the1920sand30s | Comedian Harmonists - Eine Kleine Frühlingsweise [A little spring tune] (1933) @the1920sand30s | Uploaded January 2022 | Updated October 2024, 5 hours ago.
Performed by: Comedian Harmonists
Full Song Title: Eine Kleine Frühlingsweise
Recorded in: 1933
This song is dedicated to my mother-in-law. It's her favorite childhood song. I hope this brings back some happy memories.
The Comedian Harmonists were an internationally famous, all-male German close harmony ensemble that performed between 1928 and 1934 as one of the most successful musical groups in Europe before World War II. The group consisted of Harry Frommermann (tenor buffo), Asparuh "Ari" Leschnikoff (first tenor), Erich Collin (second tenor), Roman Cycowski (baritone), Robert Biberti (bass), and Erwin Bootz (pianist).
The hallmark of the Comedian Harmonists was its members' ability to blend their voices together so that the individual singers could appear and disappear back into the vocal texture. Its repertoire was wide, ranging from the folk and classical songs arranged by Frommermann to appealing and witty popular songs of the day by writers such as Peter Igelhoff, Werner Richard Heymann and Paul Abraham.
In 1927, unemployed actor Harry Frommermann was inspired by The Revelers, a jazz-influenced popular vocal group from the United States, to create a German group of the same format. According to Douglas Friedman's 2010 book "The Comedian Harrmonists" in August 1929 both groups appeared on the same bill at the Scala in Berlin and became good friends. Frommermann held auditions in his apartment on Stubenrauchstraße 47 in Berlin-Friedenau, and, once the group was assembled, it quickly began rehearsals. After some initial failures, the Harmonists soon found success, becoming popular throughout Europe, visiting the United States, and appearing in 21 films.
The group's success continued into the early 1930s, but eventually ran into trouble with the Nazi regime: three of the group members - Frommermann, Collin, and Cycowski - were either Jewish or of Jewish descent, and Bootz had married a Jewish woman. The Nazis progressively made the group's professional life more difficult, initially banning pieces by Jewish composers, and finally prohibiting them from performing in public. The group's last concert in Germany was in Hannover on March 25, 1934 after which they sailed to America on the SS Europa and gave several concerts. Fearing internment if they stayed abroad, however, they eventually returned home amid bitter internal disputes.
Frommermann, Cycowski, and Collin subsequently fled Germany and formed a new group, which performed under the names "Comedian Harmonists" and "Comedy Harmonists" with a new pianist, bass, and high tenor. The remaining members in Germany likewise replaced their counterparts in a successor group named "Das Meistersextett" (as the authorities forbade an English-language name).
Neither group was able to achieve the original success of the Comedian Harmonists, with the German group stifled by political in-fighting and heavy censorship, as well as the war draft (call-up); the emigrant group was unable to find work in America due to hostility to German entertainers, and they were unable to return to Australia, where they had enjoyed extensive success in the 1930s. The Bulgarian Asparuh Leschnikoff /Leshnikov/ returned to his fatherland in 1938 and started a successful career. By 1941, both groups had broken up. Although all members survived the war, they never re-formed after the war.
The group remained largely forgotten until filmmaker Eberhard Fechner created a four-hour black-and-white television documentary, in which he interviewed the surviving members in 1975, who were scattered throughout the world. The documentary aired over two nights in German in 1977 and caused a resurgence of interest in the music of the Comedian Harmonists, with their records being released on vinyl.
They won recognition from the musical entertainment industry in 1998 when they won the Echo Prize from the Deutsche Phonoakademie.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I have.
Best wishes,
Stu
______________________
Please Note: I do not claim copyright or ownership of the song played in this video. All copyrighted content remains property of their respective owners.
Performed by: Comedian Harmonists
Full Song Title: Eine Kleine Frühlingsweise
Recorded in: 1933
This song is dedicated to my mother-in-law. It's her favorite childhood song. I hope this brings back some happy memories.
