Biography
Ernö Rapée was a Hungarian-born American composer, conductor and pianist. Born in Budapest in 1891, he studied piano and conducting at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music, graduating in 1909. He worked in Europe before settling in New York in 1912, where he began composing and conducting for silent films.
Rapée contributed music to Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) and served as musical director or composer on other films including The Iron Horse (1925), Variety (1925), The Man Who Laughs (1928) and Little Caesar (1931). He co-wrote popular songs such as 'Charmaine' and 'Diane'. From 1932 he was musical director of the Radio City Music Hall orchestra until his death in New York in 1945.
