Leon Essel ( German: Leon Jessel ; January 22, 1871 , Stettin , Pomerania - January 4, 1942 , Berlin ) - German composer . He wrote works in the genre of operetta and light music . He gained fame as the author of the comic "Parade of wooden (tin) soldiers" ( en: The Parade of the Tin Soldiers ). The march gained popularity due to the fact that he appeared in one of the Disney cartoons along with poems in English. He wrote several hundred works for the orchestra and piano, including songs, waltzes, mazurkas, marches, choral works, etc.
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Essel's individual works are popular in the United States, but in Germany they have been almost forgotten since the Nazis came to power.
Content
- 1 Youth
- 2 Persecution in Nazi Germany
- 3 notes
- 4 Literature
- 5 Links
Youth
Born into the family of Jewish businessman Samuel Essel and his American wife Mary. At the age of 23 years, in 1894, he converted to Christianity. In the same year, the premiere of his operetta “Matchmaking”, dedicated to his bride Clara Louise Grunewald, with which they married two years later, in 1896, premiered. In 1909, his daughter Eva Maria Elizabeth was born (1909-1963, married Ryoken, worked as an artist), and in 1911 the family moved to Berlin . In 1919, his first marriage ended in divorce. In 1921, he married Anna Gerholdt, who was 19 years younger than him.
Essel's biggest success was the operetta The Girl from the Black Forest ( en: Schwarzwaldmädel ), first performed in August 1917 at the Berlin Comic Opera.
Persecution in Nazi Germany
Having broken with the Jewish environment, Essel became a German nationalist, often wrote songs and marches of ultra-patriotic content. In the early 1930s. He was a supporter of the Nazi party, in 1932 he personally met with Goebbels, and his wife joined the NSDAP the same year [4] . However, after the Nazis came to power, Essel was gradually squeezed out of all posts, and his music was banned from performing in 1933. In 1937, he was expelled from the Imperial Chamber of Music.
The wife refused to divorce him and was soon expelled from the NSDAP. In this connection, in 1941 the Gestapo searched his apartment and found a letter to the librettist William Shtork, where Essel expressed dissatisfaction with the Nazi policy towards Jews. On December 15, 1941, the 70-year-old composer was arrested and taken to the Gestapo . As a result of ill-treatment, he was admitted to the Jewish hospital still operating in Berlin , where he died on January 4, 1942. [5]
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 German National Library , Berlin State Library , Bavarian State Library , etc. Record # 119285517 // General regulatory control (GND) - 2012—2016.
- ↑ 1 2 BNF identifier : Open Data Platform 2011.
- ↑ 1 2 International Music Score Library Project - 2006.
- ↑ Jewish Fates - Jewish World - Central Jewish Resource. The site of Russian-speaking Jews around the world. Jewish news. Jewish surnames (inaccessible link)
- ↑ Biography at the University of Hamburg
Literature
- Dümling, Albrecht. Die verweigerte Heimat: Leon Jessel, der Komponist des "Schwarzwaldmädel" ( The Denied Homeland: Leon Jessel, Composer of "Black Forest Girl" ). Düsseldorf: Der kleine Verlag, 1992.
- Grundmann, Martina. “Zeitgeschichte: Das widersprüchliche Leben des Komponisten Leon Jessel.” Junge Freiheit . October 29, 1999.
- Grainger page
Links
- http://sem40.ru/evroplanet/destiny/24105/ (inaccessible link)
- "The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers"
- Schwarzwaldmädel (excerpts)
- Schwarzwaldmädel ( Black Forest Girl ) Brief synopsis and analysis
- Jessel's operettas, operas, and musicals
- Leon Jessel at the Internet Movie Database
- Essel, Leon: sheet music at International Music Score Library Project
In German:
- Léon Jessel Data, biography, and links from the University of Hamburg
- Recordings and publications at the German National Library