clips
• "Irving Berlin Always" Song clips
• "Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Songbook" Song clips
• "Irving Berlin: A Hundred Years" Song clips
• "The Melody Lingers On: 25 Songs Of Irving Berlin" Song clips
• "Annie Get Your Gun" (film) score samples
• "Annie Get Your Gun (Broadway play) song samples
• "How Deep is the Ocean"—Frank Sinatra
• "What'll I Do?"—Harry Nilsson
• The International Rag at the Library of Congress Jukebox

Видеозаписи

• "Ordway Center Spotlight on Irving Berlin" Presentation by James Rocco, V.P. Performing Arts, 8 min.
• Kaye Ballard Tribute 8 min.
• 1982 Oscars Tribute part 2 videos 7 min.
• "God Bless America"—sung by Kate Smith;
• sung by Celine Dion;
• with Irving Berlin
• "Always" Frank Sinatra at Irving Berlin's 100th birthday celebration
• "Easter Parade" movie trailer
• "Annie Get Your Gun" "Anything You Can Do";
• "Col. Buffalo Bill"
• "Alexander's Ragtime Band" movie trailer
• "Follow the Fleet", Fred Astaire on piano
• "A Cheer for the Navy";
• Finale scene from "This is the Army"
• "Let's Face The Music And Dance" with Nat King Cole;
• version by Diana Krall
• "Blue Skies" Willie Nelson;
• Al Jolson in "The Jazz Singer" 1927
• "Top Hat" movie trailer
• "Cheek to Cheek" with Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers
• "There's No Business Like Show Business" movie trailer (1954);
• Song clip
• "Shakin' the Blues Away" with—Doris Day
• "White Christmas" movie trailer—"White Christmas" Broadway promo
• "Play a Simple Melody" by Greater Boston Intergenerational Chorus
• "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" with Dick Powell & Alice Faye; version with Frank Sinatra
• "A Couple of Swells" with Judy Garland & Fred Astaire
• "Always" with Frank Sinatra slide show
• "Russian Lullaby" (written 1927) with Jacques Gauthe & jazz group
• "Puttin' on the Ritz" with Fred Astaire;
• played by Cory Hall;
• piano solo with Jim Hession

Источники и ссылки

• Статья "Irving Berlin" в английском разделе Википедии
• Исторический архив, Элис-Айленд(англ.)
• Russian Network USA
• Papers of Irving Berlin, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
• Irving Berlin at the Internet Broadway Database
• Irving Berlin at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Irving Berlin at the Internet Movie Database
• Irving Berlin Music Company
• PBS page on Irving Berlin, part of their Great Performances series
• If Irving Berlin could not read or write music, how did he compose? (from The Straight Dope)
• Liner notes for The Vintage Irving Berlin, New World Records NW 238
• Irving Berlin collection of non-commercial sound recordings, at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
• The Judy Room "Easter Parade" section
• Remarkable Sergeants: Ten Vignettes of Noteworthy NCOs Elder, Daniel K.
• U.S. Army Soldier Show
• Irving Berlin | 5th Avenue Theatre
• Tony Awards
• Songwriters Hall of Fame—Irving Berlin
• Free scores by Irving Berlin at the International Music Score Library Project

Литература

• Irving Berlin: A Daughter's Memoir. — 1994. — ISBN 0-671-72533-5
• David Carson Berry (2001). “Gambling with Chromaticism? Extra-Diatonic Melodic Expression in the Songs of Irving Berlin,” Theory and Practice 26, 21–85.
• David Carson Berry (1999). “Dynamic Introductions: The Affective Role of Melodic Ascent and Other Linear Devices in Selected Song Verses of Irving Berlin,” Intégral 13, 1–62.
• Word Crazy, Broadway Lyricists from Cohan to Sondheim. — 1991. — ISBN 0-275-93849-2
• White Christmas: The Story of an American Song. — 2002. — ISBN 0-743-21875-2

Примечания

	Портал «Персоналии»
	Ирвинг Берлин в Викицитатнике?
	Ирвинг Берлин в Викитеке?
	Ирвинг Берлин на Викискладе?

Уведомление: Предварительной основой данной статьи была аналогичная статья в http://ru.wikipedia.org, на условиях CC-BY-SA, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, которая в дальнейшем изменялась, исправлялась и редактировалась.

