Arthur Lange

Arthur Lange ( born April 16, 1889 in Philadelphia, † December 7, 1956 in Washington DC) was an American film composer, bandleader, arranger and songwriter.

Life

From 1914 to 1927 worked Arthur Lange as conductor and arranger on Broadway. He also worked as a composer of contemporary music at Cameo Records in Manhattan's Tin Pan Alley, and was director of several dance orchestras. He was best known for his arrangements for small ensembles. His book Arranging for the Modern Dance Orchestra (1926 ), which stood in the tradition of the Symphonic Jazz by Paul Whiteman, was a standard work of its time and was appreciated by professional jazz musicians of the Weimar Republic, where it was difficult to access. Also composer Egon Wellesz invoked at a young age on Long jazz band arrangements in which long divided as one of the first dance orchestra in rhythm, sax and brass group.

In 1929 he went to Hollywood, where he was taken as a composer at MGM under contract. Later, he also worked with other film studios like 20th Century Fox. Throughout his career, he was five times nominated for the Academy Award for Best Film Music, among others, along with Hugo Friedhofer for the film noir Dangerous Encounter ( The Woman in the Window, 1944). Until 1954 he was involved in more than 100 feature films. In the 1940s, he also founded the American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers ( ASMAC ), an association that lobbied for better conditions of arrangers and composers. From 1946 he conducted the compiled by him Santa Monica Civic Symphony Orchestra.

With his first wife, Charlotte, of whom he was divorced in 1931, Long had two sons. In 1932, he married Marjorie Jösting. Arthur Lange died in 1956 at the age of 67 years in Washington DC His grave is located on the Fort Lincoln Cemetery in Brentwood, Maryland.

Filmography (selection)

Awards