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Love Letters in War and Peace

March 1, 2015 ImagesMusicales 2 Comments

‘**Faded Old Love Letters**‘, published by Keith Prowse & C° in 1922, illustrated by Holloway.

The Museum of Fine Arts MSK in Ghent recently showed the exhibition Love Letters in War and Peace. It followed the visual traces of ‘famous and lesser-known romances’ in different times: the prude Victorian society, the fin de siècle and the roaring Twenties, in war and in peace. This has inspired us to browse our collection of sheet music for songs about love letters.

Sheet music cover illustrated by Ixus (partition musicale illustrée) — ‘**Lettre à la première**‘, composed by Gaston Maquis (ca 1895), illustrated by Ixus and brightly coloured ‘au pochoir’.

The ‘Letter to the First One’: what can be more difficult for a timid young man than to write a beautiful love letter to make his first object of desire swoon and reciprocate his tender feelings?

‘**Le Camée**‘, by Pierre Dupont, published by A. Fouquet in 1890, illustrated by Steinlen.

Théophile Steinlen borrows from mythology to illustrate the theme of postal romance. The two doves in the background and the young lady in negligee leave no doubt that the ever mischievous Eros is bringing – together with a precious gift – a love letter for a (probably) illicit love affair…

letterstrio — Discreetly exchanging sweet notes. Left the French version by Roger de Valerio (‘**Les femmes mariées**‘ by J. Szulz, published by Salabert in Paris, 1925). On the right, the Austrian version (‘**Da fängt man wieder ein neues Verhältnis an**‘ by Weiss & Schick, published by Mozarthaus in Wien, 1921) with a pernicious smile (unknown illustrator).

And yes, there are lots of songs about unfaithful lovers and spouses. These two covers make it clear how easy it is to contact ‘the other one’ with surreptitious letters. But does not the blatant naivety of the cheated husband in ‘Camouflage‘ add spice to the fun and thrill of swapping secret messages and furtive words at the theatre..?

'Camouflege', — ‘**Camouflage**‘, music by Bodewalt Lampe, published by Salabert (Paris, 1917) — unknown illustrator

Sometimes the illustrator only has to draw Eros with an envelope to make his point that love letters are the sweet accompaniment of every true courtship.

cupidletters — Eros as the deliverer of sweet messages. Left a drawing by de Valerio (‘**Les Lettres d’Amour’** by José Padilla, published by Salabert in Paris, 1925). On the right a valiant postman-of-the-heart by Van Caulaert (‘**Lettre à Toi**‘ by Tutelier and Demaret, published by Office Musical, Bruxelles, 1923).

These love letters are clearly well protected from prying eyes by five wax seals (a custom used for official papers until well into the 20th century…).

The drawings by Clérice are more equivocal. Did his mysterious Belle-Epoque ladies receive good or bad news? Or are they brooding on a shrewd reply…

In general American sheet music share the drawing style of comics. In these four examples, writing or receiving a love letter brings visions of the loved one, be it in candle smoke or cloud, or in an (ahem) arabesque.

The French illustrator Donjean used the same technique: the smoke of burning love letters symbolises the man’s consuming pain at the end of his marriage.

Pain is also very present in ‘Tout est Fini!‘. The worried man drawn by Jacques Wély seems inconsolable. The melancholia of the fin de siècle oozes from this song cover. The man on the right, by Pousthomis, seems better armed against the setback of receiving the farewell letter (or is he amusingly rereading his own prose?).

Both these Dutch covers by J. N. Buning are about love letters during the Great War.

brieven zeeman copy — Left: ‘**Adjöss mé den!**‘ illustrated by Granath (Sylvain, Stockholm, 1929). On the right: ‘**Det finns ingen jag älskar**‘, illustrated by Bauer (Barding, Stockholm, 1934).

We close this post with two Swedish cartoonish covers of seamen who are known to have lady friends all around the world, sweethearts who all need emotional relief and postal attention…

Film, History, Performers, Songs

Cryin’ For The Carolines: The First Music Video Ever?

February 21, 2015 ImagesMusicales 1 Comment

For the cover of the American song Cryin’ For The Carolines, the French illustrator Würth designed an imaginary art-deco tropical landscape of the Caroline Islands. Complete with palm tree, bird-of-paradise and Pacific Ocean it echoes the weariness with city life expressed in the lyrics:

     Big town you lured me,
     Big town you cured me,
     Tho’ others hate to say goodbye to you
     I’m leavin’ but I’ll never sigh for you.
     Big town you robbed me of ev’ry joy I knew.

and also conveys the longing for a wild, unspoiled nature:

     How can I smile mile after mile,
     There’s not a bit of green here.
     Birdies all stay far far away,
     They’re seldom ever seen here.

Harry Warren, the prolific film music composer, created Cryin’ For The Carolines in 1930. It was the theme song out of the eight or so songs in the now-forgotten film Spring is here. The cover of the American sheet music shows a movie still, revealing that it is a passionate love story. We spare you the plot!
In the film, the song Cryin’ For The Carolines was performed by the Brox Sisters. They were an a capella girl group enjoying their greatest popularity in the 1920s and early 1930s. They are often considered as the forerunners of The Andrew Sisters.

