Past to Present De Palast Orchestra Berlin’s Music of 1930’s today

Posted on June 24, 2010 by

Palast Orchestra.Everything Remains the Same
A Trip Through Time
With Max Raabe and the Palast Orchestra
1919
Günther Gürsch is born. Mr Gürsch is the person employed by the Palast Orchester who has the greatest amount of life and musical experience. As soon as old sheet music or shellac recordings are discovered he arranges the pieces for the orchestra. He knows how a saxophone section has to sound in every key.

1930
Walter Jurmann composes the song “Veronica, Spring Has Arrived.” Two years before the “Comedian Harmonists” were founded. They make the song a popular hit. Then nothing happens with the catchy tune for quite some time.

1936
A tenor saxophone is made at the company Conn. Through various and complicated ways it winds up in the hands of Bernd Frank. Seventy years later he’ll play it in the Palast Orchester and say that such an old instrument sounds much warmer than a new one.

Now

Most important, however, in Raabe’s musical career is of course his work with the Palast Orchester. Aside from the world-renowned “Heart, Which Greets Its Great Love,” and the pieces from the ’20s and ’30s, the Palast Orchester has branched out into both classical and pop music. At the end of 2000, they released the CD Charming Weill, which won the Klassik Echo Award, with pieces by Kurt Weill, and the album Superhits, followed by Superhits 2 in 2002.

In August 2003, Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester celebrated the premiere of their first own major production—the Palast Revue—at the Hamburg Thalia Theater. After their opening night, acclaimed by both music critics and audience alike, multiple-week engagements in Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Cologne, and Bremen followed. Entirely sold-out shows totaling 18 weeks and enthusiastic media reports lay the ground for the release on both double CD and double DVD. For further information, please visit palastorchester.de.

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