Скачать или смотреть Vier Nachrichter - Siciliana

Telefunken master 19095, rec. Berlin, May 1933.
Kurd E. Heyne, Helmut Käutner, and Bobby Todd (vocal) with possibly Willy Sommerfeld (piano).
Although more a cabaret group than a vocal ensemble the "Nachrichter" (which traslates as "The Executioners") were amongst the really big names in the early thirties, and many other ensembles of the era sought their advice, so I think they ought to be included here. The three vocalists started performing with pianist Werner Kleine in 1930. They did not think of a professional career, but saw this more as a joke and a sideline to their studies of theatre sciences in Munich. For students' carnival parties they had written several short parodies of popular dramas, so they were not completely unprepared when one evening in the legendary Munich cabaret "Simplicissimus" the famous poet Joachim Ringelnatz pushed them on the stage, saying: "Now it's your turn to do something!" Their parody of a German male choir (yes, they could sing if they wanted to!) was quite a success, but they rather wanted to finish their studies than plunge head first into an entertainment carreer. The three singers all had started writing a Ph.D. thesis when their first recordings were made in January 1931, followed by a two week engagement at the "Simplicissimus", where they introduced their (sadly unrecorded) Revelers spoof "Let us go to Oberammergau". This was a huge success, and further opportunities in other cabarets and for Bavarian radio were offered. Another year went by, and for carnival 1932 the boys wrote a longer parody "Hier irrt Goethe" ("Here Goethe errs"). This was written to be performed once, on January 31st 1932 - instead it created such a sensation that they had to play it no less than 350 times! Pianist Kleine had already left at that time and was replaced by composer Norbert Schultze. He was afraid, however, that if his professors found out that he played such trivial music, he would be kicked out of the conservatory, so he appeared under the pseudonym "Frank Norbert" - a name used for all of the various pianists that followed him. So not only were the "Four Executioners" only three in reality - it is also impossible to say with certainty who played with them when. The number of the group also varied, as they continued to re-write their numbers, introducing new characters and deleting others, so the "quartet" could be anything between four and 23 persons! The unfortunate developments in Germany soon made themselves felt, and already in February 1932 one of the Nachrichters' numbers was censored "for political reasons". Although strictly speaking not political, the group's blend of sarcasm and pseudo-amateurish nonprofessionality with which they made fun of everything holy to the German establishment caused continuous friction between them and the ruling powers, and on October 1 1935 they were officially forbidden to perform - Goebbels had been more than not amused by their number "Sie müssten mal zum Doktor geh'n, Herr Doktor!" ("You should see a doctor, Herr Doktor!"). Kurd Heyne commented shortly before his death in 1961: "The group was liquidated - we felt honoured."
This particular number here shows them at their best, making fun of the typical movie songs of the time where the combination of completely pointless lyrics with a somehow exotic sounding title was a guarantee for success.