Adolf Dauber (known also as Dol, Doli or Dolfi Dauber) (born 27 July 1894 – died 15 September 1950) was a
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
ist,
bandleader
A bandleader is the leader of a music group such as a rock or pop band or jazz quartet. The term is most commonly used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or ...
,
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
and
music arranger
In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestr ...
of
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
origin, who was active in the first half of the 20th century in Central Europe, mainly in Austria,
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
and Germany. During his career, he collaborated with international jazz personalities, led numerous orchestras and ensembles, and created music for several films.
Biography
Dauber was born to a musical family in
Vyzhnytsia
Vyzhnytsia (; ; german: link=no, Wischnitz; pl, Wyżnica; ro, Vijnița; ; ) is a town located in the historical region of Bukovina, on the Cheremosh River in Chernivtsi Oblast of western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of Vyzhnytsia ...
(''Wijnitz''),
Bukovina
Bukovinagerman: Bukowina or ; hu, Bukovina; pl, Bukowina; ro, Bucovina; uk, Буковина, ; see also other languages. is a historical region, variously described as part of either Central or Eastern Europe (or both).Klaus Peter BergerT ...
, Ukraine (then
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
). He started his musical education at the age of 4, under the mentorship of his older sister, Clara.
While still in his childhood, his sister arranged an audience with
Carl Flesch
Carl Flesch (born Károly Flesch, 9 October 1873 – 14 November 1944) was a Hungarian violinist and teacher. Flesch’s compendium ''Scale System'' is a staple of violin pedagogy.
Life and career
Flesch was born in Moson (now part of Mosonmagy ...
, a violin virtuoso and teacher at the
Bucharest Conservatory
The National University of Music Bucharest ( ro, Universitatea Naţională de Muzică București, UNMB) is a university-level school of music located in Bucharest, Romania. Established as a school of music in 1863 and reorganized as an academy in ...
.
Carl Flesch
Carl Flesch (born Károly Flesch, 9 October 1873 – 14 November 1944) was a Hungarian violinist and teacher. Flesch’s compendium ''Scale System'' is a staple of violin pedagogy.
Life and career
Flesch was born in Moson (now part of Mosonmagy ...
worked at the Bucharest Conservatory from 1897 to 1902, on an invitation of the Romanian Queen Carmen Sylva
Pauline Elisabeth Ottilie Luise of Wied (29 December 18432 March 1916) was the first queen of Romania as the wife of King Carol I from 15 March 1881 to 27 September 1914. She had been the princess consort of Romania since her marriage to then- ...
. His talent impressed Flesch and Dauber joined his class as the youngest pupil to be accepted.
In 1911, Flesh recommended him to the renowned Czech violinist and teacher,
Otakar Ševčík
Otakar Ševčík (22 March 185218 January 1934) was a Czech violinist and influential teacher. He was known as a soloist and an ensemble player, including his occasional performances with Eugène Ysaÿe.
Biography
Ševčík was born in Horaž ...
.
Dauber studied with Ševčík in
Brno
Brno ( , ; german: Brünn ) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 380,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic ...
up to 1914. Even as a youngster, he earned money for his studies as a bandleader of ensembles in
Chernivtsi
Chernivtsi ( uk, Чернівці́}, ; ro, Cernăuți, ; see also other names) is a city in the historical region of Bukovina, which is now divided along the borders of Romania and Ukraine, including this city, which is situated on the upp ...
(''Czernowitz'') and
Lviv
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...
.
During
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, he served as a
concertmaster
The concertmaster (from the German ''Konzertmeister''), first chair (U.S.) or leader (U.K.) is the principal first violin player in an orchestra (or clarinet in a concert band). After the conductor, the concertmaster is the second-most signifi ...
and soloist in a military orchestra in Italy. The opera composer
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini (Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long li ...
was allegedly so impressed by his playing that he dedicated to him several autograph pages from his opera
Manon Lescaut
''The Story of the Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut'' ( ) is a novel by Antoine François Prévost. Published in 1731, it is the seventh and final volume of ''Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité'' (''Memoirs and Adventures of a Ma ...
