Roselius was born in Kassel,[1] the son of the merchant Georg Roselius and a relative of the coffee magnate Ludwig Roselius.[2] He was a répétiteur at the Deutsche Opernhaus Berlin for the 1921/1922 season.[3] He studied composition with Georg Schumann at the Prussian Academy of the Arts from 1921 to 1923, and received a PhD from Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin on the subject of the motets of Andreas Raselius in 1924.[4] He achieved his greatest success with the stage works Godiva and especially Gudrun, which was premièred in Graz in 1938 and performed again in Berlin. He was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1941 and ended World War II as a prisoner of war.[4]
After the war, he became a fixture of musical life in Bremen, working as a music critic, freelance composer, conductor, and musical director of the Bremer Künstlertheater.[5] He received the Bremer Musikpreis in 1964 in recognition of his contributions. Roselius died 6 February 1977 in Bremen.[1]
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