Biography
Wolfgang Zeller was a German composer of film and theatre music. Born in Biesenrode in 1893, he studied violin in Munich and composition in Berlin. After serving in the First World War he worked as a violinist and, from 1921 to 1929, as in-house composer and conductor at the Volksbühne theatre in Berlin.
Zeller’s film career began with the orchestral score for Lotte Reiniger’s silhouette animation The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926). He went on to compose for Walter Ruttmann’s Melodie der Welt (1929), Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr (1932) and G. W. Pabst’s L’Atlantide (1932). During the 1930s and 1940s he scored numerous German features, including Veit Harlan’s Jud Süß (1940).
After 1945 Zeller continued to work in film, writing music for East German productions such as Marriage in the Shadows (1947) and the documentary Serengeti Shall Not Die (1959). He died in Berlin in 1967.
