Show DEAN OF OPERETTA Romberg Has Composed Over Seventy Operettas and Musicals Sigmund Romberg whose life tue story atory soon loon will wUl be shown on the worlds world's movie screens Is the kind of man who makes highbrows unhappy He lie Insists he Is a middle brow composer and that he Is happy being being be be- ing Just lust that For a man who bears the Impressive label tabet of ot Dean of American operetta It Is a startling starting admission Most Americans have middle middlebrow middlebrow middlebrow brow tastes In music What's wrong with that than he says In support of his statement that hed he'd rather write melodies with a sentiment and a tune that people can c'an remember and whistle than heroic arias that almost al nl ale most no one can sing without weeks of hectic practice I Since Romberg exiled himself to America 43 years ago to escape his parents' parents determination to make a abridge abridge abridge bridge builder out of 01 him he Is quite content to have the same tastes as most of the rest of ot the people in the United States Besides he asks what highbrow highbrow high high- brow achieves enough Importance during his own life lUe to merit a Hoi Hoi- Sigmund dean lIun of Ameri Amerl American Ian can operetta perella who ha has composed more snore than Ihan 70 10 0 tale elate and anil tereen operetta op ep eretta and anI UN ilk mo most mul t popular pop op op- op ular filar Include Stud Student III and anI the Derl Song lywood movie treatment of his career while he is still around to see it Romberg will be able to see it as soon as Hollywood finishes the moxie it is now making e e e eS S I G O M 1 U N D ROMBERG really might have built some beautiful bridges if It his parents had their way and he had become a construction construction tion engineer But Dut Instead he has turned out more than 70 stage and screen operettas and musicals among them standards like Maytime Maytime Maytime May time Student Prince and the Desert Song one ont or the other of which Is still touring somewhere at almost any time He lie has written written writ writ- ten a magnificent total of 2000 songs like Lover Come Back to Me And he isn't finished yeti There Is lots more music to be written written lots lots of it in me and me-and and I am writing It he explains Right now he is composing another an other musical which he expects to to have on Broadway this winter Some composers compose their songs on a piano some in their head Romberg composes most of his music on a Hammond organ so that he can get the effect of the entire orchestra as he tests a melody melody mel mel- ody on the Hammond He used to todo todo todo do It on a pipe organ sitting In solitary solitary sol sol- majesty before the gigantic Instrument When the Hammond organ was invented he got one oUe of the first made Since then he has been using it to turn out the kind of music that fits tits In with Americas Americas America's Americas America's Ameri Ameri- cas ca's heart beat IT WAS IN VIENNA that he got his first formal music education Finishing his schooling in Vienna he be had to serve his term In the army When that was finished the crisis came His father though I Ivery very musical himself was determined determined deter deter- mined his son was going to be an engineer and build bridges The peace maker in the dispute that arose was his mother who suggested suggested sug sug- that he spend a year in America before belore making a decision America had a lot of fine line bridges she figured and maybe her son would learn to love bridges over rivers more than musical bridges It didn't work Romberg came to the United States went to work packing pencils in a pencil factory tor for a brief period and th then n got a ajob ajob job ob as asa a pianist in a restaurant he le had stopped at to satisfy his craving for Hungarian goulash That was the beginning The next steps in tn his career came camen In n rapid succession He lie organized his ills own orchestra played at a Fashionable New York restaurant and began composing in earnest He lie never got around round to thinking of the bridges again Let the highbrows high high- brows HOWS build the bridges he decided Instead he wrote enough music to tomake tomake make nake him probably the most prolific prolific pro pro- of the time big-time composers Inthe In Inthe inthe the theater |