Werner R. Heymann

Werner Richard Heymann ( born February 14, 1896 in Königsberg, † May 30, 1961 in Munich) was a German composer and conductor. He is considered one of the most important music creators of the Weimar Republic.

Life and work

His first music lessons gave him Max Brode, the head of Königsberg Philharmonic. At the age of 12 years Heymann joined the orchestra as a violinist on. In 1912 he moved to Berlin with his parents. There he attended the Royal Academy of Music; his teacher was Paul Juon. After the outbreak of the First World War he was for a short time - until the disease conditional release - Soldier.

After a short stay in Vienna, he began as a composer with various Berlin cabarets cooperate, including the cabaret " Schall und Rauch ", whose director at the time was Max Reinhardt. Heymann took over the management of the cabaret. Mid-1920s, he stepped through mediation by Erich Pommer to the position of Assistant to the General Music Director of the UFA. A short time later, in 1926, he went himself to the music director. His area of ​​responsibility in this position included the compositions and arrangements of silent films. The replacement of the silent film by the talkies came Heymann given his musical background very accommodating and laid the foundation for his later works, with which he should gain worldwide recognition.

1933 was terminated him because of his Jewish ancestry from the UFA. He went into exile; first to Paris, then he tried to find a new home in Hollywood and workplace, but this failed. He therefore returned to Paris and went to London later. End of the 30s he went a second time in the United States. This time he succeeded in remaining there. In Hollywood, he composed with great success numerous soundtracks, including for the Ernst Lubitsch films Ninotchka with Greta Garbo and be or not. He was several times nominated for an Oscar, including for the soundtrack for the film Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, produced in cooperation with Friedrich Hollaender.

In 1951 he returned to Germany, where he was still devoted to composing. He married in fourth marriage, the actress Elisabeth Millberg with which he had one daughter, Elisabeth Charlotte Trautwein Heymann ( born November 3, 1952), was given. Heymann died in Munich in 1961. He's ( New section) buried in the Munich Forest Cemetery.

His compositional works are very extensive and varied. They include operettas, stage works, film music, cabaret music, Pop music, chansons and comedies. He also set to music texts by Robert Gilbert, Walter Mehring, Kurt Tucholsky, Leo Heller and many others. The greatest level of awareness reached his film scores; as interpreters were, inter alia, Lilian Harvey, Willy Fritsch, Heinz Rühmann, Paul Hörbiger, Hans Albers and the Comedian Harmonists in appearance.

Works (selection)

Operettas

• Florestan I, Prince de Monaco
• Trente et Quarante

Incidental music

• The conversion
• The mission Samuels
• Artists
• The Blue Angel
• Rhapsodische Symphony

Film scores

• A friend, a good friend
• Darling, my heart greets you
• Dear good Mr. Bailiff
• Hello you sweet woman
• First comes a big question mark

• Do not ask how
• You brought me into the house secretly love

• This must be a piece of heaven (after a tune of the waltz My resume is love and lust by Josef Strauss)
• The There's only one that comes not again
• Beautiful life

• When the wind blows
• This is the love of the sailors
• A Night in Monte Carlo
• The Ki Ka Queen of Ponte Nero

• Oops now I come
• There no other path leads to salvation

• Madame come and play with me

• Somewhere in the world
• We pay no rent more
• Once each schaffts
• Everything understand is, forgive everything

• If I go on Sundays in my cinema
• If you do not come
• We can not

• Season in Cairo
• I feel so I do not know how

• Ha Cha Cha
• Wine song

• It's in the Bag!

• Drunt am Neckar beach
• Sleep well, sweet dreams

• Today I gefall me
• The Song of the lonely girl

Trivia

Six years after his return Heymann applied in 1957 for the restoration of German citizenship. When Naturalization Service in Bavaria, he was then asked, among other things, whether he has knowledge of the German culture and, for example, can sing a German folk song. Then he should That can have only once intoned without losing a word about his authorship. Heymann received the German citizenship.