Robert Stolz was born into a large musical family, the twelfth child of Jacob Stolz, a conductor and principal of the music school in Graz, and Ida Stolz, a pianist and music teacher. His parents soon recognized his exceptional gifts: when he was seven he gave a public piano recital at which Brahms, a friend of the family, was a member of the audience. His first composition, a piano piece, was completed when he was eleven and was dedicated ‘to my kind, beloved Papa’. He graduated in 1896 from the Vienna Conservatory, where his teachers had included the composers Robert Fuchs and Engelbert Humperdinck, and the following year he joined the city theatre in Graz as a repetiteur, being promoted to the position of conductor in 1898. Having met Johann Strauss II in 1899 Stolz began to consider composing, and his first operetta, Studentulke, was premiered in 1901 at Maribor in Slovenia where he had been a conductor since 1899.

Following a short period of military service, Stolz was engaged as first conductor at Salzburg in 1902. During the summer of that year he undertook a tour of Russia with an operetta company, but as a result of an unexpected financial collapse he found himself penniless in Berlin, and briefly earned his living as a pianist in a brothel, from which he was rescued by the pianist Alfred Grunfeld. After another short stretch as the conductor of a circus, he obtained the position of first conductor at the German Theatre in Brno in 1903. Here he gained valuable experience as a conductor, laying the foundations for his future international eminence in this role, composed another operetta, Manoverliebe, and met his first wife, the singer Grete Holm. In 1907 Stolz moved to Vienna to take up the post of conductor at the Theater an der Wien, where he led Franz Lehar’s Die lustige Witwe and later Leo Fall’s Die Dollarprinzessin (1907); Oscar Straus’s Der tapfere Soldat (1908) and Lehar’s Der Graf von Luxemburg (1909). He also continued to compose, several of his operettas being staged at the Colosseum and Raimund Theatres. The success of these works encouraged him to leave his permanent post at the Theater an der Wien and to concentrate on composing. His first major success was the song Servus, du!, composed in 1911 on a paper bag in a bar with the writer Benno Vigny. Around this time Stolz’s first marriage collapsed; his re-marriage was to the cabaret singer Franzi Ressel. Always open to new initiatives he recorded several songs with her for the gramophone and composed orchestral music to accompany a silent film tribute to the great operetta star, Alexander Girardi.

With the outbreak of World War I, Stolz was once again drafted into the army but had the good fortune to be appointed as a conductor of the best band in the Austrian army, the Deutschmeister, later noting wryly, ‘…it was typical of the old monarchy to go to the front in the dark days of its fall with antiquated, badly equipped armies, which were accompanied by the best bands of the world.’ He continued to be a prolific composer of songs and operettas: Der Favorit, conducted by himself at the Komische Oper in Berlin in 1916, was especially successful. Following the establishment of peace, he concentrated on composing popular songs and operettas, and in 1919 founded the publishing house Boheme-Verlag with Otto Hein. He enjoyed considerable success until an attempt to run his own theatre in Vienna in 1924 resulted in financial ruin as well the collapse of his third marriage, his second having failed during the previous year.

Stolz bought a one-way rail ticket to Berlin where he quickly returned to success with several stage works. In 1929 he was invited to compose music for the film Zwei Herzen im Dreivierteltakt, and wrote for this what was to become one of the most popular waltzes of all time. He became extremely active in the world of film, while also continuing to compose operettas: amongst several others, Venus in Seide appeared with success in 1932 in Zurich. He left Germany for Austria in 1936, and following a warning from a family member, fled Austria for Paris on the night of the Anschluss in 1938. In Paris he continued to compose, only to see his fourth wife abscond in 1939 with all his wealth and his identity papers. Arrested as an undesirable alien in late 1939, Stolz was interned and contracted pneumonia. Help unexpectedly appeared in the form of the nineteen-year-old daughter of a banker, whom he had met earlier by chance and who secured his release through bribery, nursed him back to health, and married him. Together they travelled to the USA in 1940. Here he wrote music for Hollywood films, and when asked to substitute for Bruno Walter as the conductor of a Viennese evening with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, enjoyed such success that numerous conducting and composing commissions quickly followed.

With the end of the war Stolz returned immediately to Vienna with his wife, commenting, ‘I was convinced that Austria and Germany, if they have ever needed me, needed me more than ever in this moment. When someone you love is ill, you have to rush to his help. He needs your assistance much more than when he is healthy. I was convinced that my music would be able to make a little contribution to the recovery of Austria and Germany after National Socialism, after war and destruction.’ His vision proved to be right. Although now of an age when most people stop work, Stolz continued to compose, including many operettas and music for nineteen seasons of the Vienna ice reviews, and to conduct, most notably a very large series of operetta recordings for the Ariola-Eurodisc label, which were enormously popular throughout Central Europe. On New Year’s Eve 1965 he conducted Die Fledermaus at the Vienna State Opera, the last survivor of the golden age of Viennese music. When he died in 1975 he was awarded a state funeral by the Austrian government.

Stolz’s great strength was his ability to compose immediately-memorable tunes, often accompanied by haunting rhythms. He composed a huge number of film scores and songs, many of which continue to be performed in response to popular demand in Europe. His operettas have fared less well, reflecting the fact that they do not command the stage in the way that the most successful examples of the genre are able to do. His many recordings are superb examples of the art of conducting Viennese light music and operetta in general, clearly marking him out as a master of the genre.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — David Patmore (A–Z of Conductors, Naxos 8.558087–90).