Today in Music (1945): Vaughn Monroe “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” charted

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Vaughn Monroe

Writer(s): Jule Styne (music), Sammy Cahn (words) (see lyrics here) First Charted: December 22, 1945 Peak: 15 BB, 15 BS, 15 DJ, 15 JB, 2 GA, 16 SM, 12 HP, 2 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 1.34 video, 2.06 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Lyricist Sammy Cahn and composer Jule Styne wrote “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” in July 1945 during a heat wave in Hollywood, California. WK Cahn would go on to write four Academy Award winning songs. “Three Coins in the Fountain” (1954), “All the Way” (1957), and “High Hopes” (1959) were all popularized by Frank Sinatra. Styne also worked on “Three Coins” and he and Cahn also teamed up for Academy Award nominees “I”ve Heard That Song Before” (1942), “I’ll Walk Alone” (1944), “Anywhere” (1945), “I Fall in Love Too Easily” (1945), “It’s Magic” (1948), and “It’s a Great Feeling” (1949). It has become a seasonal favorite “despite not mentioning Christmas in the lyrics, nor the holiday season.” SM Instead, it is “about being warm and cozy at home in wintertime,” SM cuddling up with someone, and popping corn. Billboard magazine ranked it the second biggest Christmas hit from 1935 to 1954. TY2 The song experienced a revival when it was included in the 1990 Bruce Willis’ movie Die Hard II. Vaughn Monroe was the first to record it that fall. It became a hit that Christmas, reaching #1 for 5 weeks. He was a “big-voiced baritone, trumpeter, and bandleader” PM who charted 67 times from 1940 to 1954. “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” was his sixth of nine #1 songs. PM Three other versions of the song charted in 1946 – Woody Herman (#7), Connee Boswell (#9), and Bob Crosby (#14). PM Frank Sinatra’s 1950 version of the song charted in Australia (#17), Canada (#28), and the UK (#33). Dean Martin recorded the song in 1959 although it would be 2018 before it reached the Billboard Hot 100, going all the way to #8. Others who have charted with the song include George Strait (#72 CW, 1999), Michael Bublé (#1 AC, #44 UK, 2003), Jessica Simpson (#20 AC, 2004), Carly Simon (#6 AC, 2005), Mannheim Steamroller (#26 AC, 2007), Toby Keith (#53 CW, 2007), Rod Stewart & Dave Koz (#1 AC, 2012), Dave Koz with Kenny G (#14 AC, 2014), Seal (#11 AC, 2017), and Pentatonix (#17 AC, 2017). Resources: DJ David Jasen (2002). A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-Loved and Remembered Songs (1899-1999). Routledge: Taylor & Francis, Inc. Page 117. SM Sharon Mawer Charts (1900-1968) TY2 Don Tyler (2007). Hit Songs, 1900-1955. McFarland & Company, Inc.: Jefferson, North Carolina. Page 290. PM Joel Whitburn (1986). Pop Memories 1890-1954. Record Research, Inc: Menomonee Falls, WI. Pages 318-9 and 539. WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 12/20/2023.

 

Today in Music (1895): Mahler’s Symphony No 2 premiered

Symphony No. 2 in C minor (Resurrection) Gustav Mahler

Composed: 1888-1894 First Performed: December 13, 1895 Peak: -- Sales (in millions): -- Genre: classical > symphony

Parts/Movements: Allegro maestoso Andante moderato In ruhig fließender Bewegung (With quietly flowing movement) “Urlicht” (Primal light) Im Tempo des Scherzos (In the tempo of the scherzo) Average Duration: 80 to 90 minutes

