"Als ich jung war in Berlin ..."

They were the brightest and the darkest years in the history of the musical metropolis of Berlin: From the founding years via the roaring twenties to the Third Reich. And right in the middle and setting the tone: the composers Walter and Willi Kollo. Willi Kollo's notes on the musical career of his father, one of the masters of the Berlin operetta, and on his own work as an author, composer, revue performer and director are a treasure of German cultural history that has not been raised yet. With a lot of humour and thoughtfulness, Kollo looks back on the Berlin of the period 1890-1946 and thinks back to prominent artists such as Claire Waldoff, Fritzi Massary, Carl Zuckmayer and others. A family chronicle and at the same time a great musical and literary biography. Walter Kollo (1878-1940) studied at the conservatoires of Sondershausen and Königsberg. In 1907 he came to Berlin where he composed more than 50 operettas until the end of the 1930s.Willi Kollo (1904-1988) had been a librettist and co-worker of his father since 1923. From 1928 he was successful as an author of cabaret revues and screenplays as well as a composer of hit songs and film music.Marguerite Kollo administers the comprehensive family archive and edited the notes of her father Willi Kollo and compiled them in this book. She is a music publisher and artists' agent and represented her brother René Kollo for many years.