Musicians - Albert Szirmai

Home > Listing Index > Musicians > Albert Szirmai

	Musicians - Albert Szirmai

Albert Szirmai (also Albert Sirmay) (July 2, 1880, Budapest–January 15, 1967, New York) was a Hungarian operetta composer. A graduate of the Budapest Academy of Music, studying piano and composition, Szirmai was devoted to creating works for the stage. He wrote music for 12 one-act plays and over 300 songs for the Budapest theater Népszínház-Vígopera, at which he was musical director. When his first operetta, The Yellow Domino, met with success, he decided to continue in the genre; it is due to the works of Szirmai, Emmerich Kálmán, and Viktor Jacobi, among others, that the Hungarian operetta gained recognition internationally at the beginning of the 20th century.

In 1926, he moved to New York and took a post as music director for Chappell Music (a publishing house now owned by Warner Music Group), and was music editor for such Broadway luminaries as Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin. Though he lived in America for most of his later years and was a good friend of Gershwin, Szirmai eschewed the jazz styles popular at the time; in addition to the folk music of his native Hungary, his music shows the influence of German Romanticism, particularly Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann, whom he most admired.

Selected works

A sárga dominó (The Yellow Domino), operetta, 1907
Bálkirályné (The Belle of the Ball), operetta, 1907
Naftalin (Naphthalene), musical comedy, 1908
Táncos huszárok (Dancing Hussars), operetta, 1909
A mexikói lány (The Mexican Girl), operetta, 1912
The Girl on the Film, musical play, 1913
Ezüstpille (Silver Butterfly), operetta, 1914
Mágnás Miska (Magnate Miska), operetta, 1916
Harangvirág (Bellflower), ballad, 2 tableaux, 1918
Gróf Rinaldo (Count Rinaldo), operetta, 1918
Mézeskalács (Honey Cake), musical comedy, 1923
The Bamboula, operetta, 1925
Alexandra, operetta, 1925
Éva grófnő (Countess Eva), operetta, 1928
Lady Mary, musical play, 1928
Ripples, musical comedy, 1930
A ballerina, operetta, 1931
Tabáni legenda (The Legend of Tabán), operetta, 1957
A Tündérlaki lányok (The Tündérlaki Sisters), operetta, 1964

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Albert Szirmai ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Albert Szirmai; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay