Song of Love (1947 film)

Last updated
Song of Love
Poster of the movie Song of Love.jpg
Directed by Clarence Brown
Screenplay by Ivan Tors
Irma von Cube
Allen Vincent
Robert Ardrey
Based onSong of Love, the Life of Robert and Clara Schumann
play
by Bernard Schubert
Mario Silva
Produced by Clarence Brown
Starring Katharine Hepburn
Paul Henreid
Robert Walker
Cinematography Harry Stradling Sr.
Edited by Robert Kern
Music by Robert Schumann
Johannes Brahms
Franz Liszt
Production
company
Distributed by Loew's Inc.
Release date
  • October 9, 1947 (1947-10-09)
Running time
119 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2,696,000 [1]
Box office$2,737,000 [1]

Song of Love is a 1947 American biopic film about the relationship between renowned 19th-century musicians Clara Wieck Schumann (Katharine Hepburn) and Robert Schumann (Paul Henreid). The film, which also stars Robert Walker and Leo G. Carroll, was directed by Clarence Brown and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Ivan Tors, Irma von Cube, Allen Vincent, and Robert Ardrey co-authored the screenplay, which was based on a play by Bernard Schubert and Mario Silva.

Contents

Plot

In a fictionalized 19th century, musicians Clara Wieck Schumann, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms are depicted.

Clara takes a break from her thriving career as an acclaimed concert pianist to devote herself to her struggling composer husband Robert and their seven children. Johannes Brahms, Schumann's best student, takes a place in their home but falls in love with Clara and eventually realises he must move out.

Schumann works on his opera based on Faust but has no success in having it performed. Unable to cope with disappointment and failure, Robert eventually has a mental breakdown while conducting a performance. He loses his sanity and eventually dies in an asylum. Brahms eventually proposes marriage to Clara but she eventually rejects him saying she will always love Robert. She eventually devotes the rest of her life to preserving his music and his memory. [2]

Cast

Production notes

Hepburn trained with a pianist for weeks prior to production so she could be filmed playing the piano convincingly. [3] When Henreid is playing piano, the hands of Ervin Nyiregyházi are seen. [4] The soundtrack for the picture was recorded by Arthur Rubinstein. Rubinstein said Hepburn played almost as well as he. [3]

Reception

The film earned $1,469,000 in the U.S. and Canada and $1,268,000 elsewhere resulting in a loss of $1,091,000. [1]

Variety listed the film as earning $3.1 million in U.S. and Canadian rentals in 1947. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johannes Brahms</span> German composer and pianist (1833–1897)

Johannes Brahms was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pianist</span> Musician who plays the piano

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A pianist's repertoire may include music from a diverse variety of styles, such as traditional classical music, jazz, blues, and popular music, including rock and roll. Most pianists can, to an extent, easily play other keyboard instruments such as the synthesizer, harpsichord, celesta, and the organ.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Schumann</span> German composer, pianist and critic (1810–1856)

Robert Schumann was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. His teacher, Friedrich Wieck, a German pianist, had assured him that he could become the finest pianist in Europe, but a hand injury ended this dream. Schumann then focused his musical energies on composing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clara Schumann</span> German pianist and composer (1819–1896)

Clara Josephine Schumann was a German pianist, composer, and piano teacher. Regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, she exerted her influence over the course of a 61-year concert career, changing the format and repertoire of the piano recital by lessening the importance of purely virtuosic works. She also composed solo piano pieces, a piano concerto, chamber music, choral pieces, and songs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piano Concerto No. 1 (Brahms)</span> Piano concerto

The Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15, is a work for piano and orchestra completed by Johannes Brahms in 1858. The composer gave the work's public debut in Hanover, the following year. It was his first-performed orchestral work, and his first orchestral work performed to audience approval.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friedrich Wieck</span> German musician and author (1785–1873)

Johann Gottlob Friedrich Wieck was a noted German piano teacher, voice teacher, owner of a piano store, and author of essays and music reviews. He is remembered as the teacher of his daughter, Clara, a child prodigy who was undertaking international concert tours by age eleven and who later married her father's pupil Robert Schumann, in defiance of her father's extreme objections. As Clara Schumann, she became one of the most famous pianists of her time. Another of Wieck's daughters, Marie Wieck, also had a career in music, although not nearly so illustrious as Clara's. Other pupils included Hans von Bülow.

