Rolf Alexander Wilhelm

Rolf Alexander Wilhelm (23 June 1927 – 17 January 2013) was a German composer, film composer, arranger and conductor.
Life
Born in Munich, at the age of seven Wilhelm received piano lessons. Afterwards he attended the grammar school in Berlin and Vienna. From 1942 he studied piano with a special permission with Grete Hinterhofer and musical composition with Joseph Marx at the Wiener Musikhochschule.
His war deployment as Luftwaffenhelfer and the subsequent emprisonment interrupted the musical career of Wilhelm, who returned to destroyed Munich in 1945 with a Notabitur. There he was able to continue his studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München from 1946 and passed the school-leaving examination in 1948. Among his teachers were Heinrich Knappe (conducting), Joseph Haas (musical composition) and Hans Rosbaud (master class)
Even before that, in 1946, Radio München, the forerunner of the Bayerischer Rundfunk, produced The Canterville Ghost, one of its first radio plays after the Second World War. Through the mediation of his brother Kurt Wilhelm who acted as assistant director for the play, the nineteen-year-old composer received his first commission. The work was convincing and Wilhelm advanced to become a busy freelancer for the radio station. He also composed music for the still young medium television for various by , for example for Jonas der Angler (1954) and Der Kran (1956).
Wilhelm wrote his first major film music in 1954 for the first film of the 08/15 trilogy, which is one of the most successful post-war films in Germany. Up to the 1990s, the music for about 60 feature films followed, including classics such as The Forests Sing Forever (1959), (1961), (1962), Scotland Yard Hunts Dr. Mabuse (1963), (1964), six films of the (1967 to 1972), The Flying Classroom (1973), The Serpent's Egg (1977), Ödipussi (1988) and finally Pappa Ante Portas (1991).
Among his most complex film works is the music for the large-scale German production Die Nibelungen (1966/67). The rhythm and sound schemata of Mars from the cycle of symphonic poems The Planets by Gustav Holst are now part of the standard stylistic repertoire of the film composers in Hollywood.
Wilhelm has also composed the music for more than 250 radio plays, over 350 television productions and about 300 commercials. In addition, numerous stage musics, orchestra suites and literary chansons were created. For example, he set texts by Kurt Tucholsky to music.
In addition he composed as a young man pop songs under the pseudonym Alex Rolf Ander. His most famous work under this name was Der kleine Eisbär, published in 1951. The use of this pseudonym did not reach the public during his lifetime and was only made public after his death by his daughter Catharina Wilhelm.
He was married to the actress Helga Neuner, who became known to a wide audience through numerous theater appearances and the television series Die Firma Hesselbach.
Wilhelm died at the age of 85 years on 17 January 2013 with his family. The artistic estate is kept in the German Composers' Archive in the .
Filmography
Feature films
1954: 08/15
1954: The Phantom of the Big Tent
1955:
1955:
1956: Weil du arm bist, mußt du früher sterben
1956: Where the Ancient Forests Rustle
1957: Streifzug durch eine Stadt
1958: The Green Devils of Monte Cassino
1959: The Scarlet Baroness
1959: The Forests Sing Forever
1959: Heimat – Deine Lieder
1960: Don Carlos
1960: Der Schleier fiel…
1960: Do Not Send Your Wife to Italy
1960: Die zornigen jungen Männer
1960: The Inheritance of Bjorndal
1961: Via Mala
1961: The Cry of the Wild Geese
1961:
1961:
1962: Adorable Julia
1962:
1962:
1963: Scotland Yard Hunts Dr. Mabuse
1963: Ferien vom Ich
1963: Venusberg
1964: The River Line
1964: Tonio Kröger
1964:
1964: The Blood of the Walsungs
1965: Die schwedische Jungfrau
1965: When the Grapevines Bloom on the Danube
1965: Aunt Frieda
1966: Once a Greek
1966: Onkel Filser – Allerneueste Lausbubengeschichten
1966: Die Nibelungen 1. Teil: Siegfried
1967: Die Nibelungen 2. Teil: Kriemhilds Rache
1967: Der Paukenspieler
1967: When Ludwig Goes on Manoeuvres
1967: The Heathens of Kummerow
1968: Zur Hölle mit den Paukern
1969: Pepe, der Paukerschreck
1969: Ludwig auf Freiersfüßen
1969: Hurra, die Schule brennt!
1970: We'll Take Care of the Teachers
1970: Das Glöcklein unterm Himmelbett
1971:
1971: Morgen fällt die Schule aus
1972: Betragen ungenügend!
1973: The Flying Classroom
1974: When Mother Went on Strike
1977:
1977:
1977: The Serpent's Egg
1977:
1979: The Wonderful Years
1980: From the Life of the Marionettes
1982: Doctor Faustus
1988: Ödipussi
1989:
1990:
1991: Pappa Ante Portas
Television
1954: Jonas der Angler
1956: Der Kran
1961: Zu viele Köche
1965:
1967/68: Sherlock Holmes
1969–1970:
1970:
1974: Telerop 2009 – Es ist noch was zu retten
1975: Tatort: Als gestohlen gemeldet
1978: (TV miniseries)
1986: Tatort: Riedmüller, Vorname Sigi
1987: Tatort: Pension Tosca oder Die Sterne lügen nicht
1992: Die Ringe des Saturn
also episodes to the series , Der Kommissar and Derrick
Awards
Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (1993)
Bayerischer Poetentaler of the
ITEA Lifetime Achievement Award (2012)
Discography
Deutsche Filmkomponisten, Folge 4, Rolf Wilhelm, Bear Family Records, 2001, BCD 16484 AR
Rolf Wilhelm 1: Tarabas / Hiob (director: Michael Kehlmann), 2006 Alhambra (A 8957)
Rolf Wilhelm 2: Flucht ohne Ende / Radetzkymarsch (series: Michael Kehlmann), 2006 Alhambra (A8958)
Die Nibelungen, 2001 Cobra (CR 006A/B)
Loriot: Pappa ante Portas (soundtrack)
Loriot: Ödipussi (soundtrack)
Hugo Hartung – Ich denke oft an Piroschka. Direction Kurt Wilhelm
Lausbubengeschichten von Ludwig Thoma. Narrated by Willy Rösner (spoken record)
Kurt Wilhelm – Der Brandner Kaspar und das ewig' Leben. Komödie nach einer Erzählung, Motiven und Gedichten von Franz von Kobell. Music: Rolf Wilhelm (spoken record)
Jonas der Angler/Lektro: Die verschwundene Melodie. Joachim Fuchsberger liest moderne Märchen von Reiner Zimnik. (spoken record)
Gisela May singt Tucholsky
Der Sängerkrieg der Heidehasen. Ein Hörspiel für Groß und Klein von James Krüss.
Further reading
Rolf Wilhelm – „Manchmal wird die Musik zugekleistert …“, Interview with Raimund Saxinger and Matthias Büdinger, in Filmharmonische Blätter. Issue 7/October/November 1987,
Rolf Wilhelm – Musik bedeutet immerwährendes Asyl, Interview in two parts with Stefan Schlegel, in Cinema Musica. Edition 1/July 2005, and edition 2 October 2005,
External links
Interview im Filmmusik Weblog
Rolf Wilhelm in Deutschen Komponistenarchiv
References
German film score composers
20th-century German composers
Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
1927 births
2013 deaths
Composers from Munich
Luftwaffenhelfer
German prisoners of war in World War II