Franz Lehár’s favourite haunt was Vienna’s Café Sperl, and with the famous Theater an der Wien around the corner, Café Sperl became the meeting place for the operetta crowd around the turn of the 20th century. The Theater an der Wien was the site of the world première of Lehár’s tenth stage work, The Merry Widow, which met its enthusiastic public on 30 December 1905.
Why would the London Symphony Orchestra pair Mozart’s Symphony no. 41 in C major, “Jupiter” and Mahler’s songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn? There seemed to be no direct link between them other than that both demonstrate their composers’ fondness for mystery.
