Schultze, Norbert
Schultze, Norbert
Schultze, Norbert, German composer; b. Braunschweig, Jan. 26, 1911. He studied piano, conducting, and composition at the Cologne Staatliche Hochschule für Musik, and after studying theatrical arts in Cologne and Munich (1931), he was active as an actor and composer in a student cabaret, Vier Nachrichter, in Munich (1931–32). He then conducted opera in Heidelberg (1932–33) and Darmstadt (1933–34), and later was a composer for stage, films, and television; was head of his own music publishing business (from 1953). He wrote the operas Schwarzer Peter (Hamburg, 1936) and Das kalte Herz (Leipzig, 1943), television opera, Peter der dritte (1964), operetta, Regen in Paris (Nuremberg, 1957), and 3 pantomimes: Struwwelpeter (Hamburg, 1937), Max und Moritz (Hamburg, 1938), and Maria im Walde (Vienna, 1940). However, his chief claim to fame was a sentimental song, Lili Marken (1938), which became immensely popular during World War II among both German and Allied soldiers after it was broadcast from the German-occupied Belgrade in 1941; it was tr. into 27 languages. For some of his works he used the names Frank Norbert, Peter Kornfeld, and Henri Iversen.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire