Wilhelm Grosz

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Wilhelm Grosz (aka Hugh Williams) was an Austrian composer, pianist and conductor. Forced to flee his native land because of the Nazi takeover, Grosz resettled in England in 1934. However, he found no market there for his avant-garde musical style. Luckily, he was able to exploit a facile melodic gift in writing popular songs that became international successes. Most of his most popular titles were written with lyricist Jimmy Kennedy:"Harbour Lights," "Red Sails in the Sunset," "When Budapest Was Young," and "Isle of Capri." Grosz's classical compositions include Afrika-Songs, a song cycle for two vocal soloists and chamber ensemble. First performed in 1930, Afrika-Songs utilizes texts by Afro-American poets, mainly Langston Hughes, and a strongly blues-flavored sound. Both Afrika-Songs and a selection of the pop tunes, along with other Grosz works, were recorded in the mid-1990s by Decca Records, as part of their series called Entartete Musik (subtitled "Music Suppressed By the Third Reich"). Wilhelm Grosz was born March 11, 1894 in Vienna, Austria and died December 10, 1939 in New York City.