Georges Boulanger (violinist)

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Georges Boulanger, 1946

Georges Boulanger (born April 18, 1893 as Gheorghe Pantazi in Tulcea , † June 3, 1958 in Buenos Aires ) was a Romanian violinist , conductor and composer .

Life

Georges Boulanger was the son of Vasile Pantazi, a Romanian Lăutar from the Roma ethnic group , and his wife, a née Ciobanu. His father was called "Boulanger" because he had a certain external resemblance to the French General Boulanger , who died in 1891 . Georges Boulanger's maiden name was Gheorghe Pantazi, he also inherited his father's nickname. The alleged birth name "Ghiţă Bulencea" came about through a joke he made in 1931 in a conversation with the musicologist George Sbârcea and other Romanian guests in a café in Paris.

He received his first violin lessons from his father. At the age of twelve he received a scholarship to attend the Conservatory in Bucharest. The violinist Leopold von Auer heard him perform a Paganini interpretation and took him to Dresden. After two years of teaching he was hired as solo violinist at the “Café Chantant” in St. Petersburg . In 1917 the political upheavals forced his return to Romania. There he did his military service and taught violin playing and composition. Around 1922/23 he went to Berlin, where he was enthusiastically received as a standing violinist.

Georges Boulanger is now considered one of the most important salon violinists of the interwar period . He achieved great fame in the 1920s and 1930s, especially in Germany. There Boulanger led a salon orchestra line-up with a repertoire of light classical and salon pieces, following the trend of the times, also a “concert jazz orchestra” with which he worked for the Vox record and speaking machine company in the 1920s In addition to the latest hits of the day, he also recorded his own compositions in Berlin; some of them, arranged by the Estonian pianist Hermann Biek, who became known as the director of the dance band under the name Ben Berlin , presented modern dance music with experimental elements.

In the 1930s, on the other hand, he traditionally emerged as a violin prímás with a 'gypsy orchestra', with which he recorded virtuoso concert and salon pieces, as well as dance pieces at Odeon and Telefunken . The pianist Oskar Jerochnik was his companion several times on violin solo recordings . It reached its peak of popularity around 1935/1936. He spent the Second World War in Germany because he never wanted to emigrate to the USA . In 1948 he went to South America. There he played in the Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio de Janeiro and on the Argentine radio "Radio Belgrano". To this end he went on guest tours. Until his death on June 3, 1958, he lived in Olivos , a suburb of Buenos Aires.

Sound documents (selection)

1. on Vox

1.1. Georges Boulanger Orchestra:

Vox 1531 (mx. 2044 B) Afghanistan. Onestep (H. Richards) Orchestra Georges Boulanger, aufgen. December 15, 1923.

Vox 01530 (mx. 1581 A) Avant de mourir. Tango (G. Boulanger) Orchestra Georges Boulanger

Vox 01868 (mx. 1883 A) Ecarté. One-Step (G. Boulanger) / (2162 A) Erika. Foxtrot (G. Boulanger) Orchestra Georges Boulanger

Vox 01953 (mx. 2428 A) cigarette song from “Der Orlow” (B. Granichstaedten) Orchestra Georges Boulanger

Vox 06262 (mx. 2294 A) Ein Traum am Cap (Fr. Harras) Boulanger-Trio (violin, cello, piano)

Vox 06354 (mx. 1651 AA) Kaddish. Ghetto-Lied (O. Stransky / O. Stransky, K. Robitschek) Georges Boulanger, violin, with piano.

1.2. Concert Jazz Orchestra Boulanger:

Vox 8451 E (mx. 1727 BB) Bye Bye Blackbird. Fox Trot (Dixon - Henderson) “Boulanger's Jazz Orchestra”.

Vox 8452 E (mx. 1728 BB) Mitropa. Fox Trot (G. Boulanger, arr. H. Biek) Concert Jazz Orchestra Boulanger.

Vox 8513 E (mx. 1624 BB) Fox Orientale (G. Boulanger, arr. H. Biek) Concert Jazz Orchestra Boulanger.

Vox 8513 E (mx. 1818.1 BB) Slow Fox-Trot (G. Boulanger, arr. H. Biek) Concert Jazz Orchestra Boulanger.

Vox 8597 E (mx. 2257 BB) Nice Girl. Charleston (G. Boulanger, arr. H. Biek), open. Berlin, late 1927

2. on Odeon / Parlophone (Lindström)

Georges Boulanger with his orchestra:

Parlophone B.97313-I (mx. 11010) Two guitars. Russian romance. Music: Iwan Malcaroff. George Boulanger with a reinforced Hungarian Gypsy Orchestra. June 1936.

