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 . [1]
Stolz was born of musical parents in Graz . [2] His father was conductor and composer Jakob Stolz , his mother was concert pianist Ida Bondy , and he was the great-nephew of the soprano Teresa Stolz . At the age of seven, he toured Europe as a pianist, playing Mozart. [3] He studied at the Vienna Conservatory with Robert Fuchs and Engelbert Humperdinck . [1] From 1899 he held successive conducting posts at Maribor (then called Marburg), Salzburg and Brno before succeeding Artur Bodanzky at the Theater an de
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 started to compose music for films , such as the first German sound film Zwei Herzen im Dreivierteltakt ( Two Hearts in Waltz Time ), of which the title-waltz rapidly became a popular favourite. Some earlier Stolz compositions, such as "Adieu, mein kleiner Gardeoffizier" from his operetta Die lustigen Weiber von Wien , became known to wider audiences through the medium o