Leopold Krauss-Elka

Leopold Krauss-Elka (also Kraus-Elka , Krauss-Elka ; born March 4, 1891 in Vienna ; † July 3, 1964 there ) was an Austrian composer.

Life

Krauss-Elka was born in Vienna in 1891, lived there at Lindengasse 29 and was a composer of Viennese songs, dance and pop music. He worked several times with well-known composer and copywriter colleagues of his time such as Kurt Schwabach , Hermann Leopoldi , Bruno Uher and Peter Herz . Since 1924 he was a member of the artists' union and the AKM .

Leopold Krauss-Elka was a participant in both world wars. Together with around 1000 other Jewish refugees, he came under the protection of the Italian army from Split / Croatia to Tarzo / Italy in 1941 , where he was interned. Krauss-Elka was organist in the parish church of Corbanese (Veneto region), composed works for organ and taught. In 1943 he was able to escape and reached the city of Sorrento via San Marino . There he founded a band with other refugees and performed in night clubs. After 1945 he was able to continue his work as a composer of light music, again in Austria and still with success.

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Leopold Krauss-Elka was not just the homely writer of Viennese songs. Occasionally his compositions have a parodistic or cabaret character and also show a time-critical reference. B. the two song hits, in which the current housing shortage in Vienna is discussed, or songs that allude to current personalities in public life.

He went down in the recent history of modern music theater with a dance music composition which, according to several literary scholars , should have inspired Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill to give the title of their 'song play' "Mahagonny" at the end of the 1920s . It was the hit "Komm 'nach Mahagonne", an "African Shimmy", which he - with the text of OA Alberts - published in 1922. Brecht and Weill then used the name again in the title of their opera " Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny ".

Both Shimmy and Brecht / Weills songspiel are about escapism, about escaping from unsatisfactory circumstances into an exotic better world. However, if you look at the sheet music title from 1922, skeptical thoughts creep in, because “paradise” is not seen as heavenly: the giraffe has a knot in its long neck, the emigrant couple leans against it - a cactus on which In addition to the colorful tropical birds, there is also a leopard who is already opening its mouth ... The composition therefore belongs to the traditional line of ironic-mocking songs of the 1920s.

Works

• Bambuleika! Song and foxtrot. Music: Hermann Leopoldi, Leopold Krauss-Elka, text: Wauwau. 1928. (ÖNB MS14452-4 ° Mus 9.14)
• “For your money” marching song ad the same. Jansen Jacobs-Revue. Text by Richard Rillo. Music by Krauss-Elka. Wiener Boheme Verlag, Vienna. 1928.
• “I have an uncle in Grinzing”. Wienerlied. Music / Text: Bruno Uher, Peter Herz, Leopold Kraus-Elka. Artist: Hans Moser. Year: 1953.
• "Come to mahogany" African shimmy. Words from OA Alberts. Music by Krauss-Elka. Figaro-Verlag Vienna 1922.
• “Goodbye, that was the last kiss. Tango (Gustav Beer, music: Leopold Krauss-Elka) December 21, 1937. E for 54 124; Josef Weinberger, Vienna ”.
• "My dog ​​bites every pretty woman in the leg". Song and foxtrot. Text by Kurt Schwabach. Music by Krauss-Elka and Kurt Schwabach. Edition Meisel & Co. Berlin. 1930.
• “Does it always have to be the same with love?” Authors: Leopold Krauss-Elka, Fritz Grünbaum (text) Verlag Bonbonniere, 1923. 3 pages,
• "Why are you not like other women ...?" Valse Boston. Authors: Krauss-Elka, Leopold (music); Katscher, Robert (text). Vienna u. a. Melodia music publ. c. 1923. 3 pp.
• “Housing office shimmy” (I need a cabinet!) By Leopold Krauss-Elka, text by Peter Herz. Vienna 1922.

