Trivia

He used the pseudonyms: John Morris, Red Roberts.

German composer and conductor of music for stage and screen. A child prodigy, he was a concert pianist by the age of fifteen. During the 1920's, he worked as a café and radio pianist in Berlin. In 1928, he conducted at the premiere of Brecht's "Threepenny Opera" and during the following decade became one of Germany's most prolific composers of movie themes and of popular songs, including "Bel ami", "Frauen sind keine Engel" and "Nur nicht aus Liebe weinen".

The young Theo Mackeben acquired his knowledge of piano by creeping in a piano factory where he practiced the piano in secret.

After the war he wrote a piano concerto and a Sinfonische Ballade for cello and orchestra, while also being conductor at the Metropol-Theater.

A selection of Mackeben's music was recorded by the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne conducted by Emmerich Smola and published in 1995 by Capriccio.

Especially his tunes conquered the audience in no time. The song "Die Nacht ist nicht allein zum Schlafen da" from the movie "Tanz auf dem Vulkan" (1938) and especially the title song "Du hast Glück bei den Fraun" from "Bel Ami" (1939) were enormous successes and were played in all street corners.

From 1916 to 1920 Mackeben studied violin and piano at the Hochschule für Musik Köln, as well as taking lessons from Jules de Westheim. He then became active as a café and radio pianist during the 1920s, at the Café Größenwahn and the Hotel Esplanade in Berlin.

Thanks to his musical ability and the incomparable nose for melodies Theo Mackeben was rated as indispensable and could escape from a conscription to the front during World War II.

At the age of 12 he had a perfect command of piano and violin. At the age of 15 he appeared as a concert pianist but he soon dedicated to the composition and wrote successful entertainment music and operettas like "Der goldene Käfig" and "Lady Fanny".

As conductor, Mackeben's recordings from the late 1920s through the 1930s include extracts from Dreigroschenoper and Die Dubarry, Scassola's Laendische Suite, Mendelssohn's 'Spring Song', and fantasies from Smetana's Bartered Bride, Zeller's Der Vogelhändler, Verdi's La traviata, Weill's Mahogony and Suppé's Die schöne Galathee, on labels such as Telefunken and Berlin.

His musical request wasn't supported at home.

With the rise of the sound film he dedicated to the film music where he especially created striking hits but also symphonic music.