Bodo Wartke

Bodo Wartke makes the kind of piano cabaret that rewards close listening. The Hamburg-born performer, who also writes and acts, works mostly in German, and his lyrics lean on rhyme, satire and wordplay in equal measure. He accompanies himself on grand piano but reaches for ukulele, cajón and harmonica too. Love runs through much of his material, sometimes played for laughs, sometimes not, while songs such as Nicht in meinem Namen take aim at religious extremism.

Wartke tours regularly across the German-speaking world and often runs several piano programmes in parallel, among them Noah war ein Archetyp and Klaviersdelikte. His Liebeslied, a song of short stanzas, had reached 88 language versions by 2011, ranging from German dialects to Esperanto and Klingon. He has also written rhymed adaptations of Greek tragedy, including Antigone, which premiered at Hamburg's Schmidt Theater in April 2018. In 2024 the novelty song Barbara's Rhubarb Bar, made with producer Marti Fischer from a German tongue twister, went viral on TikTok and reached number 16 on the German Single Trending Charts.