Victor Herbert
A Theatrical Life
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Victor Herbert is one of the giants of American culture. As a musician, conductor, and, above all, composer, he touched every corner of American musical life at the turn of the century, writing scores of songs, marches, concerti, and other works. But his most enduring legacy is on a different kind of stage, as one of the grandfathers of the modern musical theater.
Now, Victor Herbert has the biography he deserves. Neil Gould draws on his own experience as a director, producer, and scholar to craft the first comprehensive portrait in fifty years of the Irish immigrant whose extraordinary talents defined the sounds of a generation and made contemporary American music possible.
Mining a wealth of sources—many for the first time—Gould provides a fascinating portrait of Herbert and his world. Born in Dublin in 1859, Herbert arrived in the United States in 1886. From his first job in the orchestra pit of the Metropolitan Opera, Herbert went on to perform in countless festivals and concerts, and conduct the Pittsburgh Orchestra. In 1894, he composed his first operetta, Prince Ananias, and by the time of his death in 1924, he’d composed forty-two more—many of them, such as Naughty Marietta, spectacular Broadway hits. Along the way, he also wrote two operas, stage music for the Ziegfeld Follies, and the first full score for a motion picture, The Fall of a Nation.
Gould brilliantly blends the musical and the theatrical, classical and popular, the public and the private, in this book. He not only gives a revealing portrait of Herbert the artist, entrepreneur, and visionary, but also recreates the vibrant world of the Herbert’s Broadway. Gould takes us inside the music itself—with detailed guides to each major work and recreations of great performances. He also makes strong connections between Herbert’s breakthrough compositions, such as the operetta Mlle. Modiste, and the later contributions of Rudolf Friml,
Sigmund Romberg, Jerome Kern and other giants of the musical theater.
As exuberant as Herbert himself, this book is also a chronicle of American popular culture during one of its most creative periods. For anyone enraptured by the sound of the American musical, this book is delightfully required reading.
A half century has passed since the appearance of the last major study of
Victor Herbert. Now Neil Gould has written the book that we have needed all
that time. He is the first writer to do more than give a superbly readable
account of Herbert's brilliant musical career as cellist, conductor,
composer, fluent and melodious creator of nearly 50 operettas and musical
comedies, and leader in the fight for effective copyright and performance
rights protections for composers. Indeed, he does all that. His discussion
of the operettas makes the reader long to hear many of them--not only the
biggest hits, but quite a few that were overlooked for one reason or another
in the past, yet sound fascinating and delightful. Surely some of these
could be revived, to the great pleasure of us all.But Gould's book also employs a wide range of personal and family
documents which no previous writer was allowed to use. In weaving these new
materials into his vivid account, he gives us Victor Herbert the man in all
his colorful Irish feistiness: generous to a fault, Rabelaisian in his
tastes and habits, sometimes short-fused but always ready to tell a joke in
any of several languages (and several levels of ribaldry, depending on the
audience), while always diligently maintaining high goals for the future of
American music and the American composer. It is high time for Victor
Herbert's star to rise again, and Neil Gould could well be the "astronomer"
who makes it happen.
Victor Herbert: A Theatrical Life by Neil Gould delves into the life of the Irish composer and his tremendous impact on the American musical theater.---—Publishers Weekly
. . . Captures not only [Herbert's] genius, but the spirit of a country from which Herbert's brilliance—and the American musical—sprang.
Victor Herbert: A Theatrical Life is an impressive achievement. The first biography of the composer in more than fifty years, Neil Gould makes skillful use of interviews, archives and unpublished memoirs to trace Herbert's life from his birth in Dublin, through his early years in Germany, to a major career in the United States."
Through a richly detailed narrative, Gould makes a strong case that while Herbert created two grand operas and forty operettas, his greatest legacy lies in his establishing the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, virtually transforming these professionals' lives and ultimately transforming American musical culture.
“Not only much needed, but a joy to read
and a fascinating journey into the life of a
remarkable man. Thorough, accurate, and
readable, it is a must for anyone interested in the rich history of the American musical theater.”
“A great trinity of towering masters, a direct line from 1894 to the present . . . Victor Herbert, Jerome Kern and Richard Rodgers.”