This ballad of love and longing was a #1 hit for Paul Whiteman and had five other top-12 renditions in 1924. Twenty-four years later, the song went to #22 for Nat Cole and #23 for Frank Sinatra.^[1]

"Always" (1925)

Written when he fell in love with Ellin Mackay, who later became his wife. The song became #1 twice (for Vincent Lopez and George Olsen) in its first incarnation. There were four more hit versions in 1944–45. In 1959 Sammy Turner took the song to #2 on the R&B chart. It became Patsy Cline's postmortem anthem and hit #18 on the country chart in 1980, 17 years after her death, and a tribute musical called "Patsy Cline ... Always," played a two-year Nashville run that ended in 1995.^[1]

"Blue Skies" (1926)

Written after his first daughter's birth as a song just for her. In it he distilled his feelings about being married and a father for the first time: "Blue days, all of them gone; nothing but blue skies, from now on."^[2] #1 for Ben Selvin with five other hits in 1927 besides being the first song performed by Al Jolson in the first feature sound film, "The Jazz Singer," that same year. In 1946 it returned to the top 10 on the charts with Count Basie and Benny Goodman. In 1978, Willie Nelson made the song a #1 country hit—52 years after it was written.^[1]

"Marie" (1929)

This waltz-time hit went to #2 with Rudy Vallee and in 1937 reached #1 with Tommy Dorsey. It was again on the charts at #13 in 1953 for The Four Tunes and at #15 for the Bachelors in 1965–36 years after its first appearance.^[1]

"Puttin' on the Ritz" (1930)

An instant standard with one of Berlin's most "intricately syncopated choruses," this song is associated with Fred Astaire, who danced to it in the 1946 film "Blue Skies." It was first sung by Harry Richman in 1930 and became a #1 hit, and in 1939 Clark Gable sang it in the movie "Idiot's Delight." It was also featured in the movie Young Frankenstein by Mel Brooks and a #4 hit for the techno artist Taco in 1983 (Berlin thus became the oldest songwriter to have a current top Ten hit).

"Say It Isn't So" (1932)

Rudy Vallee performed it on his radio show, and the song was a #1 hit for George Olsen and awarded top-10 positions with versions by Connee Boswell and Ozzie Nelson's band. In 1963 Aretha Franklin produced a single of the song in 1963–31 years later.^[1] Furia notes that when Rudy Vallee first introduced the song on his radio show, the "song not only became an overnight hit, it saved Vallee's marriage: The Vallees had planned to get a divorce, but after Vallee sang Berlin's romantic lyrics on the air, "both he and his wife dissolved in tears" and decided to stay together.^[3]

"I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" (1937)

Performed by Dick Powell in the 1937 film "On the Avenue." Later it had four top-12 versions, including by Billie Holiday and Les Brown, who took it to #1.^[1]

"God Bless America" (1938)

Written by Berlin twenty years earlier, he filed it away until 1938, when Kate Smith's manager asked Berlin if he had a patriotic song Smith might sing to mark the 20th anniversary of Armistice Day. It was "a simple plea for divine protection in a dark time—a plangent anthem in just 40 words," writes Corliss. It quickly became the second National Anthem after America entered World War II and over the decades has earned millions for the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, to whom Berlin assigned all royalties.^[1][4] The phrase "God Bless America" was taken from Berlin's mother:

While he was growing up on the Lower East Side, she would say "God bless America" often, to indicate that, without America, her family would have had no place to go.^[5] The Economist magazine wrote that by writing "God Bless America", Berlin was "producing a deep-felt paean to the country that had given him what he would have said was everything. It is a melody that still makes his fellow countrymen want to stand up and place their hands over their hearts." ^[6]

On the afternoon of September 11, 2001, U.S. senators and congressmen stood on the capitol steps and sang it after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Two nights later, when Broadway turned its lights back on, the casts of numerous shows led theatergoers in renditions of the same song.

Richard Corliss notes that the next day, at an official requiem at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., it was played by the U.S. Army Orchestra. The following Monday, to mark the reopening of the New York Stock Exchange, New York Governor George Pataki and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani joined traders in singing it. That evening, as major league baseball games resumed around the country it replaced "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" as the theme song of the seventh-inning stretch. Over the following weeks, everyone—Celine Dion, Marc Anthony, New York City Police Department officer Daniel Rodriguez, the whole country—sang "God Bless America".^[1]

Describing the mood at the time and the significance of the song, Corliss wrote in Time magazine that December:

In times of crisis, the nation loses its short-term cultural memory—puts aside idiot movie comics, suicidal rock lyrics, must-see reality TV and the pursuit of the moral triviality that is Gary Condit—and, like a senior citizen finding solace in the distant past, rekindles that old feeling. In pop culture, at least for a while, many Americans traded in cool pop culture for warm, sarcasm for sentiment, alienation for community. In the blink of a national tragedy, we went from jaded to nice, just like that.^[1]

