Martin Böttcher
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, arranger
Arrangement
The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...
and conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
.
The beginning
Böttcher (on foreign records and articles often written "Bottcher" or "Boettcher", the latter being the correct transliteration of the German umlaut "ö") began taking piano lessons at an early age. But his first passion was flying, and he wanted to become a test pilot. Not yet seventeen years old, he got his military training in the German LuftwaffeLuftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
. However, due to lack of fuel, he never went into action.
As a prisoner of war, Böttcher managed to get hold of a guitar and taught himself to play it. Following his release from captivity, he went to Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
. There he started his musical career with the then Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk, in the dance and entertainment orchestra which had been newly founded by Willi Steiner, and which was held in high esteem in England.
At first, Böttcher concentrated on jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, and he became the number two guitarist in a German jazz poll. He also gained important experience as an arranger for film composers, among them Michael Jary
Michael Jary
Michael Jary was a German composer.- Early years :...
and Hans-Martin Majewski, for whom he arranged part of the music for Liebe '47.
Early years
In 1950, Böttcher, who liked to work on new sounds, recorded the first trick guitar pieces in Germany in the style of Les PaulLes Paul
Lester William Polsfuss —known as Les Paul—was an American jazz and country guitarist, songwriter and inventor. He was a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar which made the sound of rock and roll possible. He is credited with many recording innovations...
. In 1954, Böttcher left the music stand and turned to manuscript paper. His talent did not escape the attention of the German film industry, which was just gaining new momentum at that time.
Thanks to producer Artur Brauner, Böttcher made his cinematic debut in 1955, composing the music for the military satire Der Hauptmann und sein Held. His second film score turned out to be a milestone in German film history. Die Halbstarken directed by Georg Tressler and starring Horst Buchholz
Horst Buchholz
Horst Werner Buchholz was a German actor, remembered for his part in The Magnificent Seven and Nine Hours to Rama. He appeared in over sixty films during his acting career from 1952–2002.-Life and work:...
, met with tremendous success. Mr. Martin's Band comprised the top German jazz musicians, among them Horst Fischer, Fatty George, Bill Grah, Ernst Mosch and Hans 'James' Last
James Last
James Last is a German composer and big band leader. His "happy music" made his numerous albums best-sellers in Germany and the United Kingdom. His composition, "Happy Heart", became an international success in interpretations by Andy Williams and Petula Clark...
.
Böttcher also composed for Hans Albers
Hans Albers
Hans Philipp August Albers was a German actor and singer. He was the single biggest male movie star in Germany between 1930 and 1945 and one of the most popular German actors of the twentieth century.- Life and work :...
and Heinz Rühmann
Heinz Rühmann
Heinrich Wilhelm "Heinz" Rühmann was a popular German film actor.-Life and work:Rühmann was born in Essen, Westphalia. His role in the 1930 movie Die Drei von der Tankstelle led him to film stardom. He remained highly popular as a comedic actor throughout the 1930s and early 1940s...
's 'Father Brown
Father Brown
Father Brown is a fictional character created by English novelist G. K. Chesterton, who stars in 52 short stories, later compiled in five books. Chesterton based the character on Father John O'Connor , a parish priest in Bradford who was involved in Chesterton's conversion to Catholicism in 1922...
' movies. Max, der Taschendieb (1962) contained the track "Hawaii Tattoo" (recorded by "The Waikikis
The Waikikis
The Waikikis were a Belgian studio band, mostly known for their single "Hawaii Tattoo", released in the U.S. in 1964, on Kapp Records. "Hawaii Tattoo" was recorded in 1961 in Belgium and spent two months in the Belgian chart...
"), which Böttcher had written under the pseudonym of Michael Thomas. Within a short time, this theme became famous all over the world, and even received attention in the American Billboard charts
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...
.
The hit writer
Martin Böttcher found his greatest success in the 1960s composing the scoreFilm score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
for ten of the Karl May
Karl May
Karl Friedrich May was a popular German writer, noted mainly for adventure novels set in the American Old West, and similar books set in the Orient and Middle East . In addition, he wrote stories set in his native Germany, in China and in South America...
films, the first being Der Schatz im Silbersee with the famous "Old-Shatterhand-Melodie". The films starred, among many others, American actor Lex Barker
Lex Barker
Lex Barker was an American actor best known for playing Tarzan of the Apes and leading characters from Karl May's novels.-Early life:...
and British actor Stewart Granger
Stewart Granger
Stewart Granger was an English-American film actor, mainly associated with heroic and romantic leading roles. He was a popular leading man from the 1940s to the early 1960s rising to fame through his appearances in the Gainsborough melodramas.-Early life:He was born James Lablache Stewart in Old...
. The audience was enthusiastic about the wistful melodies, the fanfare-like music accompanying attacks, and the cheerful hillbilly tunes. Martin Böttcher's main themes from these films reached top positions in the German charts and sold thousands of records. The music for the Karl May films is a landmark in German film music history. The success of these films, accompanied by Böttcher's music, made possible the "Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's unique and much copied film-making style and international box-office success, so named by American critics because most were produced and...
s" with the music of Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI, , is an Italian composer and conductor, who wrote music to more than 500 motion pictures and television series, in a career lasting over 50 years. His scores have been included in over 20 award-winning films as well as several symphonic and choral pieces...
.
With the German film industry declining at the end of the 1960s Martin Böttcher increasingly focused on working for German TV, which benefited from his talents in many films and series produced for TV.
