About Richard Hageman
Lived 1882 – 1966 (aged 83). Richard Hageman was an American conductor, pianist, film score composer, film actor, composer and actor.
Richard Hageman (9 July 1881 – 6 March 1966) was a Dutch-born American conductor, pianist, and composer.
Biography Richard Hageman was born in Leeuwarden, Friesland, Netherlands. He was the son of Maurits Hageman of Zutphen, a violinist, pianist and conductor, and of Hester Westerhoven of Amsterdam, a singer who performed under the name Francisca Stoetz. A child prodigy, he was a concert pianist by the age of six. He studied at the conservatories of Amsterdam and Brussels. For a short time Hageman was accompanist to Mathilde Marchesi in Paris. He travelled to the United States in 1906 to accompany Yvette Guilbert on a national tour. He stayed and eventually became an American citizen in 1925. Rosina sang at the Metropolitan Opera, but the couple had an acrimonious divorce in 1916. His second and third wives were also sopranosRenee Thornton and Eleanore Rogers.
He was a conductor and pianist for the Metropolitan Opera between 1908 and 1922, and 1935-1936, coach of the opera department at the Curtis Institute from 1925 to 1930, and music director of the Chicago Civic Opera and the Ravinia Park Opera for seven years. Hageman was a coach in voice and collaborative at the Chicago Musical College in the 1920s, where one of his notable piano students was Ray Turner, who went on to play with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, worked as the staff pianist at Paramount Studios for over 20 years, and was a popular recording and concert artist.
Hageman was a guest conductor at orchestras such as the Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles symphony orchestras. He conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra summer concerts for four years, and from 1938-1943 he conducted at the Hollywood Bowl summer concerts.
He is known to the film community for his work as an actor and film score composer, most notably for his work on several John Ford films in the late 1930s and after the war in the late 1940s. He shared an Academy Award for his score to Ford's 1939 western Stagecoach and was nominated for the score of This Woman Is Mine (1941). He played minor roles in eleven movies, for example as opera conductor Carlo Santi in The Great Caruso. He became a member of ASCAP in 1950. His "concert drama" The Crucible was performed in Los Angeles in 1943. While his large musical compositions are rarely heard today, a few of his art songs are well-known and highly regarded, especially "Do Not Go, My Love", a setting of a Rabindranath Tagore poem.
He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity. He died, aged 84, in Beverly Hills.
Larger musical works and chamber music
Stage: Caponsacchi (Op. 3, R. Browning), 1931 I Hear America Call (ballad, R.V. Grossman), Bar, SATB, orch, 1942 The Crucible (oratorio, B.C. Kennedy), 1943 Orchestra: Overture 'In a Nutshell; Suite, strChamber:'''October Musings, violin and piano, G. Schirmer, 1937Recit and Romance, vc, pf, 1961
Published songs Do Not Go, My Love (Rabindranath Tagore), Winthrop Rogers/G. Schirmer, 1917 May Night (Tagore), 1917 The Cunning Little Thing (Unknown Author), Winthrop Rogers, 1917 At the Well (Tagore), Winthrop Rogers/G. Schirmer, 1919 Happiness (Jean Ingelow), Winthrop Rogers/G. Schirmer, 1917/1920 Charity (Emily Dickinson), G. Schirmer, 1921 Nature's Holiday (T. Nash), 1921 Ton coeur est un tombeau (Jacques Boria), G. Schirmer 1921 Animal Crackers (C. Morley), G. Schirmer, 1922 Evening (Anonymous text), Ricordi, 1922 Christ Went Up Into the Hills (Katherine Adams), Carl Fischer, 1924 Me Company Along (James Stephens), Carl Fischer, 1925 Grief (Ernest Dowson), Carl Fischer, 1928 Dawn shall over Lethe Break (Hilaire Belloc), Boosey & Hawkes, 1934 The Donkey (G. K. Chesterton), Boosey & Hawkes, 1934 The Little Dancers (Laurence Binyon), Boosey & Hawkes, 1935 The Night Has a Thousand Eyes (F. W. Bourdillon), Boosey & Hawkes, 1935 Christmas Eve, A Joyful Song (Joyce Kilmer), Galaxy, 1936 (arranged for mixed chorus by