Rudolf Friml (American Composers)

Rudolf Friml (1879-1972) is best known as the composer of romantic 1920s operettas. Beginning in 1912 he wrote music in different styles for Broadway, and in 1914, along with Irving Berlin and Victor Herbert, he became a charter member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). Skilled at evoking far-away times and places through music, Friml also composed music for films, often based on his popular musicals such as Rose Marie and The Vagabond King. Parallel to this stage and screen activity, he composed piano concertos, orchestral works, and piano pieces and songs. William Everett discusses Friml in the larger historical contexts of the American operetta, the Indianist movement, Francophilia, Orientalism, and romantic nostalgia.