Arnaud's after-the-fact Olympic tune

Synopsis

The composer of this familiar Olympic theme was born on today's date in 1904 in Lyon, France. He was christened "Noel" Arnaud, but is better known as "Leo" Arnaud, the name he adopted after emigrating to the U.S.A. in the late 1930's.

Arnaud studied music in his native France with two of its leading composers, Vincent d'Indy and Maurice Ravel, before coming to America. Arnaud settled in Hollywood, where he worked as an orchestrator and arranger for numerous films, churning out scores for everything from "Blondie Goes Latin" to "The Ice Follies of 1939." The high point of Arnaud's cinematic career was an Oscar nomination for his work as an arranger for the 1964 musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown."

Some years earlier, Hollywood Bowl conductor Felix Slatkin commissioned Arnaud to write some music for a LP sonic spectacular designed to show off the new "stereophonic" recording process.

The album was titled "Charge!" and featured military style fanfares and suites, and included a cut entitled "Bugler's Dream." The original 1958 album notes described this music as: "derived from various bugle calls—suggesting perhaps a slumbering bugler's thoughts as they swirl in a fantasy of classical fanfares and radically modern cadenzas."

In 1968, when ABC television was looking for a musical theme for its Olympic coverage, they chose "Bugler's Dream." By 1988, when the NBC network secured TV rights for the Olympics, Arnaud's theme had become the instantly recognizable signature theme for the games. Its composer, Leo Arnaud, died in Los Angeles in 1991.

Music Played in Today's Program

Leo Arnaud (1904 - 1991) Olympic Theme Cleveland Symphonic Winds; Frederick Fennell, cond. Telarc 80099

Meredith Willson (1902-1984) arr. Arnaud The Unsinkable Molly Brown Overture MGM studio orchestra CBS 45442

On This Day

Births

• 1803 - French opera composer Adolph-Charles Adam, in Paris

• 1880 - Swiss-born American composer Ernest Bloch, in Geneva

• 1904 - French-born American composer and arranger Leo (Noël) Arnaud, in Lyon

• 1922 - American composer Leo Kraft, in New York City

Deaths

• 1739 - Italian composer Benedetto Marcello, in Brescia

• 1971 - British composer Alan Rawsthorne, in Cambridge, England

Premieres

• 1926 - Hindemith: Concert Music for Winds, Op. 4, in Donaueschingen, Germany, with Hermann Scherchen conducting

• 1938 - R. Strauss: opera, "Friedenstag" (Peace Day), in Munich at the National Theater, Clemens Krauss conducting, with vocal soloists Hans Hotter (Commandant) and Viorca Ursuleac (Maria);

• 1964 - Ginastera: opera, "Don Rodrigo," at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires

• 1983 - Elisabetta Brusa: "Favole" (Fables) for chamber orchestra, by the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, George Hanson conducting

• 1995 - Michael Torke: opera "Strawberry Fields," at Cooperstown, N.Y., by the Glimmerglass Opera, Stewart Robinson conducting

Others

• 1838 - Mendelssohn finishes in Berlin his String Quartet in D, Op. 44, no. 1; In a letter dated July 30 that year, he writes to the violinist Ferdinand David: "I have just finished my third Quartet, in D Major, and like it very much. I hope it may please you as well. I rather think it will, since it is more spirited and seems to me likely to be more grateful to the players than the others."