The popularity of the song, when it was first introduced in 1938, was also related to its release near the end of the Depression, which had gone on for nine years. As a result, one writer concludes that the song's introduction at that time "enshrines a strain of official patriotism intertwined with a religious faith that runs deep in the American psyche. Patriotic razzle-dazzle, sophisticated melancholy and humble sentiments: Berlin songs span the emotional terrain of America with a thoroughness that others may have equaled but none have surpassed."^[7]

The song has also been adopted by various sports teams over the years. The Philadelphia Flyers hockey team started playing it before crucial contests and won some 80% of those games—including all three when Kate Smith arrived to sing it in person. "Many credited Smith for lifting the crowd and the team to new heights," notes columnist John Bacon. When the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team pulled off the "greatest upset in sports history," referred to as the "Miracle on Ice", the players spontaneously broke into a chorus—not of "The Star Spangled Banner," but "God Bless America,"^[8] with ESPN TV noting, "Americans were overcome by patriotism."^[9]

Other songs

Though most of his works for the Broadway stage took the form of revues—collections of songs with no unifying plot—he did write a number of book shows. The Cocoanuts (1925) was a light comedy with a cast featuring, among others, the Marx Brothers. Face the Music (1932) was a political satire with a book by Moss Hart, and Louisiana Purchase (1940) was a satire of a Southern politician obviously based on the exploits of Huey Long. As Thousands Cheer (1933) was a revue, also with book by Moss Hart, with a theme: each number was presented as an item in a newspaper, some of them touching on issues of the day. The show yielded a succession of hit songs, including "Easter Parade" sung by Marilyn Miller and William Gaxton, "Heat Wave" (presented as the weather forecast), "Harlem on My Mind", and "Supper Time", a song about racial bigotry that was sung by Ethel Waters.

1941 to 1962

World War II patriotism—"This is the Army" (1943)

When the U.S. joined World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Berlin immediately began composing a number of patriotic songs. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau requested a song to inspire Americans to buy war bonds, for which he wrote "Any Bonds Today?" He assigned all royalties to the United States Treasury Department. He then wrote songs for various government agencies and likewise assigned all profits to them: "Angels of Mercy" for the American Red Cross; "Arms for the Love of America," for the Army Ordnance Department; and "I Paid My Taxes Today," again to Treasury.^[1]

But his most notable and valuable contribution to the war effort was a stage show he wrote called "This is the Army". It was taken to Broadway and then on to Washington, D.C. (where President Franklin D. Roosevelt attended). It was eventually shown at military bases throughout the world, including London, North Africa, Italy, Middle East, and Pacific countries, sometimes in close proximity to battle zones. Berlin wrote nearly three dozen songs for the show which contained a cast of 300 men. He supervised the production and traveled with it, always singing "Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning". The show kept him away from his family for three and a half years, during which time he took neither salary nor expenses, and turned over all profits to the Army Emergency Relief Fund.^[10]:81 The play was adapted into a movie of the same name in 1943, directed by Michael Curtiz, costarring Joan Leslie and Ronald Reagan, who was then an army lieutenant. Kate Smith also sang "God Bless America" in the film with a backdrop showing families anxious over the coming war. The show became a hit movie and a morale-boosting road show that toured the battlefronts of Europe.^[11] The shows and movie combined raised more than $10 million for the Army,^[1] and in recognition of his contributions to troop morale, Berlin was awarded the Medal of Merit by President Harry S. Truman. His daughter, Mary Ellin Barrett, who was 15 when she was at the opening-night performance of "This is the Army" on Broadway, remembered that when her father, who normally shunned the spotlight, appeared in the second act in soldier's garb to sing "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning," he was greeted with a standing ovation that lasted 10 minutes. She adds that he was in his mid-50's at the time, and later declared those years with the show were the "most thrilling time of his life."^[11]

"Annie Get Your Gun" (1946)

The grueling tours Berlin did performing "This Is The Army" left him exhausted. But his old and close friend Jerome Kern, who was the composer for "Annie Get Your Gun," suddenly died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Producers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II persuaded Berlin to take over composing the score.

