Thursday, 29 October 2026
Horst Chmela would have turned 87: the friend of Harry Pepl’s youth in whose band he played at 17
The Viennese singer-songwriter Horst Chmela (29 October 1939 to 22 November 2021), known for his Wienerlieder, songs in the Austrian capital’s traditional style, was a friend of Harry Pepl’s youth.
In the early 1960s he took the 17-year-old into his band; later, according to the list of the LSG, Austria’s collecting society for the neighbouring rights of performers and record producers, Pepl took part in recordings for Chmela, such as “Die Gassenkinder / In unserem Viertel” (Polydor, 1977). Beneath the obituary by the guitarist Peter Paul Skrepek for the Musikergilde, the Austrian musicians’ guild, Chmela wrote on 29 December 2005: “Harry played in my band as a 17-year-old lad. Even then I knew he would be one of the best. And he is and remains one of the greats for me. I am thinking of you, Harry.” Chmela’s person page now also covers the friendship and the quotation.