The Comedian Harmonists were an internationally famous, all-male German close harmony ensemble that performed between 1928 and 1934 as one of the most successful musical groups in Europe before World War II. The group consisted of Harry Frommermann (tenor buffo), Asparuh "Ari" Leschnikoff (first tenor), Erich Collin (second tenor), Roman Cycowski (baritone), Robert Biberti (bass), and Erwin Bootz (pianist).
The hallmark of the Comedian Harmonists was its members' ability to blend their voices together so that the individual singers could appear and disappear back into the vocal texture. Its repertoire was wide, ranging from the folk and classical songs arranged by Frommermann to appealing and witty popular songs of the day by writers such as Peter Igelhoff, Werner Richard Heymann and Paul Abraham.
In 1927, unemployed actor Harry Frommermann was inspired by The Revelers, a jazz-influenced popular vocal group from the United States, to create a German group of the same format. According to Douglas Friedman's 2010 book "The Comedian Harrmonists" in August 1929 both groups appeared on the same bill at the Scala in Berlin and became good friends. Frommermann held auditions in his apartment on Stubenrauchstraße 47 in Berlin-Friedenau, and, once the group was assembled, it quickly began rehearsals. After some initial failures, the Harmonists soon found success, becoming popular throughout Europe, visiting the United States, and appearing in 21 films.
The group's success continued into the early 1930s, but eventually ran into trouble with the Nazi regime: three of the group members - Frommermann, Collin, and Cycowski - were either Jewish or of Jewish descent, and Bootz had married a Jewish woman. The Nazis progressively made the group's professional life more difficult, initially banning pieces by Jewish composers, and finally prohibiting them from performing in public. The group's last concert in Germany was in Hannover on March 25, 1934 after which they sailed to America on the SS Europa and gave several concerts. Fearing internment if they stayed abroad, however, they eventually returned home amid bitter internal disputes.
Frommermann, Cycowski, and Collin subsequently fled Germany and formed a new group, which performed under the names "Comedian Harmonists" and "Comedy Harmonists" with a new pianist, bass, and high tenor. The remaining members in Germany likewise replaced their counterparts in a successor group named "Das Meistersextett" (as the authorities forbade an English-language name).
Neither group was able to achieve the original success of the Comedian Harmonists, with the German group stifled by political in-fighting and heavy censorship, as well as the war draft (call-up); the emigrant group was unable to find work in America due to hostility to German entertainers, and they were unable to return to Australia, where they had enjoyed extensive success in the 1930s. The Bulgarian Asparuh Leschnikoff /Leshnikov/ returned to his fatherland in 1938 and started a successful career. By 1941, both groups had broken up. Although all members survived the war, they never re-formed after the war.
The group remained largely forgotten until filmmaker Eberhard Fechner created a four-hour black-and-white television documentary, in which he interviewed the surviving members in 1975, who were scattered throughout the world. The documentary aired over two nights in German in 1977 and caused a resurgence of interest in the music of the Comedian Harmonists, with their records being released on vinyl.
They won recognition from the musical entertainment industry in 1998 when they won the Echo Prize from the Deutsche Phonoakademie.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I have.
Best wishes,
Stu
______________________
Please Note: I do not claim copyright or ownership of the song played in this video. All copyrighted content remains property of their respective owners.
![Comedian Harmonists - Eine Kleine Frühlingsweise [A little spring tune] (1933)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_LYih8zPlVw/hqdefault.jpg "Comedian Harmonists - Eine Kleine Frühlingsweise [A little spring tune] (1933)
Performed by: Comedian Harmonists
Full Song Title: Eine Kleine Frühlingsweise
Recorded in: 1933
This song is dedicated to my mother-in-law. Its her favorite childhood song. I hope this brings back some happy memories.
The Comedian Harmonists were an internationally famous, all-male German close harmony ensemble that performed between 1928 and 1934 as one of the most successful musical groups in Europe before World War II. The group consisted of Harry Frommermann (tenor buffo), Asparuh Ari Leschnikoff (first tenor), Erich Collin (second tenor), Roman Cycowski (baritone), Robert Biberti (bass), and Erwin Bootz (pianist).