Loosely based on the life of sharpshooter Annie Oakley, the music and lyrics were written by Berlin, with a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. At first he refused to take on the job, claiming that he knew nothing about "hillbilly music", but the show ran for 1,147 performances and became his most successful score. It is said that the showstopper song, "There's No Business Like Show Business", was almost left out of the show altogether because Berlin mistakenly thought that Rodgers and Hammerstein didn't like it. However, it became the "ultimate uptempo show tune." One reviewer stating that "Its tough wisecracking lyrics are as tersely all-knowing as its melody, which is nailed down in brassy syncopated lines that have been copied -but never equaled in sheer melodic memorability—by hundreds of theater composers ever since."^[7] McCorkle writes that the score "meant more to me than ever, now that I knew that he wrote it after a grueling world tour and years of separation from his wife and daughters."^[10]:81

Historian and composer Alec Wilder noted the difference between this score and Berlin's much earlier works:

To hear... that "Alexander's Ragtime Band" (1911) was the hit of Vienna and probably every large city of Europe by late 1912, and then to realize that the writer of this song, forty years later, wrote the nearly perfect score of Annie Get Your Gun, comes as a profound shock.^[12]:94

Apparently the "creative spurt" in which Berlin turned out several songs for the score in a single weekend was an anomaly. According to this daughter, he usually "sweated blood" to write his songs.^[11] Annie Get Your Gun is considered to be Berlin's best musical theatre score not only because of the number of hits it contains, but because its songs successfully combine character and plot development. The song "There's No Business Like Show Business" became "Ethel Merman's trademark."^[7]

Final shows

Berlin's next show, Miss Liberty (1949), was disappointing, but Call Me Madam in 1950, starring Ethel Merman as Sally Adams, a Washington, D.C. socialite, loosely based the famous Washington hostess Perle Mesta, fared better, giving him his second greatest success. After a failed attempt at retirement, in 1962, at the age of 74, he returned to Broadway with Mr. President. Although it ran for eight months, (with the premiere attended by President John F. Kennedy), it did not become a successful show. But as Richard Corliss points out, it did at least prove that Berlin was still the "uncomplicated lover of the country that had adopted and enriched him . . . [and] his feelings were most directly expressed" by the lyrics to the song, "This Is a Great Country:"^[1]

Hats off to America,
The home of the free and the brave—
If this is flag waving,
Flag waving,
Do you know of a better flag to wave?

Afterwards, Berlin officially announced his retirement and spent his remaining years in New York.

Movie scores

1920s–1950s

In 1922, Madame Butterfly was his first composing film debut. In 1927, his song "Blue Skies", was featured in the first feature-length talkie, The Jazz Singer, with Al Jolson. Later, movies like Top Hat (1935) became the first of a series of distinctive film musicals by Berlin starring performers like Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Ginger Rogers, and Alice Faye. They usually had light romantic plots and a seemingly endless string of his new and old songs. Similar films included On the Avenue (1937), Gold Diggers in Paris (1938), Holiday Inn (1942), Blue Skies (1946), and Easter Parade (1948), with Judy Garland and Fred Astaire.

"White Christmas" (1942)

The 1942 film Holiday Inn introduced "White Christmas", one of the most recorded songs in history. First sung in the film by Bing Crosby, it sold over 30 million records and stayed #1 on the pop and R&B charts for 10 weeks. Crosby's single was the best-selling single in any music category for more than fifty years. Music critic Stephen Holden credits this partly to the fact that "the song also evokes a primal nostalgia—a pure childlike longing for roots, home and childhood—that goes way beyond the greeting imagery."^[7]

Richard Corliss also notes that the song was even more significant having been released soon after America entered World War II: [it] "connected with... GIs in their first winter away from home. To them it voiced the ache of separation and the wistfulness they felt for the girl back home, for the innocence of youth...."^[1] Poet Carl Sandburg said, "Way down under this latest hit of his, Irving Berlin catches us where we love peace."^[1]

"White Christmas" won Berlin the Academy Award for Best Music in an Original Song, one of seven Oscar nominations he received during his career. In subsequent years, it was re-recorded and became a top-10 seller for numerous artists: Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford, Ernest Tubb, The Ravens, and The Drifters. It would also be the last time a Berlin song went to #1 upon its release.