Rating: 3.909 out of 5.00 (average of 3 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Work: Gustav Mahler’s second symphony, referred to as the Resurrection Symphony, was one of the composer’s “most popular and successful works during his lifetime. A 2016 poll from BBC Music Magazine named it the fifth greatest symphony of all time. It was his first major work that established his lifelong view of the beauty of afterlife and resurrection.” WK Mahler posed questions such as, “Why have you lived? Why have you suffered? Is it all some huge, awful joke? We have to answer these questions somehow if we are to go on living – indeed, even if we are only to go on dying!” LA He said these were questions posed in the first movement which would be answered in the finale. LA In 1888, Mahler began writing a symphonic poem called “Totenfeier (Funeral Rites)” which would become the first movement of the symphony. He said it represented the funeral of the hero from his first symphony, “whose death presented those superheated existential questions.” LA That same year, he started sketching out the second movement as well. He said it “sounds completely incongruous after the first” but that “it isn’t lack of understanding on the part of the audience…The Andante is composed as a sort of intermezzo (like an echo of long past days from the life of him whom we carried to the grave in the first movement.” LA It wasn’t until 1893, however, that he composed the second and third movements. WK The third movement is essentially a symphonic adaptation of “St. Anthony of Padua’s Sermon to the Fishes,” a song Mahler wrote based on a collection of German folk poetry called Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn). LA He struggled with the finale because he knew it would be compared to Beethoven’s ninth symphony since both “use a chorus as the centerpiece of a final movement which begins with references to and is much longer than those preceding it.” WK The composition was completed in 1894 after Mahler received inspiration from the funeral of Hans von Bülow, a fellow conductor at the Hamburg Opera. Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock’s poem “Die Auferstehung (The Resurrection)” was performed and, as Mahler said, “It struck me like lightning…and everything was revealed to me clear and pain.” WK He incorporated the first two verses of the hym into his work. In March of 1895, Mahler conducted the first three movements with the Berlin Philharmonic. Then in December he led that orchestra in a premiere of the full work. LA

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Gustav Mahler LA LAphil.com “Symphony No. 2, ‘Resurrection’” WK Wikipedia First posted 12/7/2023.

Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men debuted at #1 with "One Sweet Day"

One Sweet Day Mariah Carey with Boyz II Men

Writer(s): Mariah Carey/Michael McCary/Nathan Morris/Wanya Morris/Shawn Stockman/Walter Afanasieff (see lyrics here) Released: November 14, 1995 Peak: 116 US, 113 BA, 111 CB, 111 GR, 18 RR, 113 AC, 110 A40, 2 RB, 6 UK, 12 CN, 2 AU, 11 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 3.0 US, 0.4 UK, 3.75 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, 314.83 video, 163.56 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: This ballad paired “some of the best R&B ballad singers of their generation” BBC emphasizing Carey’s “vocal gymnastics, artfully supported by the more restrained vocalizing of…Boyz II Men.” DJ Done with “fitting and tender simplicity”, BBC “this passionate expression of loss” BBC was reportedly inspired by the death earlier that year of David Cole, half of the group C+C Music Factory and a friend of Carey’s. TB However, she says the song wasn’t inspired by just one specific person. FB Meanwhile, Boyz II Men were working on a tribute to Khalil Roundtree, their road manager who had been murdered. TB When Carey and the Boyz decided to pair up, they merged their efforts into what became not just the biggest pop hit of 1995, CPM but the biggest hit of the latter half of the 20th century. In fact, from 1900 to 1999, the only song to log more weeks at number one (17) was the 1947 song “Near You” by Francis Craig and His Orchestra. Interestingly enough, it was the THIRD time that Boyz II Men could claim to have the biggest hit of the rock era – first with 1992’s “End of the Road” and again with 1994’s “I’ll Make Love to You.” Collectively, Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men had already accumulated 69 weeks (36 and 33 weeks respectively) atop the charts BB in just the first half of the 1990s. Mariah Carey went on to hit the top spot another eight times after this, giving her a total of 79 weeks at #1 – only one week behind Elvis Presley’s record 80 weeks. Boyz II Men only scored one more #1 (1997’s “4 Seasons of Loneliness”) and one more top 10 (1997’s “A Song for Mama”), but their total of 50 weeks in the pole position ranks them fourth all-time behind Elvis, Mariah, and The Beatles (59 weeks). Resources: BBC BBC Radio 2 (2004). “Sold on Song Top 100” BB Billboard (9/08). “All-Time Hot 100” FB Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 843. DJ David Jasen (2002). A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-Loved and Remembered Songs (1899-1999). Routledge: Taylor & Francis, Inc. Page 153. TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Page 269. CPM Joel Whitburn (1999). A Century of Pop Music. Record Research, Inc.: Menomonee Falls, WI. Page 126. Related Links: First posted 12/2/2011; last updated 7/24/2023.