Mischa Spoliansky
Encyclopedia
Mischa Spoliansky was a Russian-born composer and a long-term resident in Britain.

Life

Spoliansky was born into a musical family in Białystok; his father was an opera singer and his sister would later become a pianist and his brother a cellist. After the birth of Mischa the family moved to Warsaw, and later Kalisz. After the early death of his mother, the family moved to Vienna.

Spoliansky's early musical education in piano, violin and cello was continued in Dresden under Prof. Mark Guensberg. At the age of ten Spoliansky made his public debut.

Shortly thereafter his father died and Spoliansky moved to Königsberg
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...

 (Prussia) where he had relatives. In 1914 however as a result of the war he had to flee to Berlin, where his brother worked as a cellist.

Spoliansky worked in a coffeehouse as a pianist in order to continue his musical education at the Stern'sches Konservatorium
Stern conservatory
The Stern Conservatory was a private music school in Berlin with many notable tutors and alumni.-History:It was originally founded in 1850 as the Berliner Musikschule by Julius Stern, Theodor Kullak and Adolf Bernhard Marx. Kullak withdrew from the conservatory in 1855 in order to create a new...

. Spoliansky's first compositions were played by the UFA
Universum Film AG
Universum Film AG, better known as UFA or Ufa, is a film company that was the principal film studio in Germany, home of the German film industry during the Weimar Republic and through World War II, and a major force in world cinema from 1917 to 1945...

-Filmtheaterorchester in Friedrichstraße. In addition he worked as a composer and pianist in a Russian émigré cabaret. There Victor Hollaender and Werner Richard Heymann heard him and invited him to write and play for the literary cabaret "Schall und Rauch" in the basement of the Große Schauspielhaus, which Max Reinhardt
Max Reinhardt
----Max Reinhardt was an Austrian theater and film director and actor.-Biography:...

 had founded in 1919. Spoliansky set the texts of Kurt Tucholsky
Kurt Tucholsky
Kurt Tucholsky was a German-Jewish journalist, satirist and writer. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Kaspar Hauser, Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger and Ignaz Wrobel. Born in Berlin-Moabit, he moved to Paris in 1924 and then to Sweden in 1930.Tucholsky was one of the most important journalists of...

, Klabund
Klabund
Alfred Henschke , better known by his pseudonym Klabund, was a German writer.-Life:Klabund, born Alfred Henschke in 1890 in Krossen, was the son of an apothecary. At the age of 16 he came down with tuberculosis, which the doctors initially misdiagnosed as pneumonia...

, Joachim Ringelnatz
Joachim Ringelnatz
Joachim Ringelnatz is the pen name of the German author and painter Hans Bötticher. His pen name Ringelnatz is usually explained as a dialect expression for an animal, possibly a variant of Ringelnatter, German for Grass Snake...

, and accompanied stars such as Gussy Holl, Paul O’Montis, Rosa Valetti
Rosa Valetti
Rosa Valetti , born Rosa Vallentin, was a German actress, cabaret performer and singer.- Biography :Rosa Valetti was born in Berlin, the daughter of industrialist Felix Vallentin and sister of actor Hermann Vallentin. She played her first roles in the theatres of suburban Berlin...

 and Trude Hesterberg
Trude Hesterberg
Trude Hesterberg was a German film actress. She appeared in 89 films between 1917 and 1964.-Selected filmography:* Sand, Love and Salt * The Divorcée * Alraune...

. In 1920 under the pseudonym „Arno Billing“ he composed the melody for the first homosexual anthem called Das lila Lied
Das Lila Lied
The Lavender Song is a cabaret song written in 1920 with lyrics by Kurt Schwabach and music by Mischa Spoliansky in Germany and is considered one of the first gay anthems.-History:...

, which he dedicated to Magnus Hirschfeld
Magnus Hirschfeld
Magnus Hirschfeld was a German physician and sexologist. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which Dustin Goltz called "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights."-Early life:Hirschfeld was born in Kolberg in a...

. It was published with other texts such as Sei meine Frau für vierundzwanzig Stunden.

In 1922 he met the poet Marcellus Schiffer and the Diseuse Margo Lion
Margo Lion (cabaret singer)
Margo Lion was a German chanson, parodist, cabaret singer and actress, best-known for her role as Pirate Jenny in director G.W. Pabst's 1931 French language adaptation of Bertol Brecht and Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera .She appeared in several French films until the early 1970s, including Docteur...

. He married the dancer Elsbeth (Eddy) Reinwald in the same year. In 1925 Spoliansky accompanied Richard Tauber
Richard Tauber
Richard Tauber was an Austrian tenor acclaimed as one of the greatest singers of the 20th century. Some critics commented that "his heart felt every word he sang".-Early life:...

 to the playing of the LP of Schuberts
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

's "Winterreise
Winterreise
Winterreise is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert , a setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two great song cycles on Müller's poems, the earlier being Die schöne Müllerin...

". In his Revue Es liegt in der Luft (text by Marcellus Schiffer) in 1928 Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...

 performed. One year later she would be "discovered" in Spoliansky's "Zwei Krawatten" (Text by Georg Kaiser
Georg Kaiser
Friedrich Carl Georg Kaiser, called Georg Kaiser, was a German dramatist.-Biography:Kaiser was born at Magdeburg....