Audio documents

• Come to mahogany - African Shimmy (Krauss-Elka) artist band Jenö Fesca - Homocord B.8150 (M 50 842) [15] - 1924
• Come to Mahogany - African Shimmy (Krauss-Elka) Dance Orchestra Alberti. Gramophone 19 083 (mx. 1139 as) - 1924

• Bambuleika. Lied and Foxtrot (Herm. Leopoldi, Krauss and [sic] Elka) Text: Wauwau. Dajos Béla dance orchestra. Odeon O-2459 a (A 45 467) (Be 6804) - 1928

• My dog ​​bites every pretty woman in the leg. Lied and Foxtrot (L. Krauss-Elka and Kurt Schwabach) Fred Bird Rhythmicans, with vocals: Luigi Bernauer. Homocord 4-3589-II (H-62 623) - 1930
• My dog ​​bites every pretty woman in the leg. Lied and Foxtrot (L. Krauss-Elka and Kurt Schwabach) Bernard Etté, with vocals: Kurt Mühlhardt. Crystal No. (C) - 1930

literature

• Franziska Ernst, Hermann Leopoldi: Biography of a Jewish-Austrian entertainer and composer. Diploma thesis, Vienna 2010, p. 152. (online PDF)
• Nils Grosch (Hrsg.): Aspects of modern music theater in the Weimar Republic. Waxmann Verlag, Münster 2004.
• Alan Lareau: Jonny's Jazz: From Cabaret to Krenek. In: Michael J. Budds (Ed.): Jazz & the Germans: Essays on the Influence of "hot" American Idioms on 20th century German Music. Pendragon Press Series, 2002, pp. 19-60. Here: p. 47 and note 33. (= Monographs an Bibliographies in American Music No. 17)
• Andreas Merighi: Change in the musical taste of the Austrian youth from 1900 to 1950. 1st edition. GRIN Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-638-68520-7 , p. 51.
• Esbjörn Nyström: Libretto in Progress. Brecht and Weill's rise and fall of the city of Mahagonny from a textual historical perspective. 1st edition. Lang, Peter, Bern 2005, ISBN 3-03910-479-9 , p. 34, notes 80–84, and 162.
• Christian Schär: Schlager and its dances in Germany in the 20s. Zurich 1991.
• Nancy Thuleen: America and Americanism in the Mahagonny Song Game. 1996 (online)
• The name Mahagonny. In: Christine Wolf, Karin Michel: The rise and fall of the city of Mahagonny. (Sources. “African Shimmy Come to Mahogany (Text: OA Alberts, Music: Leopold Krauss-Elka)”) (online) (PDF; 140 kB)
• Gregg Wager: "The origin of the word" Mahagonny "is unclear: one possible source is a 1922 song by Leopold Krauss-Elka and OA Alberts," Komm nach Mahagonne! " ... or it could have also been inspired by the Biblical city of Magog. Mahagonny, as a run-amok town in Alaska, partly symbolizes Berlin during its hyperinflation of the 1920s, but draws influence from Jack London's stories and Charlie Chaplin's The Goldrush (1925) ”. (on-line)
• Hubert Wißkirchen: Materials for the Central High School Music 2010 NRW. November 29, 2008.

