Friedrich Wilhelm Möller (composer)

Friedrich Wilhelm Möller (born November 11, 1911 in Gelsenkirchen ; † October 8, 1993 in Segur de Calafell ) was a German musician and composer .

Life

Friedrich Wilhelm Möller was born on November 11, 1911 in Gelsenkirchen. His parents Wilhelm Möller and Anna, geb. Wehling, discovered their son's extraordinary musicality early on and encouraged him wherever possible. Before and during elementary school he learned the violin and zither , and later also guitar, trumpet and xylophone . After graduating from high school in 1929, he studied with Schepeler, a professor at the Folkwang University of Music in Essen, today Folkwang University of the Arts .

Until 1939 Friedrich Wilhelm Möller worked as a musician and band leader in various entertainment orchestras. In 1937 he married Else Ortwein, their son was born in the same year and their daughter four years later. During the Second World War , Friedrich Wilhelm Möller served in the Marine Music Corps in Wilhelmshaven and was assigned to the front line in Holland and France. After his release, he moved to Obernkirchen near Hanover, where his wife and two children and his parents had been evacuated during the last year of the war. In 1948 Friedrich Wilhelm and Else Möller separated. She went back to her hometown Gelsenkirchen with the children.

With different bands - u. a. "Hans Hermann" - Möller pulled music through the entire English military area. After the currency reform, he also tried his hand at running the "Liedschänke" in Obernkirchen . An important reason to stay in the small town, however, was his sister Edith Möller, who was five years younger than him, and who had moved with Erna Pielsticker from Hessisch Oldendorf to Obernkirchen in 1947. Both women took care of the many refugee children in the city and the surrounding area. Music was always there, so that with the new songs composed by Friedrich Wilhelm Möller on the basis of texts by his sister, the Obernkirchen Children's Choir emerged in 1948 , initially also called Obernkirchen Town Musicians . Friedrich Wilhelm Möller set numerous fairy tales to music for the choir, which in 1949 earned the choir the name Schaumburg Fairy Tale Singer.

The British military government endeavored to achieve balance, normality and partnership between England and Germany. Convinced of the vitality, naturalness and musicality of the young, still unknown Obernkirchen children's choir, she gave the choir targeted performances. The visit of the Ipswich Girls Choir, which toured the whole of British-occupied Northern Germany with many concerts in the spring of 1950, brought the chance that the "Schaumburg Fairy Tale Singers" were selected as one of the first German youth groups to join the English partner choir in Ipswich ( Suffolk ) for two weeks to travel.

This invitation went down in history as the “Obernkirchen miracle”. In the fall of 1950, almost 60 children and young people, accompanied by an English officer, drove to what was still a “hostile foreign country”. Their destination was Ipswich, concerts in Felixstowe, Cornhill, London and Cambridge followed. Friedrich Wilhelm Möller, composer of many songs and guitar accompanist for the choir, and his band also traveled with them.

This success culminated in a surprising global success in 1953. Away from the festival stage of the 4th International Eisteddfod Music Festival in Llangollen ( Wales ), the choir sang the song "The happy wanderer ( my father was a wanderer ) " for their own amusement - when he camped on the meadow during a break from competition. The song was previously unknown, not even in the competition program, and was discovered by accident. When technicians from the BBC heard the choir singing in the meadow, they spontaneously recorded it on the spot. Within three days, this recording made the song known worldwide on radio. The song by Friedrich Wilhelm Möller, sung in German by the Obernkirchen Children's Choir (English name of the Schaumburg fairy tale singers ), soon became popular throughout the English-speaking world. The text comes from Florenz Friedrich Sigismund (1791–1877), who published it in 1847; Edith Möller changed only a few words and the final chorus.

A year later, after the first record for Parlophone, this song (still sung in German) rose to number 2 in the UK single charts for 23 weeks. Over the years Der Fröhliche Wanderer has been translated into over 80 languages ​​and received the English title The Happy Wanderer by Antonia Ridge. In 1955, Hans Quest shot the movie The Merry Wanderer with Rudolf Schock , Elma Karlowa , Waltraut Haas , Willy Fritsch and the Schaumburg fairy tale singers for Berolina Film GmbH .

In the summer of 1954, Friedrich Wilhelm Möller ended his musical career. He left Obernkirchen with his new partner and bought a large hotel property in Höxter , Der Fröhliche Wanderer , from the proceeds of his world hit . There he married Ilse, born in 1957. Reinhold. In 1962 both emigrated to Catalonia . Friedrich Wilhelm Möller built himself a refuge there to make music. In the connected animal stables they dedicated themselves to animal breeding and horse training. Famous horses, especially known in the Spanish area, originated there. On October 8, 1993, Friedrich Wilhelm Möller died shortly before his 82nd birthday in Segur de Calafell .

Web links

• Friedrich Wilhelm Möller at the music publisher Bosworth

Individual evidence

1. ^ Pr: Memory of the musician Friedrich Wilhelm Möller. In: Schaumburger Wochenblatt. November 16, 2011, accessed August 3, 2020 . 
2. ↑ bus: excitement and anticipation. In: Schaumburger Wochenblatt. May 18, 2018, accessed August 3, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Friedrich Wilhelm Möller at www.bosworth.at, accessed on August 4, 2020
4. ^ The Obernkirchen Children's Choir - The Happy Wanderer (1953) on YouTube , accessed August 3, 2020.
5. ↑ Heimatfilm - The Happy Wanderer (1955) on YouTube , accessed on August 3, 2020.