Robert Stolz

Robert Elisabeth Stolz (25 August 1880 – 27 June 1975) was an Austrian songwriter and conductor as well as a composer of operettas and film music. The great-nephew of the soprano Teresa Stolz, Stolz was born of musical parents in Graz. His father was a conductor and his mother a concert pianist. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory with Robert Fuchs and Engelbert Humperdinck. From 1899 he held successive conducting posts at Maribor (then called ... more

Robert Elisabeth Stolz (25 August 1880 – 27 June 1975) was an Austrian songwriter and conductor as well as a composer of operettas and film music. The great-nephew of the soprano Teresa Stolz, Stolz was born of musical parents in Graz. His father was a conductor and his mother a concert pianist. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory with Robert Fuchs and Engelbert Humperdinck. From 1899 he held successive conducting posts at Maribor (then called Marburg), Salzburg and Brno before succeeding Artur Bodanzky at the Theater an der Wien in 1907. There he conducted, among other pieces, the first performance of Oscar Straus's Der tapfere Soldat (The Chocolate Soldier) in 1908, before leaving in 1910 to become a freelance composer and conductor. Meanwhile, he had begun to compose operettas and individual songs and had a number of successes in these fields. After serving in the Austrian Army in World War I, Stolz devoted himself mainly to cabaret, and moved to Berlin in 1925. Around 1930, he... less