Berlin Decadence - Die Weintraubs: Marion-Tango, 1928

Friedrich HOLLÄNDER (1896-1976) was a German composer born in London. He was the son of composer VictorHolländer . The family returned to Germany and Frederick waseducated at the Berlin Conservatory. By the age of 18 he had become an associate conductor at the Prague Opera House. After studying in Berlin, he composed music for productions by Max Reinhardt and became involved in cabaret and wrote music for the film, The Blue Angel (1930). He left Nazi Germany and emigrated to the United States of America where he wrote the music for over a hundred films, including Destry Rides Again (1939), A Foreign Affair (1948), The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. He received four Academy Award nominations for composition . In 1956 he returned to Germany, and died in Munich in 1976.
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The WEINTRAUBS SYNCOPATORS was one of Germany's most famous Jazz bands and their music perhaps best expressed that effervescent joy of life and spirit of arts that typified 1920's Berlin. In the popular speech of the day, names were often shortened. So that, for example, "Lanigiro's Syncopating Melody Kings" were simply referred to as "The Lanigiros". And, so too, "The Weintraub Syncopators" were known simply as 'The Weintraubs". In 1933, Die Weintraubs were on an international concert tour when the Nazi's seized power. With the majority of the band members being Jews, Stefan Weintraub decided not to return to Germany. Thus started a long successful musical Odyssey that took them from Italy to Scandinavia and to Russia, and then from Eastern Europe to Japan and China, and finally, in 1937, settling in Australia. Die Weintraub's were a world-wide success and were heard on Australian radio, as well in many Clubs. In 1941, after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the German members of the orchestra were forcibly interned - and so 'Die Weintraubs' ceased to exist.

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Jeanne MAMMEN is one of the most impressive, unusual and versatile German female artists of the twentieth century. She is mentioned in connection with Käthe Kollwitz and Hanna Höch, two artists who also showed a strong engagement in social emancipation, and whose most successful years also date to the Weimar era (Berlin in the 1920/early 1930s).

Jeanne Mammen was born in Berlin in 1890, to a wealthy merchant's family. She grew up in Paris, and with the outbreak of WWI she moved with her family to Holland. She studied painting at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and in 1911 at the Scuola Libera Academica, Villa Medici, in Rome. In 1920s, back in Berlin, she began to design film posters for the major German film company UFA, and she also received commissions to illustrate the front covers of society and fashion magazines. The years from 1924 to 1934 can be dated as her realistic period, and almost all satirical journals and popular periodicals of that time displayed her watercolours and drawings, with scenes portraying the atmosphere typical of life in this metropolis.

In 1933 Jeanne Mammen rejected the cultural politics of the Third Reich, and during the time from 1933 to 1945, she no longer participated in exhibitions, trying to sell second-hand books, journals and graphic works. She died in Berlin in 1976.

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Recording:
Friedrich Holländer (klavier) und seine Weintraubs Syncopators: Marion-Tango (Holländer), Odeon 1928

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Roaring
• Twenties
• Berlin
• Germany
• Deutschland
• Die
• Weintraubs
• Friedrich
• Holländer
• Jeanne
• Mammen
• Kollwitz
• Otto
• Dix
• Jazz
• 78s

[gmmix]

Splendid commentary, which adds so much to the totality of the presentation. I fully appreciate the time you spent preparing the commentary. FIVE STARS!

[priapus56]

The world's acting now thou'....Kuwait, Iraq, Iran next...

[RahmSifr]

What a marvellously melancholic tune.

[Lolawinter]

I like this so much...!!!!

[jrakg]

Recordings made in Berlin c 1930 can still sound remarkably good and, of course, they evoke the period distinctly. - John Austin, Australia

[APPLEexampleSample]

you're so great,thank you for this video. this is such a beautiful song.

[alexandre210613]

thanks a lot  !!!!

[acerb45666555]

Iran?!! thats trickey. cant just nail the place. huge friendly civilian elements. we cant be the ones who kill another Neda! we must use extreme care with Iran.

[acerb45666555]

this was the time when Hitlers goons could have been crushed! if only the world had acted!! the nazis were still weak! the whole war could have been avoided!!!

[jd03150]

I would like to associate myself with gmmix's remarks on the commentary. It adds so much to your appreciation of the great music to know about those who made it. It also helps one to appreciate that some of these great artists endured great hardship and even death in their musical careers. In this piece, I particularly enjoyed the whistling -- quite unusal and just great.