Today marks the official beginning of Winter (though you wouldn’t know it in DC – it’s 60 degrees outside!). What could be a more fitting Sheet Music of the Week selection than the lovely color cover for Jean Schwartz’s and Grant Clarke’s “Winter Nights” ? Jean Schwartz (1888-1956) was one of the most prolific composers of the early era of Broadway (a search for his name in the Performing Arts Encyclopedia will yield 40 pieces of digitized sheet music!). After doing a little extra research, I learned that “Winter Nights” was included in Samples, a 1915 musical revue produced in London by the French impresario André Charlot.
While Schwartz had bigger hits with songs like “Mister Dooley”, “Chinatown, my Chinatown”, and “My Irish Molly-O,” “Winter Nights” is of course the perfect Schwartz song to highlight today. Also check out other winter-themed sheet music from Pat Padua’s 2009 blog post!