The hallmark of the Comedian Harmonists was its members ability to blend their voices together so that the individual singers could appear and disappear back into the vocal texture. Its repertoire was wide, ranging from the folk and classical songs arranged by Frommermann to appealing and witty popular songs of the day by writers such as Peter Igelhoff, Werner Richard Heymann and Paul Abraham.
In 1927, unemployed actor Harry Frommermann was inspired by The Revelers, a jazz-influenced popular vocal group from the United States, to create a German group of the same format. According to Douglas Friedmans 2010 book The Comedian Harrmonists in August 1929 both groups appeared on the same bill at the Scala in Berlin and became good friends. Frommermann held auditions in his apartment on Stubenrauchstraße 47 in Berlin-Friedenau, and, once the group was assembled, it quickly began rehearsals. After some initial failures, the Harmonists soon found success, becoming popular throughout Europe, visiting the United States, and appearing in 21 films.
The groups success continued into the early 1930s, but eventually ran into trouble with the Nazi regime: three of the group members - Frommermann, Collin, and Cycowski - were either Jewish or of Jewish descent, and Bootz had married a Jewish woman. The Nazis progressively made the groups professional life more difficult, initially banning pieces by Jewish composers, and finally prohibiting them from performing in public. The groups last concert in Germany was in Hannover on March 25, 1934 after which they sailed to America on the SS Europa and gave several concerts. Fearing internment if they stayed abroad, however, they eventually returned home amid bitter internal disputes.
Frommermann, Cycowski, and Collin subsequently fled Germany and formed a new group, which performed under the names Comedian Harmonists and Comedy Harmonists with a new pianist, bass, and high tenor. The remaining members in Germany likewise replaced their counterparts in a successor group named Das Meistersextett (as the authorities forbade an English-language name).
Neither group was able to achieve the original success of the Comedian Harmonists, with the German group stifled by political in-fighting and heavy censorship, as well as the war draft (call-up); the emigrant group was unable to find work in America due to hostility to German entertainers, and they were unable to return to Australia, where they had enjoyed extensive success in the 1930s. The Bulgarian Asparuh Leschnikoff /Leshnikov/ returned to his fatherland in 1938 and started a successful career. By 1941, both groups had broken up. Although all members survived the war, they never re-formed after the war.
The group remained largely forgotten until filmmaker Eberhard Fechner created a four-hour black-and-white television documentary, in which he interviewed the surviving members in 1975, who were scattered throughout the world. The documentary aired over two nights in German in 1977 and caused a resurgence of interest in the music of the Comedian Harmonists, with their records being released on vinyl.
They won recognition from the musical entertainment industry in 1998 when they won the Echo Prize from the Deutsche Phonoakademie.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I have.
Best wishes,
Stu
Please Note: I do not claim copyright or ownership of the song played in this video. All copyrighted content remains property of their respective owners.")
![Pyotr Leshchenko - Vino Lyubvi [Вино любви/The Wine of Love] (1933)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_Rwwjx9Mz2k/hqdefault.jpg "Pyotr Leshchenko - Vino Lyubvi [Вино любви/The Wine of Love] (1933)
Performed by: Оркестр Фрaнкa Фоксa [Frank Fox & His Dance Orchestra]
Vocals: Пётр Лещенко [Pyotr Leshchenko]
Full Song Title: Вино любви [The Wine of Love]
Recorded in: Vienna, Austria 1933
Flip side of: https://youtu.be/G8ACEybyDYg
Pyotr Leshchenko (born 2 June 1898 – died 16 July 1954), was a popular singer in the Russian Empire, Romania and later the Soviet Union, is universally considered the King of Russian Tango and specifically known for his rendition of Serdtse a tango, sung unusually not in Spanish but in Russian.
He was born as an illegitimate child of the Russian Empire in Isayevo village of the Kherson Governorate into a poor and illiterate Ukrainian peasant family. During the First World War, his mother and stepfather moved to Chișinău, which was later united with Romania. He was drafted into the Russian army, and attended an officers college in Kiev. After graduating he was sent to the front, and was wounded soon thereafter, recuperating at a military hospital in Chișinău. He was proficient in numerous languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, German, and others. In his early childhood, he sang in a church choir and learned how to play the 7-string guitar.
