What better way to celebrate the genius of Irving Berlin than to invite everyone to a concert with top-notch performers in a grand theater so they can hear his music?
That's exactly what the Library's Music Division decided to do, and the gala concert at the Warner Theatre on Feb. 7 was the result.
The concert was a "sell-out" event, with the blocks of free tickets offered at the Library and the Warner Theatre snapped up by enthusiastic Irving Berlin fans within hours of their being made available.
Music director for the event was Rob Fisher, who has been performed the same role for "Garrison Keillor's American Radio Company" during the past seasons. The focus of his career has been conducting classic musical theater. In 1989 Mr. Fisher led a Library of Congress concert celebrating the inauguration of the Leonore S. Gershwin/Library of Congress Recording and Publishing Project.
For the Irving Berlin evening, Mr. Fisher and New York producer Gideon Y. Schein assembled a talented group of singers and dancers to perform Berlin's music. They were accompanied by the Coffee Club Orchestra, the same ensemble Mr. Fisher developed for the Garrison Keillor show, and joined by members of the MusicCrafters Orchestra, a local group founded by Vincent Patterson in 1978.
The narrator was Charles Osgood of CBS News, who couldn't resist the urge to break into song himself at one point. Steve Mencher of National Public Radio, who serves as writer and consultant to the Music Division for its "Concerts from the Library of Congress" series, wrote the script.
Irving Berlin (1888-1989) led a long and extremely productive life, and the concert included works from six decades of his musical creativity -- from "Alexander's Ragtime Band" (1911) to "An Old-Fashioned Wedding" from "Annie Get Your Gun" (1966).
Original orchestrations of the music from Berlin's stage productions were used for many of the numbers, such as "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly" (which also gave its name as the title for the evening's program), "There's No Business Like Show Business" and "It's a Lovely Day Today."
The performers, Brent Barrett, Sherry D. Boone, Ann Hampton Callaway, Jerry Dixon and Jason Graae gave lively and enthusiastic renditions of Berlin's familiar tunes for more than two hours, and the two dancers from the American Ballroom Theater, Gaye Bowidas and Gary Pierce, added their visual interpretations of the music.
Judy Gruber, in her review of the concert in The Washington Post, wrote: "It's a real pleasure to be reminded of Berlin's clever, catchy and haunting lyrics, especially when they are handled as lovingly as they were Monday night."
Two of Berlin's daughters Mary Ellin Barrett and Linda Louise Emmet were honored guests at the reception, which followed the concert in the atrium of the Warner Building.
The concert was sponsored by the following foundations in the Library of Congress: the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation, the Adeline Jewel Ritchel Croft Fund, the DaCapo Fund, the Ira and Leonore S. Gershwin Fund and the Anne Adlum Hull and William Remsen Strickland Fund.
Irving Berlin occupies a unique position in the history of American popular music and culture. He was born in Russia in 1888 and died in New York City in 1989. During that very long and active life, he was a successful composer, performer, producer, publisher and businessman.
Aside from countless other works, two songs alone, "God Bless America" and "White Christmas," gave his name instant recognition around the world.
In October 1992 Irving Berlin's three daughters announced the gift of the Irving Berlin Collection to the Music Division at a news conference at the Library (see LC Information Bulletin, Nov. 30, 1992). Containing some 750,000 items, the collection comprises lyric sketches and first drafts of songs, scrapbooks, photographs, business papers, scripts and correspondence.
"For those of us who use the collection," wrote Mark Eden Horowitz of the Music Division in the concert program, "each day brings some new awareness or discovery. Most significant has been seeing the true craftsmanlike way in which Mr. Berlin pursued his writing; the multiple drafts of lyrics as they evolve from concepts to polished models of literate, effective, clever songs; and music sketches that show the rhythmic and melodic changes from one day to the next until they are both surprising the inevitable -- the mark of great art."
Irving Berlin gave the world unforgettable tunes and memorable words; he celebrated patriotism, romance and poked fun at man's shared foibles.
"We thank him for these songs -- now a part of our collective unconscious," concluded Mr. Horowitz. "And for placing his collection in the Library of Congress and thereby giving his papers to the American people, we thank his daughters, Mary Ellin Barrett, Linda Louise Emmet and Elizabeth Irving Peters."
