The Comedian Harmonists (Roger Bates '67)

(As Nassoons, we all owe a debt of gratitude for the talented close harmony singers that came before and brought close harmony into popular culture: early African-American popular harmony groups like the Mills Brothers and the Ink Spots; the Modernaires and the Pied Pipers during the Big Band era of the 1940s, and the Four Freshman and Hi Lo’s in the 1950s, and of course the Whiffenpoofs at Yale who were the first collegiate close harmony ensemble. But there was an extraordinarily popular vocal ensemble that preceded them all…the Comedian Harmonists. This is their story, extracted largely from Wikipedia.)

Comedian HarmonistsThe Comedian Harmonists were an internationally famous, all-male German close harmony ensemble that performed between 1928 and 1934 as one of the most successful musical groups in Europe before World War II. The group featured five singers (three tenors, a baritone and a bass) and a piano player/accompanist. The hallmark of the Comedian Harmonists was its members' ability to blend their voices together so that the individual singers could appear and disappear back into the vocal texture. Their repertoire was wide, ranging from the folk and classical songs to appealing and witty popular songs of the day.

The group formed in 1927 when unemployed actor Harry Frommermann was inspired by The Revelers, a jazz-influenced popular vocal group from the United States, to create a German group of the same format. Frommermann held auditions in his flat on Stubenrauchstraße 47 in Berlin-Friedenau, and, once the group was assembled, it quickly began rehearsals. After some initial failures, the Harmonists soon found success, becoming popular throughout Europe, visiting the United States, and appearing in 21 films.

The members of the group were: Ari Leschnikoff, (1897–1978), first tenor; Erich A. Collin (1899–1961), second tenor; Harry Frommermann (1906–1975), tenor buffo [the world’s first TB?]; Roman Cycowski (1901–1998), baritone; Robert Biberti, (1902–1985) bass; and Erwin Bootz (1907–1982), Pianist/Accompanist.

The group's success continued into the early 1930s, but eventually ran into trouble with the Nazi regime: three of the group members – Frommermann, Collin, and Cycowski – were either Jewish or of Jewish descent, and Bootz had married a Jewish woman. The Nazis progressively made the group's professional life more difficult, initially banning pieces by Jewish composers, and finally prohibiting them from performing in public. Their last concert in Germany was in Hannover on March 25, 1934 after which they sailed to the United States on SS Europa and gave several concerts. Fearing internment if they stayed abroad, however, they eventually returned home amid bitter internal disputes.

Frommermann, Cycowski, and Collin subsequently fled Germany and formed a new group, which performed under the names "Comedian Harmonists" and "Comedy Harmonists" with a new pianist, bass, and high tenor. The remaining members in Germany likewise replaced their counterparts in a successor group named "Das Meistersextett" (as the authorities forbade an English-language name). Neither group was able to achieve the original success of the Comedian Harmonists, with the German group stifled by political in-fighting and heavy censorship, as well as the war draft. The emigrant group was unable to find work in America due to hostility to German entertainers, and they were unable to return to Austria, where they had enjoyed extensive success in the 1930s. Although all members survived the war, they never re-formed after the war.

The group remained largely forgotten until German filmmaker Eberhard Fechner created a four-hour black-and-white television documentary in 1975, in which he interviewed the surviving members who were scattered throughout the world. The documentary aired over two nights in German in 1977 and caused a resurgence of interest in the music of the Comedian Harmonists, with their records being released on vinyl.

The Comedian Harmonists were the subject of the 1997 German movie Comedian Harmonists, released in the United States as The Harmonists. In the film, the actors lip synched in the musical performances to the group's original recordings. The 1997 film directly led to a musical play about the group, Die Comedian Harmonists, which opened at the Komödie in Berlin in December 1997. When this production closed, the actors who had played the original sextet formed a new group called the Berlin Comedian Harmonists, which recreates the Comedian Harmonists' repertoire. Harmony, a musical about the Comedian Harmonists, with music by Barry Manilow and book and lyrics by Bruce Sussman, premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in the fall of 1997, and then in early 2014 had a run at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles.