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Biography
Refimprove|date=March 2011 Walter Schumann (October 8, 1913 — August 21, 1958) was an United States|America n composer for film , television , and the theater . His notable works include the Film score|score for The Night of the Hunter (film)|The Night of the Hunter and the Dragnet (theme music)| Dragnet Theme . (The Dragnet theme was lifted, inadvertently according to Schumann, from Miklos Rozsa 's score from the 1946 film The Killers (1946 film)|The Killers .)
Career
Schumann was born in New York City in 1913. By the early 1930s, he was attending law school at University of Southern California|USC when he abruptly quit his studies to perform in a college dance band. Eventually, the members of the band went their separate ways but Schumann continued on within the music industry, working with Eddie Cantor on Cantor's radio show, and recording with Andre Kostelanetz .
Following the outbreak of World War II , Schumann enlisted, eventually becoming the musical director of the Armed Forces Radio Service . He worked with most of the major acts of the war on all the radio shows AFRS produced during this time. After the war, he returned to Los Angeles and worked in the movie and television industry as a composer and arranger, mostly on several Abbott & Costello films. In 1949, Schumann was asked to compose a new theme for a police detective show about to make its debut on the NBC Radio network. He began his theme with a four note motif—quite possibly the second most famous four-note motif after Beethoven's Fifth Symphony . Dragnet became a smash hit on the radio, and then television, and Schumann's theme quickly became instantly recognizable. Citation needed|date=March 2011 He wrote one opera , ''John Brown's Body , which premiered in Los Angeles in 1953 and subsequently ran for sixty-five performances on Broadway theatre|Broadway at the New Century Theatre . http://opera.stanford.edu/composers/S.html Opera Glass
Around this time, Schumann gathered together 20 talented vocalists and The Voices Of Walter Schumann was born. The ensemble recorded several easy-listening albums, similar to those recorded by Jackie Gleason, for both Capitol Records and RCA . By 1955, Schumann was busy composing and conducting the score to the classic Robert Mitchum film The Night of the Hunter (film)|The Night of the Hunter and won an Emmy for his wildly popular "Dragnet" theme. He recorded a space-age themed, spoken-word album titled "Exploring the Unknown," and his "Voices" troupe recorded a popular, 19-track Christmas album, "The Voices of Christmas". Citation needed|date=March 2011 The 1955 album was reissued on compact disc by Collector's Choice Music in November 2007 – 52 years after its initial debut both as an LP and 3-record 45 RPM set.
Death
In 1956 and 1957 Schumann continued to record with the Voices and they appeared on the first season of NBC 's The Ford Show|The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford Show . However, by the summer of 1958, poor health prompted Schumann to be admitted to the Mayo Clinic , where he underwent one of the first open heart surgery|open heart surgeries in the United States. Complications arose following the operation, and Schumann died on August 21, 1958, aged 44, just weeks before the second season of The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show was scheduled to begin. Members of Schumann's "Voices" ensemble were stunned by his sudden death, but decided to continuing performing. They were renamed "The Top Twenty," and the carried on with Ford for another five years. Citation needed|date=March 2011
References
reflist Jack Webb/Mark VII Limited Persondata | NAME = Schumann, Walter | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | SHORT DESCRIPTION = American musician | DATE OF BIRTH = October 8, 1913 | PLACE OF BIRTH = | DATE OF DEATH = August 21, 1958 | PLACE OF DEATH = DEFAULTSORT:Schumann, Walter Category:American film score composers Category:Opera composers Category:1913 births Category:1958 deaths Category:Deaths from surgical complications Category:Musicians from New York City Category:University of Southern California Law School alumni
