Marek Weber (24 October 1888 – 9 February 1964) was a German violinist and bandleader.

Early life and education

Born in

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 Ukra ...

(then part of the

Austro-Hungarian Empire 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#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with t ...

), Weber moved in 1906 to

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

and studied at the

Stern Conservatory The Stern Conservatory (''Stern'sches Konservatorium'') was a private music school in Berlin with many distinguished tutors and alumni. The school is now part of Berlin University of the Arts. History It was founded in 1850 as the ''Berliner Mu ...

Career

At the age of twenty he founded his own orchestra. In 1914 he became resident bandleader at the prestigious

Hotel Adlon The Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin is a luxury hotel in Berlin, Germany. It is on Unter den Linden, the main boulevard in the central Mitte district, at the corner with Pariser Platz, directly opposite the Brandenburg Gate. The original Hotel Adlon ...

. Beginning in the early 1920s he and his orchestra began to make recordings, first for the

Carl Lindström Company Carl Lindström A.G. was a global record company founded in 1893 and based in Berlin, Germany. History Founded by Carl Lindström (1869–1932), a Swedish inventor living in Berlin, it originally produced phonographs or gramophones with ...

(under the "Parlophon" label), and later for

Deutsche Grammophon Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family o ...

. In 1926 he moved to the newly formed

Electrola Electrola is a German record label and subsidiary of Universal Music Group. Based in Munich, its roster has included Chumbawamba, Matthias Reim, Helene Fischer, Brings, Höhner and Santiano. History On 8 May 1925 the British Gramophone Comp ...

, and remained with this label for the remainder of his career in Germany. During this period he was one of the foremost recording artists in Germany, on a par with

Paul Godwin Paul Godwin (1902–1982) was a violinist and the leader of a popular German dance orchestra in the 1920s and 30s. Biography Paul Godwin (b. Pinchas Goldfein) was born on 28 March 1902 in Sosnowitz ( Russian Empire; now Poland). Early record ...

Efim Schachmeister Chaim "Efim" Schachmeister (22 July 1894 – 6 October 1944) was a German violinist and bandleader. He also recorded under the pseudonyms ''Sascha Elmo'' and ''Joan Florescu''. Born in Kiev to Romanian Jewish parents, from 1910 to 1913 he studied ...

, Ben Berlin and Dajos Béla. Beginning in 1930 Weber occasionally scored films, but he remained chiefly associated with the nightlife of Berlin. Weber's musical tastes were conservative, and during the early years his orchestra was known for playing Viennese waltzes, two-steps, and other subdued styles. He detested jazz and its anarchic tendencies.
Peter Dempsey, ''Marek Weber: His Violin and His Orchestra'', 2011 However, as a bandleader he had no choice but to incorporate modern styles into his program, and occasionally yield the floor to jazz solos and improvisational riffs, albeit under protest. Whenever his band launched into a jazz interlude, he would pointedly depart the conductor's podium and get a drink at the bar. Despite his personal distaste for the new style, his band included some of the strongest jazz talent in Germany, notably the trumpeters Arthur Briggs (musician), Arthur Briggs and Rolf Goldstein, the pianist

Martin Roman Martin Roman (23 April 1910 – 12 May 1996) was a German jazz pianist. At the time of the Reichstag fire in February 1933, Martin was stopped by SS men at the entrance to the huge Vaterland emporium in Berlin, where his band, the Marek Weber Ban ...

, and the banjo player Mike Danzi. The Dutch clarinetist and

saxophonist The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

Hans Mossel Henri Emile "Hans" Mossel (Amsterdam, 24 December 1905 – Auschwitz, German-occupied Poland, 4 August 1944) was a Dutch clarinetist and saxophonist. 1905–1935: Early years Hans Mossel was born into a very musical Jewish family. He was the s ...

(

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

, 1905 - Auschwitz, 1944) was employed by Weber in 1931. His singers included

Leo Monosson Leo Monosson ( Russian: Лев Исаакович Моносзон, lit. Lev Isaakovich Monoisson) (1897–1967) was a tenor singer born in Moscow, who found fame in Germany in the years 1928-1933. He spoke eleven languages and produced over 1400 ...

and Austin Egen. As a prominent

German Jew The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...

, Weber was among those composers targeted by the

Reichsmusikkammer The Reich Chamber of Music (German: ''Reichsmusikkammer'') was a Nazi institution. It promoted "good German music" which was composed by Aryans and seen as consistent with Nazi ideals, while suppressing other, "degenerate" music, which included ato ...

. Beginning in 1933 his compositions were labeled

degenerate music Degenerate music (german: Entartete Musik, link=no, ) was a label applied in the 1930s by the government of Nazi Germany to certain forms of music that it considered harmful or decadent. The Nazi government's concerns about degenerate music were ...

. In late 1932 he left Germany, traveling via London to the United States. Billed as the "Radio Waltz King", he became a fixture of the

NBC Red Network The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (known as the NBC Red Network prior to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in operation from 1926 through 2004. Along with the NBC Blue Network it was one of the first ...

, with star billing on the ''Carnation Condensed Milk'' program and frequent guest appearances on other shows.

Later life

Weber became a citizen of the United States on December 21, 1942, in naturalization proceedings in Chicago. After the

Second World War 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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

he purchased a ranch and retired from show business. He bequeathed his personal collection of violins to the

Indiana University School of Music The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana, is a music conservatory established in 1921. Until 2005, it was known as the Indiana University School of Music. It has more than 1,500 students, approximately half of whom ar ...

. He died in Chicago at the age of seventy-five. After his death, his widow Anna established a scholarship in his name for one male and one female violinist.Werner Walendowski: Marek Weber (1988-1964). Booklet zu der CD Marek Weber und sein Orchester in der Reihe Die großen Deutschen Tanzorchester. Membran Music Ltd., Hamburg 2005

Photograph and two original recordings of Marek Weber

Mengelberg, Van Weezel and Weber.jpg, From left to right Rudolf Mengelberg, Gerrit van Weezel and Marek Weber, 1932. PDP-CH - Marek Weber, piano - Liebesträume, S 541, R 211 - Liebestraum No. 3 - Liszt - Hmv-fkx110-2b5802.flac, Marek Weber and his orchestra - Liebestraum No. 3 -

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

. PDP-CH - Marek Weber and his Orchestra - Marek Weber - Das Dreimäderlhaus - Part 1 - Franz Schubert - Hmv-eh124-4-040641.flac, Marek Weber and his orchestra -

Das Dreimäderlhaus ''Das Dreimäderlhaus'' (''House of the Three Girls''), adapted into English-language versions as ''Blossom Time'' and ''Lilac Time'', is a Viennese pastiche operetta with music by Franz Schubert, rearranged by Heinrich Berté (1857–1924), a ...

- Part 1 -

Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weber, Marek 1888 births 1964 deaths Musicians from Berlin People from the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria Ukrainian Jews Austro-Hungarian emigrants to Germany German people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Bandleaders German violinists German male violinists Articles containing video clips 20th-century violinists 20th-century German male musicians