Sigmund Spaeth
Encyclopedia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
– November 12, 1965, New York City, New York) was a musicologist
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
who traced the sources and origins of popular songs to their folk and classical roots. Presenting his findings through books, lectures, liner notes, newspapers, radio and television, he became known as The Tune Detective.
Born in Philadelphia, Spaeth attended Haverford College
Haverford College
Haverford College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States, a suburb of Philadelphia...
(where he composed the alma mater) and went to Princeton where he did his Ph.D. thesis on "Milton's Knowledge of Music." He taught school and worked for Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, the Evening Mail
Evening Mail
The Evening Mail is the common name of several newspapers, including:*The Birmingham Evening Mail*The Dudley Evening Mail*The North-West Evening Mail*The Nelson Evening Mail *The Dublin Evening Mail...
and the Boston Evening Transcript
Boston Evening Transcript
The Boston Evening Transcript was a daily afternoon newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts, published from July 24, 1830, to April 30, 1941.-Beginnings:...
.
He composed music scores for early sound film
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
s, including The Trespasser
The Trespasser
The Trespasser is an American film directed and written by Edmund Goulding, starring Gloria Swanson, Robert Ames, Purnell Pratt, Henry B...
(1929), the talkie debut of Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...
. His books include Read 'Em and Weep, Weep Some More, My Lady, A History of Popular Music in America, The Common Sense of Music, Fifty Years With Music, The Importance of Music and Stories Behind the World's Greatest Music.
On NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
his program of piano instruction, Keys to Happiness (1931), brought an avalanche of 4000 fan letters each week. In November, 1931 he began his 15-minute NBC program, The Tune Detective, airing Tuesdays at 10pm and continuing until 1933. Beginning in 1932 NBC also carried his Song Sleuth which was heard Thursdays at 8:15pm. On Mutual
Mutual Broadcasting System
The Mutual Broadcasting System was an American radio network, in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the golden age of U.S. radio drama, MBS was best known as the original network home of The Lone Ranger and The Adventures of Superman and as the long-time radio residence of The Shadow...
he did Sigmund Spaeth's Musical Quiz on Sunday afternoons at 1:15pm from January 19 to March 23, 1947. He also appeared on Metropolitan Opera Quiz.
He was a charter member of the Iota chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia
Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia
Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia is an American collegiate social fraternity for men with a special interest in music...
at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
. He was awarded the 1958 Charles E. Lutton Man of Music Award
Charles E. Lutton Man Of Music Award
The Charles E. Lutton Man of Music Award is one of the highest honors awarded to members of the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity for a lifelong achievement in uplifting the world through art and music. Its recipients include musical legends such as Aaron Copland, W. Francis McBeth, James Levine,...
for his contributions.