In the 1970s Martin Böttcher wrote a number of successful scores, among them music for the TV series Sonderdezernat K1
Sonderdezernat K1
Sonderdezernat K1 is a German television series....
and numerous episodes of Der Alte
Der Alte
"Der Alte" is German for "the old man" and can refer to:*the late German politician Konrad Adenauer*Der Alte, a long-running German television series*German physicist Albert Einstein...
and Derrick
Derrick (TV series)
Derrick is a German TV series produced by Telenova Film und Fernsehproduktion in association with ZDF, ORF and SRG between 1974 and 1998 about Detective Chief Inspector Stephan Derrick and his loyal assistant Inspector Harry Klein , who solve murder cases in Munich and surroundings Derrick is a...
, which are also known outside Germany. He again came in contact with the works of Karl May when he wrote the score for the 26-episode series Kara Ben Nemsi Effendi
Kara Ben Nemsi Effendi (TV series)
Kara Ben Nemsi Effendi was a German television series broadcast from 1973 through 1975. It featured a hero inspired by British explorer Sir Richard Burton .The protagonist was portrayed by Karl Michael Vogler...
. The writer of Der Illegale (a TV mini-series), Henry Kolarz, said, "Even if I spoilt it, Böttcher's music is much too good for everything to go wrong."
Throughout the following years Martin Böttcher composed yet more evergreen themes for TV-series, such as It can't always be caviar
Es muss nicht immer Kaviar sein (TV series)
Es muss nicht immer Kaviar sein is a TV adaption of a novel of the same name by Austrian author Johannes Mario Simmel. Directed by Thomas Engel Siegfried Rauch walks in the footsteps of O. W. Fischer who played the protagonist "Thomas Lieven" already in 1961, just one year after the bestseller ...
(1977), Schöne Ferien (Beautiful holidays) or Forsthaus Falkenau
Forsthaus Falkenau
Forsthaus Falkenau is a German television series....
. In the 1990s, among others, Air Albatros took off - a very special project for the composer, as he could pay a musical tribute to his passion for flying. And when Pierre Brice
Pierre Brice
Pierre Brice is a French actor, mainly known for his role as fictional Apache-chief Winnetou in German Karl May films.- Life and films :...
mounted his horse again as Winnetou
Winnetou
Winnetou is a fictional Native American hero of several novels written by Karl May in German, including the sequels Winnetou I through Winnetou IV....
for the ZDF
ZDF
Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...
television station, he was, of course, accompanied by a score by Martin Böttcher.
Even the Americans became aware of him as an arranger and orchestra director. When they heard his renditions of the world-famous themes "Tara's Theme" and "Theme from 'A Summerplace'", Martin Böttcher was made an honorary member of the Max Steiner
Max Steiner
Max Steiner was an Austrian composer of music for theatre productions and films. He later became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Trained by the great classical music composers Brahms and Mahler, he was one of the first composers who primarily wrote music for motion pictures, and as...
Society.
In 1998, the composer once more conquered the German charts. A band from Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, the "Superboys", scored a hit with a vocal version of the "Winnetou-Melodie" from the second Winnetou film. Their song "Ich wünscht' du wärst bei mir" ("Wish U Were Here") even reached the top of the ZDF television charts. Another cover version
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
by the Czech
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
group Těžkej Pokondr called "Vinetu" even received double-platinum
Music recording sales certification
Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...
in their country in March 2000.
The "master of tunes" was honoured in a very special way in 2002: as a jury member (Europäischer Förderpreis - a European talent award) Martin Böttcher represented Germany at that year's European Biennale
Biennale
Biennale is Italian for "every other year" and can be used to describe any event that happens every two years. It is most commonly used within the art world to describe an international manifestation of contemporary art, stemming for the use of the phrase for the Venice Biennale, which was first...
for Film Music in Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
.
Awards
- On October 9, 1995, the Deutsche Filmmusikpreise (German film music awards) were awarded at the BonnBonnBonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
er Bundeskunsthalle. Martin Böttcher was honoured with the prize for his "outstanding contribution to German film history, which shows in an abundant musical oeuvre"; he was the very first person to receive this prize (in later years also Mikis TheodorakisMikis TheodorakisMikis Theodorakis is one of the most renowned Greek songwriters and composers. Internationally, he is probably best known for his songs and for his scores for the films Zorba the Greek , Z , and Serpico .Politically, he identified with the left until the late 1980s; in 1989, he ran as an...
and Ennio Morricone were among the recipients).
- The continuous success of the Karl May melodies was the reason why, at the Karl May Festival in Bad Segeberg in 1997, Schacht Music Publishers honoured the tremendously successful composer with a "special award".
- On April 15, 2000, Martin Böttcher received the "Edgar WallaceEdgar WallaceRichard Horatio Edgar Wallace was an English crime writer, journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and playwright, who wrote 175 novels, 24 plays, and numerous articles in newspapers and journals....
Award in Gold" for his merits in German crime movies.
- On January 25, 2004 Martin Böttcher was awarded in St. Moritz the German Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Cross of Merit) for his lifetime achievement.
- On May 28, 2009 Martin Böttcher was honoured in Berlin with the Deutsche Musikautorenpreis (German music authors’ award), category "composition for films".
Literature
- Reiner Boller: Winnetou-Melodie - Martin Böttcher - Die Biographie. Gryphon Verlag, 2003, 200 Seiten, mit einem Vorwort von Pierre BricePierre BricePierre Brice is a French actor, mainly known for his role as fictional Apache-chief Winnetou in German Karl May films.- Life and films :...
. ISBN 3-896-024-442