.
Later,
Franz Lehár
Franz Lehár ( ; hu, Lehár Ferenc ; 30 April 1870 – 24 October 1948) was an Austro-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas, of which the most successful and best known is ''The Merry Widow'' (''Die lustige Witwe'').
Life ...
arranged his transfer to the renowned
Austro-Hungarian
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
military ensemble ''Deutschmeister''.
After the war, Dauber traveled throughout Central Europe with a salon string quartet; however, ensembles of this kind were gradually replaced by modern jazz orchestras. Therefore, he refocused his energy toward modern rhythms and dance music, to the great disappointment of his teacher Ševčík.
He founded a new orchestra (the line-up included
saxophonist
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...
and
banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...
player), and performed popular melodies in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
and
Mariánské Lázně
Mariánské Lázně (; german: Marienbad) is a spa town in Cheb District in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 12,000 inhabitants. Most of the town's buildings come from its Golden Era in the second half of the 19th centu ...
.
The performances were noted particularly for inventive and modern arrangements of classical repertoire,
operetta
Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, length of the work, and at face value, subject matter. Apart from its s ...
melodies and
waltz
The waltz ( ), meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple ( time), performed primarily in closed position.
History
There are many references to a sliding or gliding dance that would evolve into the wa ...
es.
At that time, Dauber met and befriended various notable musicians and artists:
Emmerich Kálmán
Emmerich Kálmán ( hu, Kálmán Imre; 24 October 1882 – 30 October 1953) was a Hungarian composer of operettas and a prominent figure in the development of Viennese operetta in the 20th century. Among his most popular works are '' Die Csár ...
,
Oscar Straus,
Robert Stolz
Robert Elisabeth Stolz (25 August 188027 June 1975) was an Austrian songwriter
A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be call ...
and
Fritz Grünbaum
Franz Friedrich 'Fritz' Grünbaum (7 April 1880 in Brünn (Brno), Moravia – 14 January 1941 at the Dachau concentration camp, Germany) was an Austrian Jewish cabaret artist, operetta and popular song writer, actor, and master of ceremonies ...
among others. His orchestra performed the Viennese premiere of
Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue
''Rhapsody in Blue'' is a 1924 musical composition written by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects. Commissioned by bandleader Paul Whiteman, the work premiered i ...
.
In 1923, Dauber permanently resided in Vienna. In the early 1920s, he began recording for the label ''Homokord''. His orchestra was offered a lucrative long-term contract by
The Gramophone Company Ltd. For this label he recorded hundreds of songs over the course of the next 15 years. The basic cast of the orchestra included: five
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
s,
viola
The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...
,
violoncello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, D ...
,
double bass
The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...
,
flute
The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...
, two
trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
s,
trombone
The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the Standing wave, air column ...
,
harp
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...
,
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
and
harmonium
The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. T ...
, however, the recordings marked as "jazz", "jazz-symphonic" or "dance" usually used different instrumentation: violin, double bass, banjo, two trumpets, three saxophones, trombone,
accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...
,
euphonium
The euphonium is a medium-sized, 3 or 4-valve, often compensating, conical-bore, tenor-voiced brass instrument that derives its name from the Ancient Greek word ''euphōnos'', meaning "well-sounding" or "sweet-voiced" ( ''eu'' means "well" ...
and
drums
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...
.
The repertoire of Dauber's orchestra was remarkably wide-ranging, stretching from compositions of
Karel Hašler
Karel Hašler (31 October 1879 in Prague – 22 December 1941 in Mauthausen) was a Czech songwriter, actor, lyricist, film and theatre director, composer, writer, dramatist, screenwriter and cabaretier. He was murdered in the Mauthausen concent ...
,
Jaroslav Ježek,
R. A. Dvorský or
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fru ...
, to the arrangements of parts of
Janáček's and
Smetana's operas.