After the war, Pyotr, who had never learned a real trade, worked at various restaurants, serving, dish-washing and performing small theatrical acts. He had a soft baritone voice.
After taking some ballet lessons in Paris, he started performing with his Latvian wife Zinaida Zakit, a dancer. Their act was a mixture of ballet, folklore dance and European tango, which was so popular it led to tours to Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Germany, and Great Britain. It was at Riga, when he improvised gypsy music and tango singing to make up for the absence of his pregnant wife, that he discovered he could sing in front of an audience. In 1935, he was at the peak of his success. Though he still included old Russian romances, and even Soviet songs (like Serdtse, which was originally sung by Leonid Utyosov) in his repertoire, songs were now composed for him exclusively (with the tango songs turning Argentine in style and arrangement). One of his favourite non-Russian composers was Jerzy Petersburski, but he also sang work composed by Pavel German, Konstantin Podrevsky and Isaak Dunayevsky. Composers who composed certain songs specifically for him included Oscar Strok, Mark Maryanovsky and Yefim Sklyarov. Many lyrics of Leshchenko songs were written by Boris Fomin.
Leshchenko performed for European nobles and White (anti-Bolshevik) Russian émigrés at his own Leschenko cabaret in Bucharest (dubbed the Eastern Maxims). The first part of every performance would typically be dedicated to gipsy music, but during the second part Leshchenko would dress up in a tuxedo, with a white silk handkerchief and sing and dance Argentine tango.
In the Soviet Union his work was banned both because he was believed to be a White émigré (which he was not legally) and because the style (tango and foxtrot) was deemed counter-revolutionary. Nevertheless, secretly he was very popular: people would even listen to Radio Tehran to hear his music, 78 records were smuggled into the country from the Baltics, and specialists would bootleg his music onto ribs (used X-ray plates). When during the Second World War and the subsequent occupation of Odessa by the Romanian army, Leshchenko was finally able to perform in the country he still considered his own, people would queue for hours on end to buy a ticket to one of his Odessa concerts. It was at Odessa that Pyotr met his second wife, Vera Georgievna Belousova, for whom he would later, back in Romania, divorce Zinaida.
After Romania switched sides in August 1944 and the Soviet army entered Romania, Leshchenko was not arrested, and became the protégé of general Vladimir Ivanovich Burenin, military commander of the Red Army garrison in Bucharest.
In 1951, a week after receiving an official letter granting them permission to settle in the Soviet Union, Vera and Pyotr were arrested by the Romanian police. Vera was extradited to the Soviet Union, where she was condemned to forced labour for amongst other things, marrying a foreigner. Pyotr was detained in a prison near Bucharest, and then was sent to a forced labor camp at the Danube–Black Sea Canal. Both outlived Joseph Stalin, but Pyotr died in a prison hospital in Târgu Ocna on 16 July 1954, without Vera at his side (she had already been released but did not know her husband was still alive). Some friends present when he died claimed his last words were Friends, I am happy, for I will return to my fatherland! I am going away, but I leave you my heart. Vera died on December 18, 2009, age 86.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I have.
Best wishes,
Stu
Please Note: I do not claim copyright or ownership of the song played in this video. All copyrighted content remains property of their respective owners.")
![Eugen Jose Wolff - There, where you are going [Dort, wo du hingehst] (1936)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/a1Eo1y7kItY/hqdefault.jpg "Eugen Jose Wolff - There, where you are going [Dort, wo du hingehst] (1936)
Performed by: Eugen Jose Wolff
Full Song Title: Dort, wo du hingehst
Recorded in: 1936
Eugen José Wolff (born February 19, 1901 in Hamm / Westphalia ; died November 7, 1961 in Berlin ) was a German violinist and swing and dance music orchestra conductor in the 1930s and early 1940s .
Wolff studied violin in Bochum and Antwerp. He gave his first concerts at the age of eleven. In the mid-twenties, Eugen Wolff performed with his own small dance band in the Hotel Astoria (Leipzig), in Munich and in the Faun in Hamburg. At the end of the 1920s he renamed himself in the wake of the rumba wave and temporarily appeared as José Wolff. From autumn 1929 he received his first engagements in Berlin (Haus Imperator). At the beginning of 1930 he called his orchestra Jazz-Solisten-Kapelle and performed with them in Hamburg. By the end of 1930 he joined a big band orchestra and performed with his 12 jazz cannons in Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria.