Talking about Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", composer–lyricist Garrison Hintz stated that although songwriting can be a complicated process, its final result should sound simplistic. Considering the fact that "White Christmas" has only eight sentences in the entire song, lyrically Mr. Berlin achieved all that was necessary to eventually sell over 100 million copies and capture the hearts of the American public at the same time.^[13]

Songwriting methods

According to Saul Bornstein, Berlin's publishing company manager, "It was a ritual for Berlin to write a complete song, words and music, every day."^[12]:92 Berlin has said that he "does not believe in inspiration," and feels that although he may be gifted in certain areas, his "most successful compositions were the "result of work." In an interview in 1916, when he was 28, he said:

I do most of my work under pressure. When I have a song to write I go home at night, and after dinner about 8 I begin to work. Sometimes I keep at it till 4 or 5 in the morning. I do most of my writing at night, and although I have lived in the same apartment four years there has never been a complaint from any of my neighbors.... Each day I would attend rehearsals and at night write another song and bring it down the next day.^[14]

Not always certain about his own writing abilities, he once asked a songwriter friend, Mr. Herbert, whether he should study composition. "You have a natural gift for words and music," Mr. Herbert told him. "Learning theory might help you a little, but it could cramp your style." Berlin took his advice. Herbert later became a moving force behind the creation of ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. In 1914, Berlin joined him as a charter member of the organization that has protected the royalties of composers and writers ever since.^[15]

Years later, he was asked whether he ever studied lyrical writing:

I never have, because if I don't know them I do not have to observe any rules and can do as I like, which is much better for me than if I allowed myself to be governed by the rules of versification. In following my own method I can make my jingles fit my music or vice versa with no qualms as to their correctness. Usually I compose my tunes and then fit words to them, though sometimes it's the other way about.^[14]

In later years he would emphasize his conviction, saying that "it's the lyric that makes a song a hit, although the tune, of course, is what makes it last."^[16]:234

According to music historian Alec Wilder, it was well known that Berlin, unable to write his own music, paid a professional musician to harmonize and write his music, but always did so under his close supervision. He notes that "though Berlin may seldom have played acceptable harmony, he nevertheless, by some mastery of his inner ear, senses it, in fact writes many of his melodies with this natural, intuitive harmonic sense at work in his head, but not in his hands."^[12]:93

As a result, Wilder concludes that many admirers of the music of Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, and Cole Porter were unlikely to consider Berlin's work in the same category. But he feels that was due primarily to "forgetfulness and confusion," making them inclined to minimize his talent. He writes:

They forget "Soft Lights and Sweet Music,' 'Supper Time,' and 'Cheek to Cheek' because they are confused by his also having written 'What'll I Do?' and 'Always.' The solid, straightforward pop songs of Berlin are minor masterpieces of economy, clarity, and memorability. But they give little hint of the much more sophisticated aspects of his talent as it is revealed in his theater and film music.^[12]

Wilder tries to describe the source of Berlin's gift for songwriting: "In his lyrics as in his melodies, Berlin reveals a constant awareness of the world around him: the pulse of the times, the society in which his is functioning. There is nothing of the hothouse about his work, urban though it may be."^[12]

Music styles

Music critic Stephen Holden writes that composer Jerome Kern recognized that the essence of Irving Berlin's lyrics was his "faith in the American vernacular" and was so profound that his best-known songs "seem indivisible from the country's history and self-image." He adds that where the songs of Kern, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II and Cole Porter brought together Afro-American, Latin American, rural pop, and European operetta, Berlin's music "did not strive to be lofty in that way." He adds that "The best of it is a simple, exquisitely crafted street song whose diction feels so natural that one scarcely notices the craft.... For all of their innovation, they seem to flow straight out of the rhythms and inflections of everyday speech."^[7] Wilder also explains Berlin's style of writing:

Whatever idealism some of his songs revealed, the core of his work has been eminently practical: his has been truly a body of work... his approach to songwriting is that of a craftsman rather than a composer.... I have been searching assiduously for stylistic characteristics in Berlin, but I can't find any. I find great songs, good songs, average songs, and commercial songs. But I find no clue to a single, or even duple, point of view in the music.^[10]:76

Berlin did state a stylistic goal early in his career: to write a "syncopated operetta." He said, "If I were assigned the task of writing an American opera I should not follow the style of the masters, whose melodies can never be surpassed. Instead I would write a syncopated opera, which, if it failed, would at least possess the merit of novelty. That is what I really want to do eventually—write a syncopated operetta."^[14] Two decades later, composer George Gershwin wrote, "I have learned many things from Irving Berlin, but the most precious lesson has been that ragtime—or jazz, as its more developed state was later called—was the only musical idiom in existence that could aptly express America."^[17]:117

Many musicians and music historians have attempted to define the qualities about Berlin's songs that made them unique. Gershwin once tried:

His music has that vitality—both rhythmic and melodic—which never seems to lose any of its exuberant freshness; it has that rich, colorful melodic flow which is ever the wonder of all those of who, too, compose songs; his ideas are endless.^[17]:117

