Romberg, Sigmund

Related Category: Music: History, Composers, and Performers: Biographies

(rŏm´bûrg), 1887–1951, Hungarian-American composer, educated in Vienna. He came to the United States in 1909, played in restaurant and café orchestras, and soon had his own orchestra. He wrote the score for the musical The Whirl of the World (1914), and followed it with more than 70 operettas. Among the most successful were Blossom Time (1921; based on the life and music of Franz Schubert), The Student Prince (1924), The Desert Song (1926), and The New Moon (1928). These recalled the romantic, lyrical style of Viennese operettas. He later wrote scores for several films, some of them adaptations of his own stage works.

See E. Arnold's Deep in My Heart: A Story Based on the Life of Sigmund Romberg (1949).