Irma von Cube was a German-American screenwriter. She began as an actress and a writer for films in Germany in the early 1930s, and continued when she arrived in the United States in 1938.

"Song of Love" is a song recorded during an informal performance by Paul McCartney, singing and playing the piano at Twickenham Film Studios during the "Get Back Sessions" which were used to later produce both the Let It Be film and the album of the same name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jozef De Beenhouwer</span> Musical artist

Jozef De Beenhouwer is a Belgian pianist, music teacher and musicologist.

Robert Schumann’s “Davidsbündlertänze” is one of the last major works made by New York City Ballet's founding choreographer and balletmaster-in-chief, George Balanchine. It is set to Robert Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6 (1837). The idea for setting this piano work very likely came from a work created by Robert Joffrey for his own Joffrey Ballet Company, the premier of which took place at the City Center Theater in the late 1970s. Joffrey, in turn, received his inspiration from Jonathan Watts, a protege of Joffrey's and director of the Joffrey apprentice company, who, at the suggestion of pianist Neil Stannard, created a ballet titled Evening Dialogues to this same score. This initial version of the Schumann cycle was featured on tour with the Joffrey second company in the mid 1970a.

<i>Geliebte Clara</i> 2008 German film

Geliebte Clara is a Franco-German-Hungarian 2008 film, directed by Helma Sanders-Brahms, her last film before her 2014 death, about the pianist Clara Schumann and her marriage with the composer Robert Schumann.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Japha</span> German musician

Louise Japha was a German pianist and composer.

Beatrix Borchard is a German musicologist and author. The focus of her publications is the life and work of female and male musicians, such as Clara and Robert Schumann, Amalie and Joseph Joachim, Pauline Viardot-Garcia, and Adriana Hölszky. Also among her topics are the role of music in the process of Jewish assimilation, the history of musical interpretation, and strategies of Kulturvermittlung.

The Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 14, called "Concerto for piano without orchestra" by Tobias Haslinger, was composed by Robert Schumann in 1836 and dedicated to Ignaz Moscheles, to whom in a letter he comments "what crazy inspirations one can have". Liszt believed that the work was rich and powerful. In 1853 Schumann revised the work and added a Scherzo as a second movement, which the performer could choose to play, or not play. In 1861 it was released into the hands of his student Johannes Brahms.

<i>Dreaming</i> (1944 German film) 1944 film

Dreaming is a 1944 German historical musical drama film directed by Harald Braun and starring Hilde Krahl, Mathias Wieman and Friedrich Kayssler. It portrays the lives of the pianist Clara Schumann and her composer husband Robert Schumann.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piano Concerto (Clara Schumann)</span> Musical composition by Clara Schumann

The Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 7, was composed by Clara Wieck, better known as Clara Schumann after her later marriage to Robert Schumann. She completed her only finished piano concerto in 1835, and played it first that year with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by Felix Mendelssohn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wiegenlied (Brahms)</span> Song composed by Johannes Brahms

"Wiegenlied", Op. 49, No. 4, is a lied for voice and piano by Johannes Brahms which was first published in 1868. It is one of the composer's most popular pieces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alfred Hoehn</span> German editor, pianist and music educator

Alfred Hoehn was a German pianist, composer, piano pedagogue and editor.

Günter Ludwig was a German pianist.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "The Eddie Mannix Ledger" (Document). Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study..
  2. "Song of Love (1947) - Clarence Brown | Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related | AllMovie".
  3. 1 2 Chandler, Charlotte (2011). I Know Where I'm Going: Katharine Hepburn: A Personal Biography. Applause. p. 164.
  4. Bazanna, Kevin (2007). Lost Genius: The Curious and Tragic Story of an Extraordinary Musical Prodigy. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart; New York: Carroll & Graf; Cambridge: Da Capo Press. p. 205.
  5. "Top Grossers of 1947", Variety, 7 January 1948 p 63