Among Berlin's contemporaries was Cole Porter, whose music style was often considered more "witty, sophisticated, [and] dirty," according to musicologist Susannah McCorkle. Of the five top songwriters, only Porter and Berlin wrote both their words and music. However, she notes that Porter, unlike Berlin, was a Yale-educated and wealthy Midwesterner whose songs were not successful until he was in his thirties. However, she notes that it was "Berlin [who] got Porter the show that launched his career."^[10]:76

During the early 1940s, Berlin became an enthusiastic reader of works by the 18th century English poet, Alexander Pope. He had a genuine "enthusiasm for Pope's lean, compact heroic couplets." He felt that Pope would have made a "brilliant lyric writer."^[18]

In 2000, composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim reflected on the greatest songs in the American Songbook, noting "What distinguishes Berlin is the brilliance of his lyrics. 'You Can't Get a Man With a Gun'—that's as good a comic song as has ever been written by anybody. You look at the jokes and how quickly they're told, and it still has a plot to it. It's sophisticated and very underrated." ^[19]

Personal life

Marriages

In 1912, he married Dorothy Goetz, the sister of the songwriter E. Ray Goetz. She died six months later of typhoid fever, which she contracted during their honeymoon in Havana. The song he wrote to express his grief, "When I Lost You," was his first ballad.

Years later in the 1920s, he fell in love with a young heiress, Ellin Mackay, the daughter of Clarence Mackay, the socially prominent head of the Postal Telegraph Cable Company. Because Berlin was Jewish and she was Catholic, their life was followed in every possible detail by the press, which found the romance of an immigrant from the Lower East Side and a young heiress a good story.^[15]

They met in 1925, and her father opposed the match from the start. He went so far as to send her off to Europe to find other suitors and forget Mr. Berlin. However, Berlin wooed her over the airwaves with his songs, "Remember" and "Always." His biographer, Philip Furia, writes that "even before Ellin returned from Europe, newspapers rumored they were engaged, and Broadway shows featured skits of the lovelorn songwriter...." During the week after her return, both she and Berlin were "besieged by reporters, sometimes fifty at a time." Variety reported that her father had vowed their marriage "would only happen 'over my dead body.'"^[16] As a result they decided to elope and were married in a simple civil ceremony at the Municipal Building away from media attention.

A front-page story in the New York Times about the wedding stated, "Although Broadway for months had expected the one-time newsboy and Bowery singer of songs to wed the prominent young society girl... the marriage took Clarence H. Mackay, father of the bride, completely by surprise. He was reported to have been stunned when he learned from a third person of the Municipal Building ceremony." However, the bride's mother, who was divorced from Mr. Mackay, was apparently not of the same mind according to the story: "in fact, some quarters pictured her as desirous of seeing her daughter follow the dictates of her own heart. It was reported that the couple motored to the home of Mrs. Blake [her mother], early in the evening and obtained her blessing."^[20]

There were also reports that her father disowned his daughter because of the marriage. Berlin then assigned all rights to a number of popular songs, including "Always," a song still played at weddings, thereby guaranteeing her a steady income regardless of what might happen with their marriage. For some years, Mr. Mackay was not on speaking terms with the Berlins; however, during the Depression five years later, Berlin is said to have bailed out his father-in-law when he suffered because of the stock market crash.^[15]

Their marriage remained a love affair and they were inseparable until she died in July 1988 at the age of 85. They had four children during their 63 years of marriage: Irving, who died in infancy; Mary Ellin Barrett and Elizabeth Irving Peters of New York, and Linda Louise Emmet, who lived in Paris.^[15]

Lifestyle

In 1916, in the earlier phase of Berlin's career, producer and composer George M. Cohan, during a toast to the young Berlin at a Friar's Club dinner in his honor, described Berlin:

The thing I like about Irvie is that although he has moved up-town and made lots of money, it hasn't turned his head. He hasn't forgotten his friends, he doesn't wear funny clothes, and you will find his watch and his handkerchief in his pockets, where they belong.^[14]

It has been noted by Furia that "throughout his life he had a habit of returning to his old haunts in Union Square, Chinatown, and the Bowery, a habit easily indulged in a city where no matter how far up—or down—the ladder of success you had climbed, you could reach your antipodes by walking a few blocks."^[16] Berlin would always remember his childhood years when he "slept under tenement steps, ate scraps, and wore secondhand clothes," describing those years as hard but good. "Every man should have a Lower East Side in his life," he said. He used to visit The Music Box Theater, which he founded and which still stands at 239 West Forty-Fifth St.

