One of the most surprising discoveries for me was to learn that Franz Lehár, whose operas and waltzes compare with those of the Strauss family, lived and worked in my lifetime. Much as I love the melodies and waltzes from The Merry Widow and Wiener Frauen (Viennese Women) I was ignorant of the fact that Lehár was a contemporary of The Beatles and Elvis Presley.

Lehár’s music and operas are primarily associated with the gaiety and peace that reigned throughout Europe before the cataclysmic outbreak of war in 1914, which was to change everything.

Best known as a composer of operettas his output was prodigious. During his 35-year career as a composer and conductor, he wrote nearly 40 operettas. Hungarian-born but of German ethnicity, Lehár’s greatest and most enduring success was The Merry Widow, which was first played at Theatre-an-der-Wien in 1905. It had more than 5,000 performances. Such was its popularity that at one time it was playing simultaneously in five different languages in five different theatres, and this in one city alone, Buenos Aires.

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It was impossible not to admire and enjoy Lehár’s operettas, marches, dances, and even symphonic poems. His music was even enjoyed by Adolf Hitler who awarded the composer the distinguished Goethe Medal despite the fact that the composer was married to a Jewess. It is one of the quirks of history that Lehár was born on the 30^th of April and the German chancellor died on the same date.

Of his many waltzes most of us find his Golden and Silver Waltz irresistible and many a mum (and dad) has spun their child around the kitchen table to its lilting melody. At least my mum did to me, much to my embarrassment. I am sure I was her heart’s delight. This happened to be the name given to one of Lehár’s most famous operetta songs. Wherever and whenever You Are My Heart’s Delight is played, it brings audiences to their feet.

In July 2004 the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, as always, held its end-of-the-season concert at the Berlin Waldbuhne open-air stadium that was designed and created by the National Socialists for the people of Berlin situated just outside Berlin. On one occasion Rolando Villazon; the world-famous Mexican tenor was joined by Madrid-born Placido Domingo and beautiful Russian soprano, Anna Netrebko. Together they sang Lehár’s You Are My Heart’s Delight ((Dein ist mein ganzes Herz). The effect on the 20,000 theatre-goers was electrifying.

Is it possible that songs written today will be bringing rapturous applause from vast audiences in 90 years’ time? I doubt it. There is a saying: ‘To live in the hearts of those you leave behind, is not to die.’ The music of this former military musician will live on in our hearts – and our feet, for centuries to come. NOTE: Michael Walsh, editor of Europe Renaissance is an avid fan of classical music.

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