Oh, Donna Clara

Oh, Donna Clara is the German title of a hit song composed in Warsaw in 1928 . The music comes from Jerzy Petersburski , the text from 1930 by Fritz Löhner-Beda .

history

The Warsaw composer and orchestra leader Jerzy Petersburski wrote the piece in 1928, initially as an instrumental piece entitled Tango Milonga for the music revue Warszawa w kwiatach (Warsaw in Flowers). The first, Polish text comes from Andrzej Włast , b. Gustav Baumritter, who came from a Polish-Jewish family and died in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942/43 . In this version, the song was performed in the Warsaw cabaret Morskie Oko by the then well-known tango singer Stanisława Nowicka . In 1929 a record was recorded on Syrena Records with the orchestra of violinist Henryk Gold , a brother of Artur Gold and cousin Petersburski. A German instrumental version appeared on January 30, 1930 with the Julian Fuhs Orchestra in Berlin .

In 1930 Petersburski gave a concert in Vienna with his orchestra , where he performed his Tango Milonga , among other things . Thereupon the Viennese Bohême Verlag acquired the performance rights with the agreement that the title may be changed and commissioned Fritz Löhner-Beda with the creation of a German text. The piece then became known worldwide under its title Oh, Donna Clara . On March 31, 1930, the piece was recorded under the new title by the John Morris jazz orchestra with Alfred Behrens as the singer. An English version appeared in London in November 1930, sung by Georges Metaxa with Ray Noble & his New Mayfair Orchestra ; the English text by Irving Caesar and Jimmy Kennedy largely followed the German one.

composition

Musical structure

The piece consists of a 16- bar part in A minor and a 32-bar part in A major . Both follow the AABA scheme. In the minor part, a melancholic melody carried by a violin, which begins with a delay, leads downwards to the dominant , is repeated somewhat with variations, brightens to a short passage in the parallel in C major and then falls back into the original minor mood. A radiant upward A-major chord of an accordion passes thereafter in the main part, the first subject is also repeated. His second theme leads back to the main theme in A major via F sharp minor and E major.

Later versions

The later arrangements usually have an 8-bar instrumental introduction that anticipates the main theme. The German text Löhner-Bedas tells in a self-ironic way of the emotional world of a German petty bourgeois, whose erotic dreams are exposed in the closing punchline as an art world staged by the hit industry , in which he is both perpetrator and victim. This phrase is missing in the English version.

Recordings

literature

Barbara Denscher and Helmut Peschina : No land of smiles. Fritz Löhner-Beda 1883–1942 . Residenzverlag Salzburg, Vienna, Frankfurt / Main 2002, ISBN 3-7017-1302-2 .