Franz
Lehár was born in the northern part of Komárom.
While
his younger brother Anton entered cadet school in Vienna to become a
professional officer, Franz studied violin at the Prague Conservatory, where his violin teacher was Antonín Bennewitz, but was advised by Antonín Dvořák to focus on composition. However, the Conservatory's rules at that
time did not allow students to study both performance and composition, and
Bennewitz and Lehár senior exerted pressure on Lehár to take his degree in
violin as a practical matter, arguing that he could study composition on his
own later.
After
graduation in 1888 he joined his father's band in Vienna, as assistant
bandmaster. Two years later he became bandmaster at Losoncz, East Slovakia,
making him the youngest bandmaster in the Austro-Hungarian Army at that time,
but he left the army and joined the navy.
He is
most famous for his operettas – the most successful of which is The
Merry Widow, but he also wrote sonatas, symphonic poems and marches. He also composed a number of waltzes (the
most popular being Gold und
Silber), some of which were drawn from his famous operettas. Individual
songs from some of the operettas have become standards, notably
"Vilja" from The
Merry Widow and "You Are
My Heart's Delight" from The Land of Smiles.
He died in 1948 because in cancer, more than thousand people
went to his funeral and said him their last goodbyes. A band performed the Volga-song there, as he wished before
his death.
Franz Lehàr
The statue of Franz Lehàr in Komàrno in front of the Slovak Matica.
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