Edmund Meisel

Biography

Edmund Meisel(14 August 1894 – 14 November 1930) was an Austrian-born composer. He wrote the score to Walter Ruttmann's Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (1927), The Battleship Potemkin (1925), and other films of Sergei Eisenstein. Meisel was one of the more important and pioneering figures in film music. Much of his work and the evidence of his significance was lost for more than fifty years. Meisel was born in Vienna to Abraham and Jeni née Herzbrunn. His family was Jewish. He began composing incidental music for the stage in the 1920s. Early credits included the scoring of plays by Bertolt Brecht. His acquaintance with Erwin Piscator led to him writing music for films soon after. Meisel quickly came to be considered a talented composer, capable of working in a different styles, encompassing expressionism and jazz, as well as traditional orchestral modes. Writing during the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic, Meisel demonstrated a wry sense of humor, particularly regarding patriotic songs.