Paul Tietjens

'''Paul Tietjens''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|t|ɪ|tʃ|ə|n|z}}; May 22, 1877 – November 25, 1943) was an American composer of the early twentieth century. He is best known for composing music for ''[[The Wizard of Oz (1902 musical)|The Wizard of Oz]]'', the 1902 stage adaptation of [[L. Frank Baum]]'s ''[[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz]]'', one of the great popular hits of its era.

Tietjens was born and raised in [[St. Louis]], [[Missouri]]. At age 15 he appeared as a piano soloist with the [[St. Louis Symphony]]. He later studied in Europe with [[Hugo Kaun]], [[Harold Bauer]], and [[Theodor Leschetizky]].

Early in his career, Tietjens's ambition was to establish himself as a successful composer of comic operas and operettas. He approached L. Frank Baum in March 1901, not long after the publication and success of ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz''. According to Baum's later recollection,

:"The thought of making my fairy tale into a play had never even occurred to me when, one evening, my doorbell rang and I found a spectacled young man standing on the mat."<ref>Mark Evan Swartz, ''Oz Before the Rainbow'', Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000; pp. 27–28.</ref>

By another report, though, they met through [[Ike Morgan]], a Chicago artist who worked on Baum's ''[[American Fairy Tales]]'' (1901). Baum and Tietjens agreed to develop stage projects together. Their first attempts had nothing to do with Oz.<ref>Katharine M. Rogers, ''L. Frank Baum, Creator of Oz: A Biography'', New York, St. Martin's Press, 2002; p. 106.</ref> They wrote a show titled ''The Octopus, or The Title Trust'', which was rejected by producers in Chicago and New York. Their next venture was a musical called ''King Midas'', which was never completed.

It was illustrator [[William Wallace Denslow|W. W. Denslow]] who suggested a ''Wizard of Oz'' stage adaptation. Though Baum was at first cool to the idea, Tietjens was enthusiastic. Baum prepared a libretto, and the project went forward. Tietjens included two songs from ''The Octopus'' ("Love Is Love" and "The Traveler and the Pie"). The show went through many script revisions and changes; Tietjens's score was supplemented with music composed by A. Baldwin Sloane and others. Quarrels over the partitioning of the royalties (Denslow was co-copyright holder of the book, and designed the sets and costumes for the musical) led to a permanent rupture between Baum and Denslow. Yet [[The Wizard of Oz (1902 stage play)|the show]] premiered in Chicago on 16 June 1902, and moved to [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] in January 1903. It was an enormous hit.<ref>L. Frank Baum, ''The Annotated Wizard of Oz'', Edited with an Introduction and Notes by [[Michael Patrick Hearn]]; revised edition, New York, W. W. Norton, 2002; Introduction, pp. lvi-lxi.</ref><ref>Rogers, pp. 106–08.</ref> It ran through 1907 and then toured widely. The income from the show made Tietjens financially independent at a relatively early age.

Tietjens, however, never equaled that early popular success in subsequent shows. He wrote ''The Sacred Serpent'' (1904), a three-act musical comedy. He composed incidental music for [[J. M. Barrie]]'s play ''A Kiss for Cinderella''. He worked with Baum on another project, called ''The Pipes o' Pan'' (which might have been a revised version of ''King Midas''); it was never produced, and survives only in a fragment.<ref>Rogers, p. 185.</ref><ref>Alla T. Ford, ''The Musical Fantasies of L. Frank Baum'' (1969)</ref>

In 1904 he married the poet Eunice Strong Hammond, who became known under her married name, [[Eunice Tietjens]].<ref>Philip A. Greasley, General Editor, ''Dictionary of Midwestern Literature: Volume One, The Authors'', Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 2001; pp. 495–96.</ref> They had two daughters, Idea and Janet. The death of their elder daughter Idea at the age of four may have contributed to the break-up of the marriage; the couple separated in 1910 and divorced in 1914.<ref>Eunice Tietjens, ''The World at My Shoulder'', New York, Macmillan, 1938.</ref>

In addition to his works for popular theater, Tietjens composed symphonies, a concerto, sonatas, and chamber works. His most significant serious work is arguably his opera ''The Tents of the Arabs''. In 1916, he was about to produce an opera in Berlin, but [[World War I]] shut it down just before opening night. Tietjens' compositions were confiscated, and he was accused of being a spy. He was arrested in London and only released when Frederick W. Well, former Berlin correspondent for the ''[[New York Times]]'' and the ''[[Daily Mail]]'', intervened. Although Tietjens returned to America, his musical scores and compositions were apparently never recovered.<ref>Kansas City Star, Kansas City, Missouri, June 21, 1916 Volume 36, Issue: 278 Page 16.</ref>

Tietjens spent much of his life in Europe. He married the artist Marjorie Richardson December 25, 1927 <ref>Paul Tietjens 1928 Diary, Newberry Library, Chicago, Eunice Tietjens Papers.</ref> He and his wife Marjorie Tietjens lived in New York City through 1942.<ref>ancestry.com, 1940 US Federal Census, Year: 1940; Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: m-t0627-02635; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 31-530.</ref> When his health failed in 1942, he and his wife returned to St. Louis to live with his sister, Olga Dammert, and he died there in 1943. His manuscripts are in the [[Washington University Libraries|Gaylord Music Library]] at [[Washington University in St. Louis]]; the University's Tietjens Hall is named in his honor. His diaries are part of the collection of the [[Newberry Library]] in Chicago.

==References== {{Reflist |25em }}

==External links== * {{LCAuth|n94028497|Paul Tietjens|8|}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tietjens, Paul}} [[Category:American male classical composers]] [[Category:American classical composers]] [[Category:American musical theatre composers]] [[Category:American male musical theatre composers]] [[Category:Songwriters from Missouri]] [[Category:American people of German descent]] [[Category:1877 births]] [[Category:1943 deaths]] [[Category:Musicians from St. Louis]] [[Category:American opera composers]] [[Category:American male songwriters]]