Piano Puzzle
Ralph Reichenthal
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Browse piano sheets by Ralph Reichenthal on Zen Virtual Piano. Piano Puzzle, a novelty piano piece from 1923, carries the name Ralph Reichenthal and is not the Arthur Schutt piece of the same title. Reichenthal is better known as Ralph Rainger, composer of numerous well-known songs including Love in Bloom and Thanks for the Memory. He was born Ralph Reichenthal in New York City on October 7, 1901, and his three novelties are Piano Puzzle in 1923, under his birth name, then Pianogram and Tick Tack Toe from 1929. Piano Puzzle carrying his birth name in 1923, alongside the note that he was gradually adopting the Rainger name commercially, may suggest that the change from Reichenthal to Rainger was gradual rather than sudden. Piano was his study from early on, and he went to the Institute of Musical Art in New York. He won a scholarship to a music school but left after a year at his parents' insistence, to work his way through law school by playing piano and accompanying vaudeville shows at night, and took his law degree at Brown University in 1926. Between 1922 and 1928 he prepared piano rolls for Ampico, Standard and DeLuxe, some under the surname Reichenthal and others under Rainger, a name he was gradually adopting commercially. Piano rolls prepared between 1922 and 1928 may suggest that his work at the keyboard continued through the years of his law studies, which ended with his 1926 degree. JazzStandards says his heart was not in law practice and that he left in 1928 to co-lead a Broadway pit orchestra. His first Broadway credit, in 1926, was as duo-pianist in the pit of Queen High with Fairchild, and he later played for Angela and Cross my Heart in 1928. Moanin' Low, his first hit, was written with words by Howard Dietz for Libby Holman in the 1929 revue The Little Show. The 1929 revue hit Moanin' Low, set against his 1928 departure from law practice, may suggest that his songwriting success came after he had turned to theatre music. Rainger and the lyricist Leo Robin produced a run of successful film songs together. I'll Take An Option On You, from the 1933 Broadway hit Tattle Tales, is one of them. Arnold Schoenberg, the Austrian composer, had his belongings transported from Paris to Los Angeles in 1933; Rainger paid one year's tuition fees to him in advance so that he could cover that transport. A Broadway hit show in 1933 and the 1933 move of Schoenberg's belongings, which Rainger's advance tuition helped to pay for, may suggest that his songwriting success and his link with Schoenberg belonged to the same years. Rainger died in a plane crash near Palm Springs, California, in 1942.
Browse piano sheets by Ralph Reichenthal on Zen Virtual Piano.
Piano Puzzle, a novelty piano piece from 1923, carries the name Ralph Reichenthal and is not the Arthur Schutt piece of the same title. Reichenthal is better known as Ralph Rainger, composer of numerous well-known songs including Love in Bloom and Thanks for the Memory. He was born Ralph Reichenthal in New York City on October 7, 1901, and his three novelties are Piano Puzzle in 1923, under his birth name, then Pianogram and Tick Tack Toe from 1929. Piano Puzzle carrying his birth name in 1923, alongside the note that he was gradually adopting the Rainger name commercially, may suggest that the change from Reichenthal to Rainger was gradual rather than sudden.
Piano was his study from early on, and he went to the Institute of Musical Art in New York. He won a scholarship to a music school but left after a year at his parents' insistence, to work his way through law school by playing piano and accompanying vaudeville shows at night, and took his law degree at Brown University in 1926. Between 1922 and 1928 he prepared piano rolls for Ampico, Standard and DeLuxe, some under the surname Reichenthal and others under Rainger, a name he was gradually adopting commercially. Piano rolls prepared between 1922 and 1928 may suggest that his work at the keyboard continued through the years of his law studies, which ended with his 1926 degree.
JazzStandards says his heart was not in law practice and that he left in 1928 to co-lead a Broadway pit orchestra. His first Broadway credit, in 1926, was as duo-pianist in the pit of Queen High with Fairchild, and he later played for Angela and Cross my Heart in 1928. Moanin' Low, his first hit, was written with words by Howard Dietz for Libby Holman in the 1929 revue The Little Show. The 1929 revue hit Moanin' Low, set against his 1928 departure from law practice, may suggest that his songwriting success came after he had turned to theatre music.
Rainger and the lyricist Leo Robin produced a run of successful film songs together. I'll Take An Option On You, from the 1933 Broadway hit Tattle Tales, is one of them. Arnold Schoenberg, the Austrian composer, had his belongings transported from Paris to Los Angeles in 1933; Rainger paid one year's tuition fees to him in advance so that he could cover that transport. A Broadway hit show in 1933 and the 1933 move of Schoenberg's belongings, which Rainger's advance tuition helped to pay for, may suggest that his songwriting success and his link with Schoenberg belonged to the same years. Rainger died in a plane crash near Palm Springs, California, in 1942.
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Ralph Reichenthal
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Ralph Reichenthal is the birth name of Ralph Rainger, an American pianist and songwriter born in New York City on October 7, 1901.
Piano Puzzle is a 1923 novelty piano piece credited to Ralph Reichenthal, different from Arthur Schutt's piece of the same title.
Under the name Ralph Rainger he wrote songs including Love in Bloom, Thanks for the Memory and Moanin' Low.
He died in a plane crash near Palm Springs, California, in 1942.