Both sheet music covers explicitly announce the film Spring is here as a First National and Vitaphone production. Now, Vitaphone was a sound film system which was successfully used by Warner Brothers and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. The soundtrack was not printed on the film itself, but issued separately on phonograph records, resulting in a much better audio quality. The 33 ½ rpm discs would be played on a turntable physically coupled to the projector motor while the film was being projected.

VitaphoneDemo — An engineer demonstrates Vitaphone sound film in 1926. He holds a soundtrack disc, ready to put it on the turntable with a massive tripod base.

Warner Brothers also used the Vitaphone sound system between 1930 and 1931 to distribute their Spooney Melodies. These were a series of five musical short films, which are now considered as the first musical videos ever: the short films had no other aim than to promote the publisher’s music and turn them into world-wide hits. And… now is the moment to clap hands: it seems that our song Cryin’ For The Carolines is the only Spooney Melody to have survived! And it is publicly available.

Milton Charles and Wurlitzer — Organ player and singer **Milton Charles**, 1897-1991 (source: http://vitaphone.blogspot.fr). On the right, the keyboard of the 1929 ‘**Mighty Wurlitzer**‘ (photo: Andreas Praefcke).

We concede that the first two minutes (of the six) in the following film are somewhat boring, and yet another demonstration of the primitive card-board animation techniques at that time. But when the live-action, featuring the Singing Organist Milton Charles at his Wurlitzer, is mixed with the moving dark decors, one gets the full homesickness of the song. And from the strange slow images (a blend of Eisenstein, Bauhaus, DaDa and Andreas Feininger’s visual experiments) one feels the message: you cannot but cry for the Carolines…

Warner Brothers abandoned the Spooney Melodies in favour of the Merrie Melodies which still were built around songs but featured recognizable characters and settings. Their first effort was the 1931’s cartoon Lady, Play Your Mandolin. The lady definitely is a rip-off of Mickey Mouse. Hardly a surprise as the animators responsible for the cartoon – Rudolf Ising and Hugh Harman – had previously worked at Walt Disney’s studio.

The soundtrack for the cartoon Lady, Play Your Mandolin was composed by Oscar Levant. The beautiful cover for his theme song is illustrated by the American illustrators and airbrush artists Ben and Georgette Harris, signing their work as Jorj.

If you can’t get enough of historical links in this story: Nick Lucas who is posing as guitarist on the above cover, once co-starred in Warner Brothers’ Technicolor musical Gold Diggers of Broadway, which was… a Vitaphone production! Hehe.

gold-diggers-of-broadway — Poster for Gold Diggers of Broadway (source: El blog de Manuel Cerdà)

Illustrators, Publishers, Sheet Music Covers

Leopoldo Metlicovitz (1868 – 1944)

February 14, 2015 ImagesMusicales

Metlicovitz-Enivrement-13118_1 — ‘**Enivrement!…**‘, by unknown composer and publisher (s.d.); cover illustrated by Leopoldo Metlicovitz.

Love, love, love. We celebrate this romantic day with a tender drawing by Leopoldo Metlicovitz. For years he was the in-house artist for the publisher and printer Ricordi, for whom he created posters and covers for sheet music. Together with fellow artists Hohenstein and Dudovitch, Leopoldo Metlicovitz was representative for the stile Liberty, the Art Nouveau style in Italy around 1900.

Publicity posters by Leopoldo Metlicovitz, 1898 (left) and 1915 (right).

Metlicovitz’ family was from Dalmatia. He learned drawing and lithographic techniques as a printer’s apprentice in Udinese. Later he moved to the prestigious Casa Ricordi in Milan where he became technical director. Just like other illustrators of sheet music (see the posts on Einar Nerman and Orla Muff) Metlicovitz also set his talents to work for the theatre. He became stage and costume designer for the Scala.

Left: scene from La Bohème as staged in 1896 (source: Ricordi’s archives). Right: Puccini’s sheet music for ‘**La Bohème**‘, illustrated by L. Metlicovitz , published by Ricordi (Milano, 1917)

The costumes he created for opera’s (a.o. from Puccini and Verdi) were so decorative and colourful that they also cleverly embellished Ricordi’s published music.

Metlicovitz-costumes — A collage of some of the costumes designed by Metlicovitz, and lithographed on the covers of many opera and operette sheet music.

We found the following photograph of the Ricordi family with Giuseppe Verdi, suggesting that Leopoldo Metlicovitz belonged to the circle of family intimates.

Garden of the villa in Sant'Agata, (from left, seated) Maria Carrara Verdi, Barberina Strepponi, Giuseppe Verdi, Giuditta Ricordi, — Garden of the villa in Sant’Agata, (from left, seated) Maria Carrara Verdi, Barberina Strepponi, Giuseppe Verdi, Giuditta Ricordi, (from left, standing) Teresa Stolz, Umberto Campanari, Giulio Ricordi, Leopoldo Metlicovitz, late 19th century. (source: http://www.ricordicompany.com)

We close this post with a charming masked lady with a beauty mark (in fact the cover illustration for the sheet music of La Cumparsita) by Leopoldo Metlicovitz. Happy Valentine’s day!

Images Musicales Stories

All posts by ImagesMusicales

Love Letters in War and Peace

Cryin’ For The Carolines: The First Music Video Ever?

Leopoldo Metlicovitz (1868 – 1944)

'Ceci et ça' about Illustrated Sheet Music