Jaromír Vejvoda
Encyclopedia
Jaromír Vejvoda was a Czech
Czech people
Czechs, or Czech people are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...
composer and the author of the "Beer Barrel Polka
Beer Barrel Polka
Beer Barrel Polka, also known as Roll Out the Barrel, is a song which became popular worldwide during World War II. The music was composed by the Czech musician Jaromír Vejvoda in 1927. Eduard Ingriš wrote the first arrangement of the piece, after Vejvoda came upon the melody and sought Ingriš's...
".
Life and work
Vejvoda learned to play the fiddleViolin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
and flugelhorn
Flugelhorn
The flugelhorn is a brass instrument resembling a trumpet but with a wider, conical bore. Some consider it to be a member of the saxhorn family developed by Adolphe Sax ; however, other historians assert that it derives from the valve bugle designed by Michael Saurle , Munich 1832 , thus...
in a band led by his father. Later he played these instruments in a military band. He started to compose in the 1920s while he worked as a bartender in a pub owned by his father-in-law. In 1929 he wrote the Modřanská polka named after Modřany
Modřany
Modřany is a suburb of Prague south of the city centre on the banks of the Vltava. It belongs to the municipal district Prague 12. Before being joined with the capital Prague in year 1974, Modřany was de facto a town....
, a suburb of Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
where it was played the first time. This catchy tune became a hit and allowed Vejvoda to pursue music as a full-time professional. It was published in 1934 with lyrics Škoda lásky, kterou jsem tobě dala... Publishing house Shapiro Bernstein acquired the rights shortly before World War II and the polka, now the "Beer Barrel Polka
Beer Barrel Polka
Beer Barrel Polka, also known as Roll Out the Barrel, is a song which became popular worldwide during World War II. The music was composed by the Czech musician Jaromír Vejvoda in 1927. Eduard Ingriš wrote the first arrangement of the piece, after Vejvoda came upon the melody and sought Ingriš's...
" with the English lyrics "Roll out the barrel...", became the most popular song of the Allies in the West, although the original Czech lyrics have a very different meaning and do not speak about beer. After the war this polka became popular around the world, in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
-speaking countries as Rosamunde-Polka.
Vejvoda wrote many other hits, such as Kdyby ty muziky nebyly ("If those bands did not exist") and Já ráda tancuju ("I love to dance") but none of them became popular outside of the Czech and German speaking countries.
Vejvoda had three sons: Jaromír, Jiří and Josef. Josef
Josef Vejvoda
Josef Vejvoda is a Czech composer, percussionist, conductor and bandleader.His first notable appearance took place in 1963, when he performed with Jiří Stivín's Jazztet at the Theatre on the Balustrade. In 1967, he was awarded Laureate of the Prague Jazz International Contest of Young Soloists...
continues the family tradition of being musician, composer and bandleader. His daughter Zuzana
Zuzana Vejvodová
Zuzana Vejvodová is a Czech actress.In 2000 she graduated from Prague Conservatory. Afterwards she joined Divadlo Na Fidlovačce . She regularly performs in TV films and series. In April 2008 she was shortlisted for TýTý Award, an annual Czech television award, in one of the categories...
is a musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
actress.
Vejvoda's Beer Barrel Polka in film
- At the CircusAt the CircusAt the Circus is a 1939 Marx Brothers comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in which they save a circus from bankruptcy...
(1939, USA) - La Paloma – Große Freiheit Nr. 7 (1943, Germany)
- The Human ComedyThe Human Comedy (film)The Human Comedy is a 1943 drama film directed by Clarence Brown and adapted by Howard Estabrook. It is often thought to be based on the William Saroyan novel of the same name, but actually Saroyan wrote the screenplay first, was fired from the movie project, and quickly wrote the novel and...
(1943, USA) - A Night in CasablancaA Night in CasablancaA Night in Casablanca was the twelfth Marx Brothers movie, starring Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, and Harpo Marx. The picture was directed by Archie Mayo and written by Joseph Fields and Roland Kibbee, and is generally considered one of the better of the Marx Brothers' later films.-Plot:Set in...
(1946, USA) - The Best Years of Our LivesThe Best Years of Our LivesThe Best Years of Our Lives is a 1946 American drama film directed by William Wyler, and starring Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, and Harold Russell, a United States paratrooper who lost both hands in a military training accident. The film is about three United States...
(1946, USA) - The Captive HeartThe Captive HeartThe Captive Heart is a 1946 British war drama, directed by Basil Dearden for Ealing Studios. The film was entered into the 1946 Cannes Film Festival.-Plot:...
(1946, UK) - The Cruel SeaThe Cruel Sea (film)The Cruel Sea is a 1953 British film from Ealing Studios starring Jack Hawkins and Donald Sinden, with Denholm Elliott, Stanley Baker, Liam Redmond, Virginia McKenna and Moira Lister...
(1953, UK) - Ročník 21 ("Born in '21", 1957, Czech)
- Sudba cheloveka ("Destiny of a Man" in the UK or "Fate of a Man" in the USA, 1959, USSR)
- The Longest DayThe Longest Day (film)The Longest Day is a 1962 war film based on the 1959 history book The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan, about "D-Day", the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944, during World War II....
(1962, USA) - Atentát ("The Assassination", 1964, Czech)
- La communale ("Public School", 1965, France)
- Nebeští jezdci ("Riders in the Sky", 1968, Czech)
- M*A*S*H (1972 to 1983, USA)
- Born in East L.A. (sang as Rosamunde-Polka)(1987, USA)
- The Elementary SchoolThe Elementary SchoolThe Elementary School is a 1991 Czech comedy film directed by Jan Svěrák. The screenplay comes from the pen of his father Zdeněk Svěrák. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1991 and is considered to belong among the best Czech films ever.-Plot:The film is...
(1991, CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
) - Roommates (1995, USA)
- A Walk in the CloudsA Walk in the CloudsA Walk in the Clouds is a 1995 American romantic drama film directed by Alfonso Arau. The screenplay by Robert Mark Kamen, Mark Miller, and Harvey Weitzman is based on the 1942 Italian film Four Steps in the Clouds by Piero Tellini, Cesare Zavattini, and Vittorio de Benedetti.-Plot:Shortly after...
(1995, USA) - In Love and War (1996, USA)
- Jakob the LiarJakob the LiarJakob the Liar is a 1999 American tragicomedy film directed by Peter Kassovitz and starring Robin Williams, Alan Arkin, Liev Schreiber, Hannah Taylor-Gordon, and Bob Balaban. The movie is set in 1944 in a ghetto in German-occupied Poland in the times of the Holocaust and is based on the book by...
(1999, USA)