George Frazier of Life magazine found Berlin to be "intensely nervous," with a habit of tapping his listener with his index finger to emphasize a point, and continually pressing his hair down in back and "picking up any stray crumbs left on a table after a meal." While listening, "he leans forward tensely, with his hands clasped below his knees like a prizefighter waiting in his corner for the bell.... For a man who has known so much glory," writes Frazier, "Berlin has somehow managed to retain the enthusiasm of a novice."^[18]

Berlin's daughter later wrote in her memoir that "she found her father a loving, if workaholic, family man who was 'basically an upbeat person, with down periods,' until his last decades, when he retreated from public life...."^[10] She adds that her parents liked to celebrate every single holiday with their children. "They seemed to understand the importance, particularly in childhood, of the special day, the same every year, the special stories, foods, and decorations and that special sense of well-being that accompanies a holiday."^[10]:80 Although he did comment to his daughter about her mother's lavish Christmas spending, "I gave up trying to get your mother to economize. It was easier just to make more money."^[21]

Berlin supported the presidential candidacy of General Dwight Eisenhower, and his song "I Like Ike" featured prominently in the Eisenhower campaign. In his later years he also became more conservative in his views on music. According to his daughter, "He was consumed by patriotism." He often said, "I owe all my success to my adopted country" and once rejected his lawyers' advice to invest in tax shelters, insisting, "I want to pay taxes. I love this country."^[10]:80

Berlin was devoted to the Jewish faith and was a staunch advocate of civil rights. Berlin was later honored in 1944 by the National Conference of Christians and Jews for "advancing the aims of the conference to eliminate religious and racial conflict."^[22] In 1949, the Young Men's Hebrew Association (YMHA) honored him as one the twelve "most outstanding Americans of Jewish faith."^[22] Berlin's Civil Rights Movement support also made him a target of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who endlessly investigated him for years.^[23]

Death

Berlin died in his sleep on September 22, 1989, in New York City at the age of 101 and was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York. He was survived by three daughters: Mary Ellin Barrett and Elizabeth Irving Peters of New York, and Linda Louise Emmet, who lives in Paris. He is also survived by nine grandchildren and six great grandchildren.^[15]

On the evening following the announcement of his death, the marquee lights of Broadway playhouses were dimmed before curtain time in his memory. President George H. W. Bush said Mr. Berlin was "a legendary man whose words and music will help define the history of our nation." Just minutes before the President's statement was released, he joined a crowd of thousands to sing Berlin's "God Bless America" at a luncheon in Boston. Former President Ronald Reagan, who costarred in Berlin's 1943 musical This Is the Army, said, "Nancy and I are deeply saddened by the death of a wonderfully talented man whose musical genius delighted and stirred millions and will live on forever."^[24]

Morton Gould, the composer and conductor who is president of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), of which Mr. Berlin was a founder, said, "What to me is fascinating about this unique genius is that he touched so many people in so many age groups over so many years. He sounded our deepest feelings—happiness, sadness, celebration, loneliness." Ginger Rogers, who danced to Berlin tunes with Fred Astaire, told The Associated Press upon hearing of his death that working with Mr. Berlin had been "like heaven." ^[24]

Legacy and influence

The New York Times, after his death in 1989, wrote, "Irving Berlin set the tone and the tempo for the tunes America played and sang and danced to for much of the 20th century." An immigrant from Russia, his life became the "classic rags-to-riches story that he never forgot could have happened only in America."^[15] During his career he wrote an estimated 1,500 songs^[25] and was a legend by the time he turned 30. He went on to write the scores for 19 Broadway shows and 18 Hollywood films,^[26] with his songs nominated for Academy Awards on eight occasions. Music historian Susannah McCorkle writes that "in scope, quantity, and quality his work was amazing."^[10] Others, such as Broadway musician Anne Phillips, says simply that "the man is an American institution."^[27] During his six-decade career, from 1907 to 1966, he produced sheet music, Broadway shows, recordings, and scores played on radio, in films and on television, and his tunes continue to evoke powerful emotions for millions around the world. He wrote songs like "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "Cheek to Cheek", "There's No Business Like Show Business", "Blue Skies" and "Puttin' On the Ritz." Some of his songs have become holiday anthems, such as "Easter Parade", "White Christmas", and "Happy Holiday". "White Christmas" alone sold over 50 million records, the top-selling single of all time, won an ASCAP and an Academy Award, and is one of the most frequently played songs ever written.^[15] According to McCorkle, of the top five songwriters in America, only Berlin and Cole Porter wrote both their words and music.^[10]

