Luchow's - Music

Music

At the turn of the twentieth century Lüchow's was prospering, and a good part of the bottom line came from beer sales. Although he was not the first man to serve these fine imported beers in America, he was first to make them popular, a fact attested to by the popular song Harry Von Tilzer wrote to honor August and his restaurant, "Down Where the Würzburger Flows". "The song traveled from Fourteenth Street to the beer gardens of Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, and far beyond, and attained such popularity that August declared in some bewilderment: 'I feel like a kind of beer Columbus!'"

Victor Herbert was a noted concert cellist, conductor and composer of forty-three operettas and numerous other choral and instrumental works. He brought an eight piece orchestra back from Vienna to perform at Lüchow's after one of his tours, and presided as its leader for nearly four years, thus starting a musical tradition that carried through to the 1980s. A corner table with a commemorative plaque was remembered at Lüchow's as the "Victor Herbert Corner" and the place where Herbert and his associates founded the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) in 1914. Songwriter Gus Kahn was another regular at the restaurant; he wrote the lyrics for "Yes, Sir, That's My Baby" there.

Other works and composers which were featured at Luchow's include the art songs of Richard Strauss or Johannes Brahms, "In a Persian Market" by Albert Ketèlbey, Franz Schubert's "Moments Musicaux" or Schwanengesang, Richard Wagner's "Wesendonck Songs", or Tannhäuser. For comic relief, there was a strolling Oompah Band, the Royal Bavarians, which played songs such as "Lili Marleen", "The Beer Barrel Polka" and Sigmund Romberg's "Heidelberger Trinklied" drinking song from The Student Prince

Herbert's and Romberg's Viennese counterpart Franz Lehar and his music, including "Dein ist mein ganzes Herz" and the "Merry Widow Waltz" represent the gemütlicher (comfortable and cozy) side of the restaurant's personality. Other musical fare from this branch – The Tales of Hoffmann by Offenbach and Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck, along with the Strauss Waltzes such as "Blue Danube" – made up a good part of the basic Lüchow's repertoire performed by the piano and string ensemble first known as the Vienna Art Strings, or Quartet, and later as the Victor Herbert Quartet, or Trio. Add to that some of the numbers from Herbert's Babes in Toyland, such as "Toyland" and "March of the Toys" for instance, plus a few from The Nutcracker, and a great many of the well known Christmas carols and songs, and you get something like what was played during the Christmas season at Lüchow's down through the years.