Walter Goehr (1903 - 1960)

Walter Goehr was a pupil of Schoenberg and Krenek. A life-long friend of Eisler, and collaborator of Brecht and Feuchtwanger, he was surely one of the busiest musicians for the radio, who also wrote the first radio opera, Malpopita, in 1931. It is not unexpected that he was much sought after also as a movie composer at home as well as abroad, writing, among others, the score for David Golder, a French drama film adapted from Irène Némirowsky’s successful 1929 novel. It had been said that as a musician Walter Goehr could do everything, except write catchy melodies and hits, but the Fox Trot and the amiable Tango debunk this negative myth.

– Mauro Piccinini