Liza Lehmann, eldest daughter of the painter Rudolf Lehmann, was born in London. She was able to develop her abilities as a singer and as a composer and to benefit from contact through her family with leading performers, composers and artists. Her early career was as a singer, until marriage and illness compelled her to turn, instead, to composition.

Vocal Music
Liza Lehmann won particular success with a series of song cycles, of which In a Persian Garden, written in 1896 and based on texts from Fitzgerald’s Omar Khayyám, proved immensely popular. This followed the earlier The Daisy Chain of 1893, a set of children’s poems; later works include In memoriam in 1899 based on Tennyson, and the Lewis Carroll and Hilaire Belloc nonsense and comic songs of 1908 and 1909. Her vocal music led to extended concert tours in which she served as accompanist.