Frank Harling

William Franke Harling was born in London on January 18, 1887, and died on November 22, 1958. A composer who worked across opera, film scoring, and popular song, Harling received his early education at the Grace Choir Church School in New York City. Before establishing himself as a composer, he served as an organist and choir director at the Church of the Resurrection in Brussels and spent two years at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he composed both the hymn "The Corps" and the official march "West Point Forever."

Harling's Broadway career began in 1918, when he contributed incidental music to a production of Maurice Hewlett's 1898 play Pan and the Young Shepherd. His most significant stage work came in 1926 with Deep River, a voodoo-themed opera set in New Orleans in 1835, created in collaboration with Laurence Stallings. The production opened at the Imperial Theatre on October 4, 1926, and ran for 32 performances. Harling also received the Bispham Memorial Medal Award for his jazz-oriented opera A Light from St. Agnes.

Harling transitioned to Hollywood in 1928, accumulating an extensive list of film scoring credits that includes Monte Carlo, The Vagabond King, Blonde Venus, A Farewell to Arms, The Bitter Tea of General Yen, So Big!, A Bill of Divorcement, This Is the Night, Souls at Sea, and Penny Serenade. He won the Academy Award for Best Music Scoring for Stagecoach (1939) and received nominations for Souls at Sea (1937) and Three Russian Girls (1944).

Among his popular songs, Harling co-wrote "Beyond the Blue Horizon" with Richard A. Whiting, which Jeanette MacDonald popularized in 1930 and Lou Christie recorded thirty years later. He also composed "Sing You Sinners," originally performed by Lillian Roth in 1930 and later a hit for Tony Bennett in 1950.