Werner Schmidt-Boelcke

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Werner Schmidt-Boelcke (born July 28, 1903 in Warnemünde , † November 6, 1985 in Gauting ; born Werner Albert Anton Paul Schmidt ) was a German composer and conductor .

Life

The son of the concert pianist Alfred Schmidt (-Badekow) received piano lessons at his mother's academic music school during his high school years. At the age of 14 he took part in public school performances under the name Schmidt-Boelcke (after the name of his mother's second husband).

From 1920 he attended the Stern Conservatory in Berlin with the intention of becoming a concert pianist. After graduating in August 1923, Willy Schmidt-Gentner hired him as his second conductor. As a silent film conductor, he first worked at the Meinhardt-Bernauer-Bühnen in Berlin and then at the Phöbus-Palast in Munich.

In 1928 he became chief conductor of all cinemas of the Munich film company Emelka , at the same time he conducted around 50 films in the Capitol-Lichtspielhaus in Berlin during the silent film screening. He also wrote some of the original scores that were played in cinemas by orchestras or pianists. Also in 1928 he conducted for the first time for radio in the Vox House in Berlin.

In 1929 he composed the soundtrack for the first German sound film, I loved you . In 1934 he became 1st Kapellmeister at the Metropoltheater in Berlin, which from 1939 also included the Admiralspalast . Schmidt-Boelcke's main occupation here remained as a conductor until the end of the war. He helped many operettas to success, including in 1937 Fred Raymond's Mask in Blue and in 1940 Ludwig Schmidseder's Women in the Metropol . It was only after the theater was closed in 1944, when he was drafted into service with the Reichsrundfunk Berlin, that he composed film music again.

In 1945/46 he worked as Director of Light Music at Radio Hamburg under a British license, from 1947 he was conductor and head of the radio orchestra in Munich for the newly founded radio station Radio Munich, from which the Bayerischer Rundfunk later emerged. Until his retirement in 1968 he led the orchestra and often acted as a guest conductor at other broadcasters. He then worked mainly for the ZDF on the reconstruction or new version of old silent film music. Schmidt-Boelcke was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon in 1974 and in 1980 he received the Gold Film Ribbon for many years of excellent work in German film.

Schmidt-Boelcke left behind a large number of recordings with him as a conductor, including for the Odeon , Electrola and Eurodisc labels . He is buried in the Feldmoching cemetery.

Filmography

literature

  • Heiko Bockstiegel: Schmidt-Boelcke conducts. A musician's life between art and the media landscape . JL Grimm Wolfratshausen publishing house 1994.

Web links