June 12 - Richard M. Sherman (The Musical Birthday Series)

Richard M. Sherman (b. 12 June 1928) was half of the Sherman brothers team that was a ubiquitous presence in Disney scores from the 1960s to 80s.

Disney Princes

It’s hard to determine

What each brother Sherman

Contributes in each Disney song.

But fate has decided

However divided

As a team they could hardly do wrong.

The keen effervescence

Of pre-adolescence

Is captured in songs by the myriad.

And they learned to unleash

A potent pastiche

To capture a place or a period.

On the edge of annoying,

In danger of cloying,

As earworms extremely efficient.

It may not seem much,

For those Oscars and such,

But apparently it was sufficient.

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June 1 - Mikhail Glinka (The Musical Birthday Series)

Mikhail Glinka (1 June [O.S. 20 May] 1804 – 15 February  [O.S. 3 February] 1857) is often regarded as the father of the distinctively Russian style of composition.

  

Inka Glinka Doo

Q.  Let’s think a-

     bout Glinka;

What comes to your mind?

A.   There’s gush a-

      bout Russia, 

And the Czar is enshrined.

March 2 - Kurt Weill, and Marc Blitzstein, and Weill and Blitzstein (The Musical Birthday Series)

Today's post celebrated the remarkable fact that Kurt Weill (March 2, 1900 – April 3, 1950) and Marc Blitzstein (March 2, 1905 – January 22, 1964) share a birthday.

One Fish, Two Fish, Haifisch, Blue Fish

Sinatra and Armstrong brought life

To Weill’s little tune “Mack the Knife,”

But to hear “Mackie Messer”

You couldn’t do besser

Than to listen to Lenya (his wife).

♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬

Rock It Man

When the cast of The Cradle Will Rock

Found the stage for their play under lock,

They took the whole troupe

Across town to regroup,

And gave the performance ad hoc.

♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬♫╬

Lost in the Stars?

There are those who sincerely suspect

That an astral shared-birthday effect

Led Blitzstein and Weill

To much the same style; --

I argue the reason was Brecht.

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March 1 - Dimitri Mitropoulos (The Musical Birthday Series)

With this post I am beginning a new series of verse (mostly limericks) celebrated musicians on the day of their birth. Today it's Dimitri Mitropoulos (1 March [O. S. 18 February] 1896 – 2 November 1960).

 

Wary of Greeks…

When conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos

Was at work this very metropolis

The patrons had fears

That his twelve tone premieres

Were signs of the coming apocalypse.