Felix Arndt (May 20, 1889October 16, 1918) was an American

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Def ...

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...

. His mother was the Countess Fevrier, related to

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A neph ...

. His father, Hugo Arndt, was Swiss-born. Educated in New York (his music teachers included

Carl Lachmund Carl V. Lachmund (27 March 185320 February 1928) was an American classical pianist, teacher, conductor, composer, and diarist. He was a student of Franz Liszt for three years, and his detailed diaries of his time with Liszt provide an invaluable i ...

), Arndt composed songs for the famous

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

team of

Jack Norworth John Godfrey Knauff (January 5, 1879 – September 1, 1959), known professionally as Jack Norworth, was an American songwriter, singer and vaudeville performer. Biography Norworth is credited as writer of a number of Tin Pan Alley hits. He wr ...

and

Nora Bayes Nora Bayes (born Rachel Eleonora "Dora" Goldberg; October 3, 1880March 19, 1928) was an American singer and vaudeville performer who was popular internationally between the 1900s and 1920s. She is credited with co-writing the song " Shine On, Ha ...

, and recorded over 3000 piano rolls for Duo-Art and

QRS Records QRS Music Technologies, Inc. is an American company that makes modern player pianos. It was founded as Q•R•S Music Company in 1900 to make piano rolls, the perforated rolls of paper read by player pianos to reproduce music. The company also ...

. He died in New York City from the "

Spanish flu The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case wa ...

" influenza. Arndt is interred at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Tarrytown, NY."Felix Arndt" (obituary) The Highland Democrat (Peekskill, NY), 26 October 1918. Arndt is best remembered for his 1915 composition "Nola," written as an engagement gift to his fiancée (and later wife), Nola Locke. It is sometimes considered to be the first example of the

novelty piano Novelty piano is a genre of piano and novelty music that was popular during the 1920s. A successor to ragtime and an outgrowth of the piano roll music of the 1910s, it can be considered a pianistic cousin of jazz, which appeared around the same ti ...

or "novelty

ragtime Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott J ...

" genre, published by Sam Fox Publishing Company. It was the signature theme of the

Vincent Lopez Vincent Lopez (December 30, 1895 – September 20, 1975) was an American bandleader, actor, and pianist. Early life and career Vincent Lopez was born of Portuguese immigrant parents in Brooklyn, New York City, United States, Distinguished Am ...

orchestra, and a top ten hit for

Les Paul Lester William Polsfuss (June 9, 1915 – August 12, 2009), known as Les Paul, was an American jazz guitarist, jazz, country guitarist, country, and blues guitarist, songwriter, luthier, and inventor. He was one of the pioneers of the solid body ...

in 1950. A vocal recording by

Billy Williams Billy Leo Williams (born June 15, 1938) is a former left fielder and coach in Major League Baseball (MLB) who played from 1959 to 1976, almost entirely for the Chicago Cubs. A six-time All-Star, Williams was named the 1961 National League (NL) ...

, featuring lyrics by

Sunny Skylar Sunny Skylar (October 11, 1913 – February 2, 2009) was an American composer, singer, lyricist, and music publisher. He was born Selig Sidney Shaftel in Brooklyn, New York, one of four children, to Sarah and Jacob Shaftel (or Schaftel), Jewish i ...

, became a minor hit in 1959.

Piano solos

* 71st Regiment – Waltz (1908) * A Symphonic Nightmare – Desecration Rag No. 1 (1914) * From Soup to Nuts – One Step Turkey Trot (1914) * Kakuda – One Step Turkey Trot (1914) * Marionette (1914) * Nola (1915) * Toots – Rag One Step (1915) * An Operatic Nightmare – Desecration Rag No. 2 (1916) * Clover Club – Fox Trot (1918)

Songs

* As Long As the Band Will Play – 1911 (with Harold Atteridge) * Snow Time – 1911 (with Bert Fitzgibbon) * If That is Not Love Wot? - 1911 (with Louis Weslyn) * When Sunday Rolls Around – 1911 (with Louis Weslyn) * Night Time – 1911 (with Louis Weslyn) * When You Know Why – 1913 (with Louis Weslyn) * Evr'y Rose Reminds Me of You – 1913 (with Louis Weslyn) * In the Shade of the Mango Tree – 1918 (with Louis Weslyn) * My Gal's Another Gal Like Galli-Curci – 1918 (with Louis Weslyn) * Nola (song) – 1922 (with James F. Burns) (posthumous) His piano rolls reveal Arndt to be a fine pianist, and he is known to have been an influence on the young

George Gershwin George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions ' ...

, who would visit him at his studio in the Aeolian Building on 42nd Street in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

References

External links

Bio: Felix Arndt
The Unconservatory
Felix Arndt
Library of Congress * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Arndt, Felix 1889 births 1918 deaths Ragtime composers 19th-century American pianists 20th-century American composers 20th-century American pianists American male pianists 20th-century American male musicians 19th-century American male musicians Deaths from the Spanish flu pandemic in New York (state)