Franz Lehár

Franz Lehár (30 April 1870 – 24 October 1948) was an Austro-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas, of which the most successful and best known is The Merry Widow (Die lustige Witwe).

Biography

Lehár was born in the northern part of Komárom, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary (now Komárno, Slovakia), the eldest son of Franz Lehár (senior) (1838–1898), an Austrian bandmaster in the Infantry Regiment No. 50 of the Austro-Hungarian Army and Christine Neubrandt (1849–1906), a Hungarian woman from a family of German descent. He grew up speaking only Hungarian until the age of 12. Later he put a diacritic above the "a" of his father's name "Lehar" to indicate the vowel in the corresponding Hungarian orthography.

Lehár (surname)

The surname Lehár may refer to:

  • Anton Lehár, (1867–1962), Hungarian-Austrian officer, brother of Franz Lehár
  • Franz Lehár (1870–1948), Hungarian-Austrian composer
  • Lehár (train)

    The Lehár was an express train between Budapest, Hungary, and Vienna, Austria. Introduced in 1979, it was the first eastern European train to become a EuroCity service, in 1988.

    The train was operated by the Hungarian State Railways (MÁV) and the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB). It was named after Franz Lehár (1870–1948), an Austro-Hungarian composer. It was replaced by a Railjet service in 2008.

    History

    The Lehár first ran in 1979. The following year, a trip on the train was featured in "Changing Trains", the final episode in Series 1 of Great Railway Journeys of the World, a BBC TV travel documentary. The "Changing Trains" trip, which was the last stage of a longer journey from Paris to Budapest, was also included in the book published to complement the series.

    In the book, Eric Robson, the presenter and author of "Changing Trains", described the Lehár as "slow at the best of times", and gave the following account of its border crossing at Hegyeshalom:

    Little groups of armed soldiers stand about. I'm reminded that people were shot on this frontier not many weeks before. The train is taken over by an army of workmen, tapping wheels, climbing over bogies and, in the carriages, peering into ceiling cavities and shining torches under the seats. My passport is checked four times and finally stamped with a multi-coloured seal of approval. A girl scuttling about the compartments with an official briefcase demands to know if I have Hungarian money, and scuttles away again before I have a chance to answer.

    Podcasts:

    Franz Lehár

    Paganini

    Released 2000

    Giuditta

    Released 1994

    Der Graf von Luxemburg

    Released 1994

    The Merry Widow (Wiener Philharmoniker & The Monteverdi Choir feat. conductor: John Eliot Gardiner)

    Released 1994

    Die lustige Witwe / Suppé: Ouvertüren (Berliner Philharmoniker feat. conductor: Herbert von Karajan)

    Released 1992

    Die lustige Witwe: Schwarzkopf, Gedda, Kunz conducted by Otto Ackermann

    Released 1988

    Born: 1870-04-30

    Died: 1948-10-24

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