Peter Igelhoff

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Peter Igelhoff (Rudolf August Ordnung) b. Vienna 22 July 1904 d. Bad Reichenhall 8 April 1978. Austrian pianist, light music and film composer, arranger and entertainer; he took his mother's maiden name as soon as he resolved on a career in light entertainment.

Peter Igelhoff made an early career as a jazz pianist in bars before deciding to hone what became a sharp and witty playing style by studying in London in the early 1930s. He moved to Amsterdam and later in 1935 to Berlin where he became extremely busy in film and recording studio work with a group including fellow composer-pianist Georg Haentzschel (1907-1992). Many of Igelhoff's light songs sold very well and his career was not hindered initially by the outbreak of war in 1939, although by and by the National Socialists started to deem his music too American in style and it was eventually banned. By the later 1940s his style went slightly out of fashion but he managed to keep reasonably busy almost to the end of his life, by which time his work had been rewarded with a professorship.

Igelhoff was an extremely able pianist with an enviable concert technique, accompanying his light tenor voice (and occasionally his virtuoso whistling) in songs which rarely fail to touch an emotional nerve or bring a smile to even the most preoccupied listener, either through a wry comedic wit, or illuminated by a particularly satisfying and affectionate lyricism. Some of his songs (he wrote over a thousand) such as "Wir machen Musik" (from the film of the same name), "Der Onkel Doktor hat gesagt", "Dieses Lied hat keinen Text" or "Delirium" can still charm and surprise, for it is fortunate that he made many recordings which a new generation is beginning to discover, recordings which pay tribute to his compelling musicality and dry sense of humour.