Philip James, Galaxy, 1937) The Rich Man (Franklin P. Adams), Galaxy, 1937 Song without Words (vocalise for coloratura voice with piano), Carl Fischer, 1937 This Thing I do: a soliloquy for baritone voice with piano accompaniment (Arthur Goodrich), Carl Fischer, 1937 Music I Heard with You (Conrad Aiken), Galaxy, 1938 Sundown (Lew Sarett), Carl Fischer, 1938 and 1942 To a Golden-haired girl (Vachel Lindsay), Carl Fischer, 1938 Miranda (Hilaire Belloc), Galaxy, 1940 Mother (Margaret Widdemer), Galaxy, 1940 Love in the winds (Richard Hovey), Galaxy, 1941 Little Things (Witter Bynner), Galaxy, 1943 Voices (Witter Bynner), Galaxy, 1943 Don Juan Gomez (Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth), Galaxy, 1944 Fear not the Night (Robert Nathan), Carl Fischer, 1944 Lift Thou the Burdens, Father, a sacred song (Katherine Call Simonds), Galaxy, 1944 En una noche serena/Alone in the night (Andres de Segurola, tr. Robert B. Falk), Galaxy, 1945 Contrasts (Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth), Galaxy, 1946 The Fiddler of Dooney (William Butler Yeats), G. Schirmer, 1946 A Lady comes to an Inn (Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth), Galaxy, 1947 The Fox and the Raven (Guy Wetmore Carryl), Galaxy, 1948 The Summons (Tagore), Galaxy, 1949 Is it you? (Robert Nathan), Galaxy, 1951 Trade Winds (John Masefield), Galaxy, 1952 Scherzetto (Alfred Kreymborg), Galaxy, 1952 All Paths Lead to you (Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff), Galaxy, 1953 Let me Grow Lovely (Karle Wilson Baker), Carl Fischer, 1953 Sleep Sweet (Ellen Huntington Gates), Galaxy, 1953 Walk slowly (Adelaide Love), Carl Fischer, 1953 I see His Blood upon the Rose (Joseph M. Plunkett), Galaxy, 1954 Velvet Shoes (Elinor Wylie), Galaxy, 1954 How to go and Forget (Edwin Markham), G. Schirmer, 1956 Praise (Seumas O'Sullivan), G. Schirmer, 1956 Under the Willows: Shoshone love song (Mary Hunter Austin), G. Schirmer, 1957 When the Wind is Low (Cale Young Rice), Galaxy, 1957 Die Stadt/The Town (Theodor Storm, tr. Robert Nathan), G. Schirmer, 1958 Betterliebe/Beggar's Love (Theodor Storm, tr. Robert Nathan), G. Schirmer, 1958 Am Himmelstor/At Heaven's Door (Conrad F. Meyer, tr. Robert Nathan), G. Schirmer, 1958 Nocturne (Jean Moréas, tr. Robert Nathan), G. Schirmer, 1960 So love returns, (Robert Nathan), Ricordi, 1960
Film scores Hageman is credited for the scores of about 20 films, and his compositions have been used in many additional films.
Seven of the scores were for films directed by John Ford; Kathryn Marie Kalinak has written that Ford "got great work out of the people he worked with, and often those he was hardest on produced the best work of their careers. One of those was Richard Hageman, the Philadelphia Orchestra notwithstanding." Stagecoach (1939)The Howards of Virginia (1940)The Long Voyage Home (1940)The Frozen Ghost (1945)The Fugitive (1947)Fort Apache (1948)3 Godfathers (1948)She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)Wagon Master (1950).Adventure in Vienna'' (1952)
Footnotes
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Important facts
People in Richard Hageman's life
Named in this biography and alive at the same time
Contemporaries
People whose lives overlapped Richard Hageman's
Frequently asked questions
Who was Richard Hageman?
Dutch conductor (1881-1966)
When was Richard Hageman born?
Richard Hageman was born on 9 July 1882 in Leeuwarden.
When did Richard Hageman die?
Richard Hageman died on 6 March 1966 in Beverly Hills.
What was Richard Hageman's occupation?
Richard Hageman was a conductor, pianist, film score composer, film actor, composer and actor.
What nationality was Richard Hageman?
Richard Hageman was American.
Sources & further reading
Cite this page
APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Richard Hageman. https://biography.guide/richard-hageman/
MLA: "Richard Hageman." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/richard-hageman/.
Chicago: "Richard Hageman." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/richard-hageman/.
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