1930 in music
1930 in music
Events
- February 16 - Nicolas Slonimsky conducts the first performance of Charles Ives's Three Places in New England.
- February 17 - The Technicolor musical film, The Vagabond King, is released. Dennis King recreates his original London and Broadway stage role as Villon in this film, and records two songs from the film for Victor Records.
- April 1 - Brunswick-Balke-Collender sells Brunswick Records to Warner Brothers, who are hopeful that the move will enable them to make bigger profits from their musicals by enabling them to profit from the sale of records. They also acquire four music publishers to profit from sales in sheet music.
- May 10
- May 25 - The all Technicolor musical film, Song of the Flame, based on the 1925 Broadway musical of the same name, is released to rave reviews. The film stars Noah Beery and Bernice Claire and is nominated for an Oscar for "Best Sound Recording". Noah Beery records his song from the picture for Brunswick Records.
- August 24 - Festival Puccini is launched at Torre del Lago.
- October 29 - Bing Crosby makes his first recording with the Gus Arnheim orchestra as a solo vocalist. His new type of singing voice, a low baritone, becomes a sensation and will gradually displace (by around 1935) the standard tenor voice that had characterized the vocals of popular music in the 1920s.
- December 10 - First performance of Bertolt Brecht's play The Decision, with music by Hanns Eisler.
- December 13 – Ernest Ansermet conducts the world premiere of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, in Brussels.
- The BBC Symphony Orchestra is formed in London.
- The song "Body and Soul" is written by Johnny Green with lyrics by Edward Heyman, Robert Sour and Frank Eyton in New York City for the British actress Gertrude Lawrence who first performs in London (where it is also first published). Libby Holman introduces it to the United States in the Broadway revue Three's a Crowd and Louis Armstrong is the first jazz musician to record it. There are at least 11 recordings by the end of the year and it becomes the all-time most recorded jazz standard.
- Frankie Laine sings to an audience of 5,000 at The Merry Garden Ballroom.
- Bukka White makes his first recording.