Gerhard Mohr
Gerhard Mohr (born October 13, 1901 in Glatz ; † December 10, 1979 in Wiesbaden ) was a German composer and arranger of dance and upscale light music.
Life
Gerhard Mohr was born into a music-loving family and grew up in the spirit of classical music tradition. His father taught him to read music and play the violin. At an early age he conducted the school orchestra and composed an operetta that was performed at the Liegnitz City Theater.
In 1920 Gerhard Mohr went to Leipzig and studied composition and piano at the local conservatory. When he was forced to drop out of his studies as a result of the inflation, he took up employment at the Leipzig music publisher CA Klemm and played in various ensembles.
In the early 1920s, Germany was first visited by famous American and English orchestras. They brought a new sound to the music scene. Gerhard Mohr was fascinated by these new rhythms and by the new use of the saxophone . In self-study he became familiar with the new way of playing the saxophone and the work of American master arrangers. He moved to Berlin in 1930 and played the saxophone and piano as a multi-instrumentalist in various jazz bands. He mastered string and wind instruments and occasionally stepped in as a drummer.
The best European big bands jazzed in “Femina”, “Delphi”, “Faun” or “ Kakadu ”. From England came z. B. Jack Hylton . Its music, strongly influenced by American jazz, corresponded to the then modern sense of time. The so-called hotel jazz developed, in which top German bands played for five o'clock tea.
Gerhard Mohr as arranger
Familiar with questions of style and the tastes of the public, Gerhard Mohr began to write arrangements for his Kapellmeister . Since 1930 he has been writing special arrangements for his orchestra leader Oskar Joost . These arrangements gave his band a typical and characteristic sound.
He orchestrated many music tracks for recordings and gave film melodies by Werner Bochmann, Peter Kreuder, Franz Grothe, Theo Mackeben, Friedrich Schröder and Leo Leux for the "Salon Orchestra" sheet music that was printed by the millions.
Compositions
His first own compositions Twilight Comes and Hot Serenade were published in 1929 by Benjamin Verlag in Paris. In 1933 Standard-Verlag published his well-known title Orientexpress , which the conductor James Kok regularly performed in the finale of his stage show. Gerhard Mohr composed instrumental pieces such as the Moorish March , Night Express to Warsaw or Sailor Ball on Batavia . His Paso doble Man shouldn't play with fire has long been part of the repertoire of circus and vaudeville bands.
Gerhard Mohr's most popular work remained the chanson, published by Dreiklag Verlag in Berlin in 1935, When tender music, one can dream wonderfully . Greta Keller recorded it on Telefunken records in the same year. Later there were recordings with Horst Winter , Rudi Schuricke and Gerhard Wendland .
The war and post-war period
Gerhard Mohr had to do military service, was able to lead the dance orchestra at the Milan soldier broadcaster for a while, but was posted to the front in 1944.
At the end of the war, Gerhard Mohr was taken prisoner in England. Gerhard Mohr founded a literary cabaret ensemble with Peter Hirche . Its performances were so successful in the camp that Mohr and Hirche stayed together even after they were released from captivity. They called themselves "The 10 Mohralists" and trundled through towns and villages. They occurred in all three western zones of occupation. Two singers with stage experience joined the ensemble. The music Gerhard Mohr wrote for them was still an essential part of the program. The chansonette Ly Peters would later become his second wife.
The Wiesbaden years
During the war, Gerhard Mohr had lost his apartment in Berlin and all of his property in a bomb attack. After the currency reform , he looked for a suitable place to live for himself and his family and decided to move to Wiesbaden . He mainly worked for the radio orchestras that were still in existence at almost all German radio stations at the time , for which he composed his own kind of upscale entertainment music.
Recordings were made with the WDR Radio Orchestra under the conductor Franz Marszalek and the Cologne dance and entertainment orchestra Adalbert Luczkowski . In 1951 his Mediterranean Suite ( Suite Mediterranea ) for large orchestra was awarded a prize by the Stuttgart broadcaster. His concert pieces were also part of promenade and spa orchestras. Wiesbadener Kurmusik was the name of a composition from 1953. The Andalusian Rhapsody , the Overture Auf Westkurs and the Rhapsodic Concerto for Cello and Orchestra were also written during this period .
In Wiesbaden, Gerhard Mohr met the accordion virtuoso and teacher at the Wiesbaden Conservatory Dietmar Walther . A close friendship grew and Gerhard Mohr found a strong sympathy for accordion music. In 1953 he wrote the B minor concerto for accordion and orchestra for Walther . Recordings were made for WDR with the WDR Symphony Orchestra under Hermann Hagestedt , for the Dutch Symphony Orchestra Hilversum, for the SWF Entertainment Orchestra under Emmerich Smolla , the Munich Radio Orchestra under Werner Schmidt-Boelcke and the Radio Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt / Main.
The friendship with Dietmar Walther is still the driving force behind Gerhard Mohr's compositions for accordion orchestras.
Gerhard Mohr was also a member of GEMA's supervisory board . He advocated modern copyright law to protect the interests of composers, arrangers, lyricists and music publishers.
Gerhard Mohr died on December 10, 1979 at the age of 78 in Wiesbaden.
Works
Works for accordion orchestra
- 1953 Concerto in B minor for accordion and orchestra
- 1954 Florentine concert
- 1955 (Silesian) Heimatbilder
- By the dark stream
- Ridge hike
- Through wide land (Rondo)
- 1956 Japanese tea song (Intermezzo)
- 1957 Nordic sonata in three movements
- Allegro moderato
- Andante tranquillo
- Allegro molto
- 1961 Fantasia Iberica
- 1962 Balkan Impression
- 1964 Manhattan boogie
- 1965 Concerto Barocco in two movements
- undated Finnish polka
literature
- Frank, Altmann : Concise Tonkünstler Lexicon. Reprint of the 1936 edition, 15th edition 1983, Heinrichhofen's Verlag Wilhelmshafen, Locarno, Amsterdam, ISBN 3-7959-0083-2 , p. 404.
- Prize : Music and theater life in the city and district of Glatz. 1st part, City of Glatz. Ed. City of Lüdenscheid, 1967.
- Booklet for the CD Gerhard Mohr of the Dutch accordion orchestra "Accordeonvereniging RAC Bennekom", 2006.
- Völmecke : The big time of film hits in: SIKORSKI magazine Quarterly magazine from Sikorski music publishers, 03/2005.
- Booklet for the CD With tender music ... The most beautiful melodies by Gerhard Mohr in the original sound of the thirties , cover text by Stephan Mohr (son of Gerhard Mohr), 1994 (?).
Individual evidence
- ^ Prize : Music and theater life in the city and district of Glatz. 1st part, City of Glatz. Ed. City of Lüdenscheid, 1967.
- ↑ Booklet for the CD Gerhard Mohr of the Dutch accordion orchestra "Accordeonvereniging RAC Bennekom", 2006.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mohr, Gerhard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German composer and arranger |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 13, 1901 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bald |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 10, 1979 |
| Place of death | Wiesbaden |