George Kleinsinger
George Kleinsinger was born in San Bernardino, California, on February 13, 1914, and came to New York City in his sixth year. He was trained for dentistry, and only after he had left dental school did he concentrate on music. His first intensive period of music study took place with Philip James and Marion Bauer at New York University where he wrote an excellent cantata, I Hear America Singing, performed publicly and on records by John Charles Thomas. Kleinsinger then attended the Juilliard Graduate School on a composition fellowship. In 1946 he scored a major success with Tubby the Tuba. He later wrote several other works with humorous or satiric content, often filled with unusual instrumental effects. Among these are his Brooklyn Baseball Cantata; a concerto for harmonica and orchestra; and the musical, Archy and Mehitabel (Shinbone Alley), which was produced for records, on Broadway and over television. In a more serious vein are a symphony and several concertos.
Tubby the Tuba, for narrator and orchestra (1942) belongs in the class of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. It serves to familiarize children with the instruments of the orchestra, but because of its wit and simple melodies it also makes for wonderful entertainment. It tells the story of a frustrated tuba who complains that he must always play uninteresting “oompahs oompahs” while the violins are always assigned the most beautiful tunes. In the end Tubby happily gets a wonderful melody of his own to enjoy and play. All the characters in this tale are instruments of the orchestra. In 1946 a recording of Tubby the Tuba sold over a quarter of a million albums. Paramount made a movie of it, and major orchestras throughout the country presented it both at children’s concerts and in its regularly symphonic repertory.