Joseph Szulc

Josef Zygmunt Szulc (4 April 1875, Warsaw, Warsaw Governorate, Russian Empire – 10 April 1956, Paris, France) was a composer and conductor. He also used the pseudonum Jan Sulima.

Born in Poland to a musical family, he moved to Paris to complete his studies in conducting and composition in 1899, converting his name to Joseph Szulc. He notably trained under the composer Jules Massenet. In 1903 he moved to Brussels, where he was made chief conductor at the Théâtre de la Monnaie and saw instant success with his ballet "Ispahan" and several tunes.

His wife Suzy Delsart was an operetta star and sang the title role of Veuve Joyeuse by Franz Lehár and also influenced her husband into writing lighter and more popular tunes. In 1907 he completed the music for Marcel Gerbidon's operetta, "Flossie" or "Je m'appelle Flossie."

In 1908 he adapted Pierre Veber's comedy "Loute", then in 1914 began the musical comedy "Flup !" to a libretto by Gaston Dumestre, which had a successful premiere in 1920, followed by 5,000 performances. His other successes included "Titin" to a libretto by Gaston Dumestre. Between the two world wars, he composed nearly twenty musical comedies. Additionally, he wrote songs to poetry of Paul Verlaine (Opus 83) of which one song was recorded by the great tenor, Enrico Caruso. He wrote some other lieder to German poetry which were published in Berlin during a brief stint there. One additional Violin Sonata is now available through IMSLP. Many of his operetta scores are available for perusal at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln through a generous gift of Jack Rohkar.

Szulc's song Clair de Lune from his 10 Melodies, Op. 83, has been recorded by French counter tenor Philippe Jaroussky on his album Green – Melodies Francaises.

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