Heinrich Strecker (24 February 1893,

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- 28 June 1981, Baden bei Wien) was an Austrian composer of operettas and popular Viennese music.

Biography

As a young child, Strecker was sent to

Theux Theux (; wa, Teu) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium. On 1 January 2006 the municipality had 11,571 inhabitants. The total area is 83.36 km², giving a population density of 139 inhabitants per km². ...

in Belgium, where he was educated on a boarding school run by

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. His talent for music was noticed here, and his interest nurtured. At the completion of his schooling, he could play 12 instruments. He professed a preference for the

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

, in which he completed a

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. In 1907, Strecker made his public performance debut with his own composition, ''Violin Concerto in A Major'', and in the same year, he was asked to play it for the Belgian king Leopold II, and was honoured for doing so. He returned to Vienna in 1910, at the age of 17, to study law at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hist ...

. His studies were interrupted by the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, in which he was an army officer. After the war he devoted himself solely to his music, studying with Prof. and beginning to compose classical pieces. Between commissioned pieces, such as dance and film music, he discovered Viennese songs. He became famous for this type of popular music, as well as for his Singspiel. He often collaborated with F. Gerold, Joe Grebitz and , who wrote the song texts and libretti. On 21 December 1931, his operetta "''Mädel aus Wien''" (''Girl from Vienna'') premiered at the Vienna

Bürgertheater The Bürgertheater was a theatre in Vienna. The Wiener Bürgertheater was erected in 1905 in the Third District (3 Bezirk), at Vordere Zollamtsstraße 13. It was designed by the architects Franz von Krauss and Josef Tölk. The official opening ...

, and immediately following the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...

of Austria by the

Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

, his operetta "''Der ewige Walzer''" (''The Eternal Waltz'') premiered on 18 May 1938 at the

Volksoper The Vienna Volksoper (''Volksoper'' or ''Vienna People's Opera'') is an opera house in Vienna, Austria. It produces three hundred performances of twenty-five German language productions of opera, operetta, musicals, and ballet, during an annual s ...

. His Singspiel ''Ännchen von Tharau'' (''Little Ann from Tharau''), which he wrote with Hardt-Warden, premiered at the

Raimund Theater The Raimund Theater is a theatre in the Mariahilf district of Vienna, Austria. Named after the Austrian dramatist Ferdinand Raimund, the theatre was built by an association of Viennese citizens and opened on 28 November 1893 with Raimund's play ...

on 8 February 1940. Strecker became a member of the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

in 1933, and was the regional representative of the cultural community of Vienna. In addition to the "Excelsior" and "Stage" publishers, which he founded in Vienna in 1926, he took over the "Bristol, Sirius and Europaton" music publishers under the guise of Aryanisation. Strecker was married to Erika Strecker, and died at the age of 88 in Baden on 28 June 1981. During his career he composed many popular songs, waltzes, marches, operettas, and film scores. His music is still popular in Austria, and concerts are sometimes given in his old home in the Viennese suburb of Baden bei Wien.

Selected works

The complete catalogue of Heinrich Strecker's works comprises more than 350 individual pieces.

Stage works

* ''Mädel aus Wien'', operetta (1931) * ''Ännchen von Tharau'', Singspiel in 3 acts (1933) * ''Der ewige Walzer'', operetta (1937) * ''Honeymoon'', operetta

Viennese songs

* ''Drunt in der Lobau'' * ''Ja, ja der Wein ist gut'' * ''Auf der Lahmgrub'n da steht ein altes Haus'' * ''Grüß mir die Stadt der Lieder'' * ''An der blauen Donau'' * ''Wann a Weana Musi spielt'' * ''Das war in Petersdorf''

References

;Sources *Most of the material in this article is from the German Wikipedia article * Raimar Wieser (Hrsg.): ''Heinrich Strecker und Baden'' (''Heinrich Strecker and Baden'') Gesellschaft der Fruende Badens, (''Association of the Friends of Baden''), Baden 1993. * Raimar Wieser: ''Liebes Wien, du Stadt der Lieder. Heinrich Strecker und seine Zeit'' (''Lovely Vienna, City of Songs. Heinrich Strecker and His Times'') Amalthea Verlag, Wien 1997, .

External links