O-25621 b (mx. Be 11069) Boulanger-Fox (G. Boulanger) Georges Boulanger with his orchestra. Oct. 1935.

O-31291 a (mx. Be 11931) Da Capo! Bravour Foxtrot (Boulanger) Georges Boulanger with his dance orchestra. Berlin, February 1938.

O-31381 b (mx. Be 12140) What a gypsy feels. Tango and Czárdás from the Metropol-Theater-Operetta "Melodie der Nacht" (Ludwig Schmidseder) Georges Boulanger with his orchestra. Berlin, November 1938.

3. on Telefunken:

Georges Boulanger with his orchestra:

A 1606 (mx. 19585) Africa! Negerlied (Boulanger) Georges Boulanger with his orchestra.

A 1628 (mx. 19586) Leave me alone (Let me alone!). Slow-Fox (G. Boulanger) Georges Boulanger with his orchestra. 1934.

A 1693 (mx. 19742) Avant de mourir. Serenade (G. Boulanger) Georges Boulanger with piano accompaniment.

A 1775 (mx. 20372) Sometimes like this, sometimes like that (comme çi, comme ça) (Georges Boulanger) Solo violin Georges Boulanger. On the piano: Oskar Jerochnik.

My prayer

One of his most popular songs is My Prayer , which he originally composed in 1926 under the title Avant de mourir . In 1939, Jimmy Kennedy wrote a version that was subsequently played by numerous bands and interpreters, including Glenn Miller and Houston Person in America, Boulou Ferré in France, and Svend Asmussen and Kurt Widmann in Germany. The melody experienced a successful revival in 1956 by the Doo Wop band The Platters , which thus reached first place in the charts. In the movie “ The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ”, her version was heard in 2008 as the title song.

Filmography

Boulanger's compositions were partly used as film music, and he himself also appeared in several films.

  • 1931/1932 Hello Hello! This is Berlin speaking!
  • 1931/1932 The great Bomberg
  • 1934/1935 Punks comes from America
  • 1935 The violin beckons [short sound film, 2 acts, 460 meters, 17 min.]
  • 1936 The girl Irene
  • 1941 Always ... you!
  • 1942/1943 The eternal sound
  • 1982 It went day and night, dear child. Documentary (music)
  • 1984-87 The wrong word. Documentary (music)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ . Literally "lute player", today more like a member of a professional musicians' association, "professional musician", cf. en.wiki
  2. ↑ so Ewan2 (discussion) 02:53, 11 Jul. 2014 (CEST) with reference to Cosma, Viorel: Lăutarii de ieri i de azi, Editura "Du Style", București (ediția a II-a, 1996), chapter via George Boulanger, pages 251-265.
  3. ↑ so at Bosey & Hakwes / Bote & Bock, PDF
  4. ↑ for the record company he wrote z. B. a "Vox-Boston", which he recorded in trio on April 15, 1924 on Vox 1601 (mx. 1740 A).
  5. ↑ cf. Vox Online Discography ; after the collapse of the Vox in 1928, a few matrices continued to be published on the "crystal" label, e.g. B. 1651-AA Kaddisch on crystal No. 05055.
  6. ↑ so at Bosey & Hakwes / Bote & Bock, PDF
  7. ↑ listen on youtube
  8. ↑ listen on youtube
  9. ↑ listen on youtube
  10. ↑ listen on youtube
  11. ↑ listen on youtube
  12. ↑ listen on youtube
  13. ↑ listen on youtube
  14. ↑ listen on youtube
  15. ↑ listen on youtube
  16. ↑ electr. Recording on Telefunken A 1693 (mx. 19742) to be heard on youtube
  17. ↑ Tom Lord : Jatt Discography (online)
  18. ↑ cf. rockhall.com
  19. ↑ cf. IMDb
  20. ↑ about Gypsies (Sinti) in Auschwitz. Director: Katrin Seybold, cf. filmportal.de
  21. ↑ on reparations to Gypsies (Sinti) in Germany. Director: Katrin Seybold, cf. filmportal.de
personal data
SURNAME Boulanger, Georges
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pantazi, Gheorghe (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Romanian violinist, conductor and composer
DATE OF BIRTH April 18, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Tulcea
DATE OF DEATH June 3, 1958
Place of death Buenos Aires