The mid-1930s were the most successful time in Dauber's career. He recorded, performed widely in Austria, Germany and
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
, and created film music. Some of his recordings were distributed for the
Czech diaspora in the US by the label
Victor
The name Victor or Viktor may refer to:
* Victor (name), including a list of people with the given name, mononym, or surname
Arts and entertainment
Film
* ''Victor'' (1951 film), a French drama film
* ''Victor'' (1993 film), a French shor ...
. However, the changing political situation in Europe caused by the rise of the
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
regime negatively influenced his career. In 1936, Dauber and his orchestra moved to
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
and continued recording for the Czech label ''Ultraphon''.
In 1939, Dauber traveled to England to record with a dance orchestra. He was invited to work in the US, but he declined and returned to his wife and son in Prague. His musical activities were banned due to his Jewish origin, but he was not imprisoned, allegedly because he was an "internationally renowned musician". This, however, did not prevent the Nazis from deporting his son,
Robert Dauber, to the
Theresienstadt concentration camp
Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the Schutzstaffel, SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupation of Czechoslovakia, German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstad ...
.
The information about Dauber's life in the
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; cs, Protektorát Čechy a Morava; its territory was called by the Nazis ("the rest of Czechia"). was a partially annexed territory of Nazi Germany established on 16 March 1939 following the German oc ...
is not clear. According to the testimony of the Czech composer and journalist Jiří Voldán, he spent a part of the war hidden by "good people". Allegedly, he had to pay for the shelter with his instrument, a
Guarneri
The Guarneri (, , ), often referred to in the Latinized form Guarnerius, is the family name of a group of distinguished luthiers from Cremona in Italy in the 17th and 18th centuries, whose standing is considered comparable to those of the Amati an ...
violin, a gift from the Queen
Carmen Sylva
Pauline Elisabeth Ottilie Luise of Wied (29 December 18432 March 1916) was the first queen of Romania as the wife of King Carol I from 15 March 1881 to 27 September 1914. She had been the princess consort of Romania since her marriage to then- ...
.
The information was, however, not confirmed by any reliable evidence.
His son was sent in a transport to
Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
and later to
Dachau
,
, commandant = List of commandants
, known for =
, location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany
, built by = Germany
, operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS)
, original use = Political prison
, construction ...
, where he died shortly before the end of the war. Dol Dauber and his wife (who was a German from Brno) managed to survive, but the circumstances of his survival remain unclear.
After the
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Dauber briefly resumed his recording activities with the label ''Ultraphon''. He made his last recording, a cycle of Jewish songs, in September 1948.
He died in 1950 in
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
, Czechoslovakia. The documentation related to his life and music activities is preserved in the
Austrian National Library
The Austrian National Library (german: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) is the largest library in Austria, with more than 12 million items in its various collections. The library is located in the Neue Burg Wing of the Hofburg in center of V ...
in Vienna.
Filmography
Dol Dauber and his orchestra played in the following films:
*''
Hotel Modrá hvězda'' (The Blue Star Hotel)
*''
Eva tropí hlouposti
''Eva Fools Around'' ( cs, Eva tropí hlouposti) is a Czech comedy film directed by Martin Frič. It was released in 1939.
Plot
Eva Norová goes to visit her aunt Pa for her 60th birthday. Pa's wish is to learn how to grow the kind of roses that ...
'' (Eva Fools Around)
*''
Valentin Dobrotivý'' (Valentin the Good)
*''Krb bez ohně''
He has composed music to the films:
*''Klatovští dragouni''
*''Umlčené rty''
Recordings
*Dol Dauber. Musical Fantasies and Jewish Liturgical Songs (''Hudební fantazie a židovské liturgické písně'', RADIOSERVIS, ŽMP 011 – 8594042080110)
D*My Heart is a Jazz Band (''Mé srdce je jazzband'', RADIOSERVIS, ŽMP007 – 8594042080073)
Dref>
Notes
References
External links
Dol Dauberat the Czech and Slovak Movie Database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dauber, Dol
1894 births
1950 deaths
People from Vyzhnytsia
People from the Duchy of Bukovina
Bukovina Jews
Ukrainian Jews
Czech jazz musicians