Gertrud Rittmann (24 September 1908 – 22 February 2005) was a German Jewish composer, musical director, arranger and orchestrator who lived and worked for much of her life in the United States. Her career particularly flourished with major successes in Broadway theater.
Early years
Trude Rittmann was born in Mannheim, Germany, and began piano lessons at age eight. She studied with Ernst Toch and Hans Bruch at the Hochschule für Musik Köln, and graduated in 1932, already noted as a promising composer.[1] Rittmann fled Germany in 1933, and worked in France, Belgium and England, and in 1937 settled in the United States. Her mother and sister escaped Germany as well, but her father died in prison under the Nazis.
Working on Carousel (1945), she began a long association with composer Richard Rodgers, and went on to provide arrangements on South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951) (for which she composed the ballet "Small House of Uncle Thomas") and The Sound of Music (1959) for which she devised the extended vocal sequence for "Do-Re-Mi". According to assistant conductor Peter Howard, the heart of the number – in which Maria assigns a musical tone to each child, like so many Swiss bell ringers – was devised in rehearsal by Rittmann (who was credited for choral arrangements) and choreographer Joe Layton. The fourteen note and tune lyric – "when you know the notes to sing ..." – were provided by Rodgers and Hammerstein; the rest, apparently, came from Rittmann. Howard: "Rodgers allowed her to do whatever she liked. When we started doing the staging of it, Joe took over. He asked Trude for certain parts to be repeated, certain embellishments."[2][3] Rittmann retired in 1976 and died of respiratory failure in Lexington, Massachusetts.[4] Her music has been issued on Great Performances (1972).[5]