) by Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg — born Jonas Sternberg — was an Austrian-American film director. He is particularly noted for his distinctive mise en scène, use of lighting and soft lens, and seven-film collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich.-Youth:Von Sternberg was born Jonas Sternberg to a Jewish...

, who was searching for the leading actress for Der Blaue Engel/The Blue Angel
Der blaue Engel
The Blue Angel is a film directed by Josef von Sternberg in 1930, based on Heinrich Mann's novel Professor Unrat. The film is considered to be the first major German sound film and it brought world fame to actress Marlene Dietrich...

.

There followed in 1930 "Wie werde ich reich und glücklich?", in 1931 "Alles Schwindel", in 1932 "Rufen Sie Herrn Plim" and "Das Haus dazwischen", and in 1933 "100 Meter Glück".

In 1933 Spoliansky emigrated to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, where he began a second career as a film composer. His naturalization as a British national succeeded in large part thanks to Schlager
Schlager
Schlager music is a style of popular music prevalent in Central and Northern Europe and the Balkans and also in France and Poland. In Portugal, it was adapted and became pimba music...

s "Heute Nacht Oder Nie" from the film Das Lied einer Nacht (1932), which made Spoliansky world renowned.

Spoliansky wrote the song "Love Is Lyrical (Whisper Sweet Little Nothing to Me)", performed by Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...

 in the film Stage Fright
Stage Fright (film)
Stage Fright is a 1950 British crime film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock starring Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich, Michael Wilding and Richard Todd...

.

However, among his very best songs were the four that he wrote for Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...

, featured in the British films Sanders of the River
Sanders of the River
Sanders of the River is a 1935 film directed by Zoltán Korda, based on the stories of Edgar Wallace. It was later spoofed in the 1938 Will Hay film Old Bones of the River, which also featured the characters of Commissioner Sanders, Captain Hamilton and Bosambo seen in this film, but played by...

in 1935 (The Canoe Song, Love Song, Congo Lullabye and The Killing Song) and King Solomon's Mines
King Solomon's Mines (1937 film)
King Solomon's Mines is a 1937 film, the first film adaptation of the 1885 novel by the same name by Henry Rider Haggard. It starred Paul Robeson, Cedric Hardwicke, Anna Lee, John Loder and Roland Young...

in 1937 (Ho,Ho and Climbing Up!). Another of his songs was performed by Elisabeth Welch
Elisabeth Welch
thumb|right|200pxElisabeth Welch was an American born singer, actress, and entertainer whose career spanned seven decades, many years of which she was based in Britain....

 in 1937 (Red Hot Annabelle).

Ever since that time, works by Spoliansky have occasionally been produced in theatres, for example in the 2004/2005 season "Zwei Krawatten" in Dortmund
Dortmund
Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....

, and "Rufen Sie Herrn Plim" in the Städtischen Bühnen Münster (2002/2003) and later in a theater in Kassel
Kassel
Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...

. Spoliansky died in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

.

Works (selected)

  • 1928 Revue Es liegt in der Luft
  • 1929 Revue Zwei Krawatten
  • 1930 Revue Wie werde ich reich und glücklich?
  • 1931 Revue Alles Schwindel
  • 1932 Revue Rufen Sie Herrn Plim
  • 1932 Revue Das Haus dazwischen
  • 1932 Filmmusik zu Das Lied einer Nacht
  • 1933 Revue 100 Meter Glück
  • 1935 Film Score Sanders of the River
    Sanders of the River
    Sanders of the River is a 1935 film directed by Zoltán Korda, based on the stories of Edgar Wallace. It was later spoofed in the 1938 Will Hay film Old Bones of the River, which also featured the characters of Commissioner Sanders, Captain Hamilton and Bosambo seen in this film, but played by...

  • 1935 Film Score The Ghost Goes West
    The Ghost Goes West
    The Ghost Goes West is a British romantic comedy/fantasy film starring Robert Donat, Jean Parker, and Eugene Pallette, and directed by René Clair, his first English-language film...

  • 1936 Film Score The Man Who Could Work Miracles
    The Man Who Could Work Miracles
    The Man Who Could Work Miracles is a 1936 British fantasy-comedy film. It is a greatly expanded version of H.G. Wells’s story of the same name. It was the final adaptation of one of Wells' works to be produced during his lifetime.-Plot outline:...

  • 1937 Film Score King Solomon's Mines
    King Solomon's Mines
    King Solomon's Mines is a popular novel by the Victorian adventure writer and fabulist Sir H. Rider Haggard. It tells of a search of an unexplored region of Africa by a group of adventurers led by Allan Quatermain for the missing brother of one of the party...

  • 1957 Musical Katharina Knie
  • 1957 Film Score Saint Joan
  • 1959 Film Score North West Frontier
  • 1973 Film Score Hitler: The Last Ten Days
    Hitler: The Last Ten Days
    Hitler: The Last Ten Days is a 1973 film depicting the days leading up to Adolf Hitler's suicide. It stars Alec Guinness and Simon Ward. The original music score was composed by Mischa Spoliansky...


External links

http://www.kissandtellcabaret.com/smokeandnoise.htm / Melinda Hughes released Smoke and Noise in 2011, a critically acclaimed Album of Spolianksy songs on Nimbus records
http://www.palastorchester.de/ Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester have recorded Spoilansky's "Heute Nacht Oder Nie"
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