Wolff returned to his dance orchestra in 1934/35 at Berlins Eden Hotel. In 1937 the Hotel Esplanade becomes the permanent venue for his dance orchestra. From 1936 Wolff recorded a number of shellac records with a studio ensemble for Odeon , mostly popular hits and film melodies such as Dort, wo du hingehst (from the film Allotria 1936), Es leuchten die Sterne (from the film with the same name), Kautschuk / Caramba (O-31423, from the Adventure film Kautschuk 1938), Donkey-Serenade (O-31384, from Tarantella , 1937) and Stern von Rio (O-31613, from the film with the same name 1940) etc.
In Wolffs orchestra played Willy Berking , Detlev Lais and Lubo DOrio ; Vocalists were Ralph Maria Siegel (Es leuchten die Sterne), Fred Kassen and the Metropol vocalists (Warum hat die Adelheid keinen Abend für mich Zeit, 1939) and Greta Schönfelder / Gustav Ludzey (Gute Nacht kleines Mädel, 1943) and Doddy Delissen (Yes Sir, Odeon O-31220). He had 18 jazz recording sessions between 1936 and 1939, according to Tom Lord . From 1940 Eugen Wolff was called to support and entertain front line troops. In 1942, while working to support the Wehrmacht, he met his wife, the singer Marlene Mathan. Their only recording session took place at the end of 1942. Wolffs last recordings were made in 1943.
In 1943 Wolff was drafted as a soldier; At the end of the war he was taken prisoner by the Soviets. When he returned to Berlin in 1949, he founded a new orchestra. The first post-war recordings for Odeon took place in October 1949. After negotiations about further recordings were unsuccessful, Wolff and his wife withdrew from the music business in 1954.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I have.
Best wishes,
Stu
Please Note: I do not claim copyright or ownership of the song played in this video. All copyrighted content remains property of their respective owners.")
![Paul Whiteman - I Miss My Swiss [My Swiss Miss Misses Me] (1925)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/b65wbm2nauE/hqdefault.jpg "Paul Whiteman - I Miss My Swiss [My Swiss Miss Misses Me] (1925)
Performed by: Paul Whiteman
Full Song: I Miss My Swiss (My Swiss Miss Misses Me)
Recorded in: New York, NY - August 14th 1925
Paul Whiteman, (born March 28, 1890, Denver, Colorado, U.S.— died December 29, 1967, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, U.S.), American bandleader, called the “King of Jazz” for popularizing a musical style that helped to introduce jazz to mainstream audiences during the 1920s and 1930s.
Whiteman, who was originally a violinist, conducted a 40-piece U.S. Navy band in 1917–18 and then developed a hotel orchestra in California, which he took to New York City in 1920. He hired the best white jazz players, but he allowed little room for improvisation in his arrangements and greatly simplified jazz rhythms. He was successful as a co-composer of popular songs during the 1920s and led his orchestra in Broadway musicals.
Whiteman commissioned George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and conducted its premiere at Aeolian Hall, New York City, in 1924, with the composer as piano soloist. Whiteman also introduced the Grand Canyon Suite (1931) by Ferde Grofé, who had arranged the Rhapsody. The Rhapsody became Whiteman’s theme, and he established the Whiteman Awards for compositions in a “symphonic jazz” style. The 1930 film King of Jazz was the first of four in which his orchestra appeared. Whiteman was the host of several national radio programs during the 1930s, wrote three books (Jazz, with Mary Margaret McBride, 1926; How To Be a Bandleader, with Leslie Lieber, 1941; Records for the Millions, 1948), and recorded extensively. His popularity waned in the late 1940s, but he came back as a television-series host in the 1950s and occasionally led bands up to the time of his death.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I have.
Best wishes,
Stu
Please Note: I do not claim copyright or ownership of the song played in this video. All copyrighted content remains property of their respective owners.")