In 1938 "God Bless America" became the unofficial national anthem of the United States, and on September 11, 2001, members of the House of Representatives stood on the steps of the Capitol and solemnly sang "God Bless America" together. The song returned to #1 shortly after 9/11, when Celine Dion recorded it as the title track of a 9/11 benefit album. The following year, the Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp of Berlin. By then, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of New York had received more than $10 million in royalties from "God Bless America" as a result of Berlin's donation of royalties.^[25] According to music historian Gary Giddins, "No other songwriter has written as many anthems.... No one else has written as many pop songs, period... [H]is gift for economy, directness, and slang, presents Berlin as an obsessive, often despairing commentator on the passing scene."^[28]:405

In 1934 Life Magazine put him on its cover and inside hailed "this itinerant son of a Russian cantor" as "an American institution."^[2] And again in 1943 Life described his songs as follows:

They possess a permanence not generally associated with Tin Pan Alley products and it is more than remotely possible that in days to come Berlin will be looked upon as the Stephen Foster of the 20th century.^[18]

At various times his songs were also rallying cries for different causes: He produced musical editorials supporting Al Smith and Dwight Eisenhower as presidential candidates, he wrote songs opposing Prohibition, defending the gold standard, calming the wounds of the Great Depression, and helping the war against Hitler, and in 1950 he wrote an anthem for the state of Israel.^[1] Biographer David Leopold adds that "We all know his songs... they are all part of who we are."

At his 100th-birthday celebration in May 1988, violinist Isaac Stern said, "The career of Irving Berlin and American music were intertwined forever—American music was born at his piano,"^[15] while songwriter Sammy Cahn pointed out: "If a man, in a lifetime of 50 years, can point to six songs that are immediately identifiable, he has achieved something. Irving Berlin can sing 60 that are immediately identifiable... [Y]ou couldn't have a holiday without his permission."^[15] Composer Douglas Moore added:

It's a rare gift which sets Irving Berlin apart from all other contemporary songwriters. It is a gift which qualifies him, along with Stephen Foster, Walt Whitman, Vachel Lindsay and Carl Sandburg, as a great American minstrel. He has caught and immortalized in his songs what we say, what we think about, and what we believe.^[15]

ASCAP's records show that 25 of Berlin's songs reached the top of the charts and were re-recorded by dozens of famous singers over the years, such as Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Linda Ronstadt, Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day, Diana Ross, Bing Crosby, Al Jolson, Nat King Cole, and Ella Fitzgerald.^[26] In 1924, when Berlin was 36, his biography, The Story of Irving Berlin, was being written by Alexander Woollcott. In a letter to Woollcott, Jerome Kern offered what one writer said "may be the last word" on the significance of Irving Berlin:

Irving Berlin has no place in American music—he is American music. Emotionally, he honestly absorbs the vibrations emanating from the people, manners and life of his time and, in turn, gives these impressions back to the world—simplified, clarified and glorified.^[7]

Composer George Gershwin (1898–1937) also tried to describe the importance of Berlin's compositions:

I want to say at once that I frankly believe that Irving Berlin is the greatest songwriter that has ever lived.... His songs are exquisite cameos of perfection, and each one of them is as beautiful as its neighbor. Irving Berlin remains, I think, America's Schubert. But apart from his genuine talent for song-writing, Irving Berlin has had a greater influence upon American music than any other one man. It was Irving Berlin who was the very first to have created a real, inherent American music.... Irving Berlin was the first to free the American song from the nauseating sentimentality which had previously characterized it, and by introducing and perfecting ragtime he had actually given us the first germ of an American musical idiom; he had sowed the first seeds of an American music.^[17]:117

Awards and celebrations

• Received the Army's Medal of Merit on October 2, 1945 from General George C. Marshall, at the direction of President Harry S. Truman, in appreciation for writing the music and lyrics to "This Is the Army."
• Won a Tony Award in 1951 for Best Score for the musical, Call Me Madam.
• Received a special Congressional Gold Medal in 1954 from President Dwight D. Eisenhower for contributing the song, "God Bless America." Berlin had also written three songs for his candidacy, including "I Like Ike."
• Won a Special Tony Award (New York City) in 1963 for his contributions to the American musical.
• Awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1968.
• Was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.
• Was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 by President Gerald Ford
• Won a Lawrence Langner Tony Award (New York City) in 1978 for his distinguished life in the American theater.
• Awarded (in absentia,) a Medal of Liberty during centennial celebrations for the Statue of Liberty in 1986.
• His 100th-birthday celebration concert for the benefit of Carnegie Hall and ASCAP on May 11, 1988.
• Awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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