Rudolph Edward Schirmer Jr.

1949

In 1949, he was one of the co-writers for the German book 3 Briefe an Kurt Leimer (3 Letters to Kurt Leimer).^[7] Kurt Leimer was a German pianist, composer, and piano teacher who had been drafted in World War II into the Wehrmacht (collective of armed forces of Nazi Germany) and became a POW in Livorno, Italy in 1944, as the war was coming to a close.^[8] Schirmer worked in the Ritchie Boys unit in WW II, which consisted of German-speaking interrogators for interviewing German POWs. However, it is unclear if Schirmer and Leimer had met during the war.

In terms of musical works, Schirmer had copyrighted the song he had written "Remember thee!" for voice and piano, with words by the English Romantic poet Lord Byron (1788- 1824).^[9] The same year, he also wrote the song "Love's Secret" with words by English poet and artist William Blake (1757- 1827)^[10] as well as "So we''ll go no more a-roving" with words also by Lord Byron.^[11]

1955

In 1955, he did the music arrangement of "A Child's Prayer", which was a song for three-part chorus of women's voices accompanied by piano. The lyrics were from the 1944 book Prayer for a Child by American novelist, poet, and children's fiction writer Rachel Field (1894–1942), which was a classic bedtime prayer.^[12][13]

1960s

In 1960, Schirmer copyrighted his musical compositions for the musical Forty Ways to Sunday. Some of the compositions below can be seen in the section named Music for musical 40 ways to Sunday.

Between 1961 and 1963, he wrote the music and lyrics for the following songs:

• "Bluebird"
• "Seven Songs"
• "Don't Mention Love Again"
• "The Gift of Christmas"
• "Nobody Wants My Heart"
• "You"

In 1964, he wrote the collection of poems titled A Friend in Fantasy: Poems.^[14]

In 1968, he wrote Hymn to the Americas (Himno a las Americas in Spanish), which was for a four-part chorus of mixed voices with a soprano solo and piano accompaniment. The Spanish text was written by Fernando Flores. It was performed by the Washington National Symphony at the Fourth Inter-American Music Festival in 1968.^[15][16]

1998

In 1998, he was reader/performer for the published audiobook The Doors of Perception, which is reading of the 1954 book of English philosopher and writer Aldous Huxley.^[17] The work ties into the earlier works of Schirmer based, in that as the song "Love's Secret" (1949) incorporates the words from the poem of the same name by William Blake, so is the title of "The Door of Perception" from Blake's 1793 book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:^[18]

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.