Web links

• Literature by and about Leopold Krauss-Elka in the catalog of the German National Library
• Catalog raisonné Leopold Kraus-Elka in the archive of the Orpheus Trust.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. Orpheus Trust, musicians [1]
2. ↑ z. B. I have an uncle in Grinzing (with Bruno Uher and Peter Herz), cf. [2] , On Stephansplatz, where the bus stops, Wienerlied and Slowfox, Phöbus-Verlag Hans Poddany, Vienna 1933, or Der Wein is Lei'wand…, Wienerlied, Edition Bristol, Vienna, EB 221, 1936, cf. [3]
3. ↑ z. B. I believed in you ..., Lied and English Walz, Wiener Bohême-Verlag, Vienna (AJB 9492) c1930, or: My lady, how about the two of us? Lied und Tango, Rekord-Verlag, Vienna (RV 12) c1934.
4. ↑ z. B. Zillertal-Fox (Text: Kurt Schwabach) [4]
5. ↑ Max Berol-Konorah had created the first European artists' union, including Siegmund Breitbart, Billy Jenkins , Houdini among the world's best artists and the Blumenfeld, Salamonsky and Strasbourg circuses among the most important German-Jewish circus companies. See archived copy ( Memento from April 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
6. ↑ Austrian Music lexicon [5]
7. ↑ cf. Giuseppe Borsoi [6] “Nel dettaglio gli elenchi riguardano i sindaci reggenti la comunità di Tarzo dal 1866 (Giuseppe Baldo) al 1995 (opposing Alberto Dalla Bona); i caduti e dispersi di tutte le guerre dal 1896 al 1945, figli di queste terre; i caduti del periodo controverso della Resistenza 1944-1945; i 15 ebrei internati, tra il 1941 e il 1943, presso l'albergo Venezia di Tarzo (tra cui il celebre compositore viennese Leopold Krauss Elka). "
8. ↑ z. B. O Sanctissima, Hymne, 1943. Domine non sum dignus, Hymne, 1943, cf. Orpheus Trust Notes [7]
9. ↑ cf. his post-war compositions “Auf Capri”, Tango, Ludwig Doblinger, Vienna (D 9613) c1957. “I don't give a damn about all taxes!”, Pfeif- u. Schunkelwalzer, Doblinger c1958. "Simmering", Wiener Foxtrot, Doblinger c1959
10. ↑ He did not shrink back from “sacrilege” either, cf. z. B. Thannhäuser Foxtrot, op. 33, Song to the Morning Star, Mignon-Verlag, Berlin (MV 312) approx. 1921 [8]
11. ↑ cf. My dog ​​bites every pretty woman in the leg, Foxtrot, Edition Meisel Berlin, (AJB 9492) 1930.
12. ↑ I need a cabinet! Housing office shimmy by Leopold Krauss-Elka, text by Peter Herz. Vienna 1922. Get me an apartment! Lied and Foxtrot by Leopold Krauss-Elka, Figaro-Verlag, Vienna approx. 1925.
13. ↑ cf. "Yes, if I were ... Castiglioni ", song and blues by Leopold Krauss-Elka, Melodia Musikverlag, Vienna (MMV 149) around 1924, who names the Italian-Austrian industrialist, stock market speculator and pioneer of Austrian aviation Camillo Castiglioni
14. ↑ so z. B. Christine Wolf, Karin Michel: The rise and fall of the city of Mahagonny. , Esbjörn Nyström: Libretto in Progress. Brecht and Weill's rise and fall of the city of Mahagonny from a textual historical perspective. 1st edition. Lang, Peter, Bern 2005, Gregg Wager: "The origin of the word 'Mahagonny' is unclear"
15. ↑ on this designation and on other Americanisms in the piece cf. Nancy Thuleen: America and Americanism in the Mahagonny Song Game. 1996
16. ↑ Brecht / Weill's 'Songspiel' from 1927 even contains a song with the title “Auf nach Mahagonny!”, Which seems to be based directly on the Shimmy text by OA Alberts in its prompting gesture, cf. [9]  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
17. ↑ on the origin cf. Shimmy (dance) : “Shimmy contains African dance relics. So the shaking of the shoulders, the bending of the whole body and the knock knees come from the dances of former slave workers in the USA and South America. "
18. ↑ The three-act opera “Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny” by Brecht and Weill was written 1928–1929, cf. [10]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
19. ↑ on fashion dance at the beginning of the 1920s cf. [11] "Dances of Time: Shimmy", and archived copy ( Memento from May 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Shimmy Royal: "The new dances had African and American roots and broke with European dance tradition." , Christian Schär: Schlager and its dances in Germany in the 20s. Zurich 1991
20. ↑ cf. Hubert Wißkirchen Materials for the Central High School Music 2010 NRW., November 29, 2008 ( PDF ) pp. 6, 9-11.
21. ↑ d. i. Theodor Waldau , origin. Dorku Goldberg (1881–1942)
22. ↑ cf. [12]
23. ↑ cf. Catalog of copyright entries: Musical compositions, Part 3 of: Library of Congress. Copyright Office, p. 670 [13]
24. ↑ cf. [14]