from Wikipedia:
Paul Mania (* 1883; † August 1, 1935) was a German organist, pianist, composer and orchestra leader.
Paul Mania was born as a son of a farmer in 1883 in Czepolowicz, Lower Silesia, in the district of Brieg. Despite his early recognizable musical talent, he first had to go through an ill-favored merchant apprenticeship. Afterwards, he was able to become a successful musician due to a secret study of music at the conservatory in Breslau and the encouragement of the owner of the music store Ibach in Cologne.
Mania's main creative period as a composer was between 1910 and 1920, when he became known for his arrangements of Rhenish poems, which soon became widespread because of their popular appeal. His famous song ''Im Rolandsbogen'', for which the local poet Jörg Ritzel had written the words, was first performed in 1914. It was circulated on numerous song postcards.
Popular songs such as ''Zu Rüdesheim in der Drosselgass''or the setting of the poem Rheintreue by Josef Schlegel as a choral movement are also among Mania's works In addition, the ''Brohltallied'',' whose poetic model came from Johann Jacobs and which enjoys great popularity not only among the inhabitants of the Brohltal to this day.
However, Mania not only wrote Rhine and wine songs, but also set literary texts by Otto Julius Bierbaum, Wilhelm Busch, Ludwig Fulda, Hermann Löns and Heinz Steguweit to music. He also composed the march of the ''Kölner Prinzengarde'', which is still played officially today in the Cologne Carnival as the ''Prinzen-Gardemarsch''.
During World War I, he was not consripted due to his poor health, but found opportunities to perform over 400 concerts for charity.
Mania was active both as an organist and pianist, accompanying renowned vocal soloists in the Gürzenich, for example, and as an orchestra conductor, but especially as a choirmaster of regional associations, such as the Cologne Men's Choir, the Cologne Mania Women's Choir, the Solingen Men's Choral Society, and especially the Cologne Men's Choral Society, founded in 1842.
In addition, as a soloist, he played the organ and the harmonium, which he particularly valued as an instrument.
In addition to the serious music, however, there were also the cheerful songs of his new Rhenish homeland, whose performance by well-known carnival performers such as Willi Ostermann or Gerhard Ebeler which he accompanied as orchestra leader.
When radio came to Germany, it was WERAG (the forerunner of West German Radio-WDR) that hired him in 1924 as choral director, soloist accompanist, composer and assistant bandmaster.
Thanks to his reputation as a master on the harmonium, Mania was engaged by the Lindström concern in Berlin, for whose label ''Parlophon'' he recorded numerous gramophone records commencing in 1924. Here he appeared as a soloist as well as an accompanist of important singers of stage and concert hall. Aso of singers of the synagogue such as the head cantor of Cologne Hermann Fleischmann, the last cantor of Hanover, Israel Alter, or the Russian cantor Morris Katzin.
In 1934 Mania fell seriously ill and had to be hospitalized. On August 1, 1935, at the age of 52, he died in his Silesian homeland in the spa town of Obernigk (Oborniki Śląskie in the Katzengebirge).
Note: Translated from the German version of Wikipedia into English.
