Ludwig Schmidseder

Ludwig Schmidseder (born 24 August, 1904, in Passau; died 21 June, 1971, in Munich) was a German composer and pianist of the "Light Muse". Several of his Schlager compositions are still popular tunes today.

The young Schmidseder followed his father's wishes and trained as a banker, whilst taking piano lessons in secret. He furthered his musical education at the Munich Conservatorium, then left for South America in 1926, ending up in Rio de Janeiro. Starting out as a dishwasher, he went on to become an entertainer and play in a trio on ocean cruises. Schmidseder composed music for the trio, and developed into a virtuoso piano player.

From 1930 he worked in Berlin, composing film music, creating operettas and writing more than 500 songs, some of which became much-loved hits. He moved from being a bar pianist (until 1936) to being the house composer at the old Berlin Metropol-Theatre. His operetta "Die Oder Keine" ("That One or No One") was performed more than 600 times.

Schmidseder was not Jewish, and so his music was not banned from being performed by the Nazi campaign to abolish "decandent" music. Given that many operetta composers were Jewish, and thus unable to perform their works, Schmidseder became one of the most popular German composers of light music at the time.

After World War II, Schmidseder continued to compose film music and appear in films. The corpulent cook would later became famous as a TV cook and produced a book of recipes.

Selected works

Operettas

*1938 - "Melodie der Nacht" ("Melody of the Night")
*1939 - "Die oder keine" ("That One or No One") (premiered on 20 March, 1939, in the Berlin Metropol Theatre)
*1940 - "Frauen im Metropol" ("Women in the Metropol") (premiered on 27 September, 1940, in the Berlin Metropol Theatre)
*1949 - "Abschiedswalzer" ("Farewell Waltzes") (premiered on 8 September, 1949, in Vienna; libretto by Hubert Marischka and Rudolf Österreicher)

Schlager

*"Gitarren spielt auf" (1934, text by Ralph Maria Siegel) ("Strike Up Guitars")
*"Ich trink den Wein nicht gern allein" ("I Prefer Not To Drink Wine Alone")
*"I hab die schönen Maderln net erfunden" (1938, text by Theo Prosel) ("I Have Not Found The Pretty Girls")
*"Komm doch in meine Arme" ("Come To My Arms")
*"Ein kleines weißes Haus" ("A Small White House")
*"Tango Marina"

ources

Much of the content of this article comes from [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Schmidseder the equivalent German-language wikipedia article] (retrieved September, 2007).

External links

* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0772781/ Ludwig Schmidseder IMDb profile]