"Hearts and Flowers" is a song composed by Theodore Moses-Tobani (with words by Mary D. Brine) and published in 1893.
The famous melody is taken from the introductory 2/4 section of "Wintermärchen" Waltzes Op.366 (1891) by the Hungarian composer Alphons Czibulka.
The song as a vocal number was soon forgotten but the piece it was founded upon, re-arranged as a short instrumental, gained popularity in its own right under the same title "Hearts and Flowers" and it is in this form that it remains well known to this day.
The 2/4 melody Czibulka's "Wintermärchen" Waltzes Op.366 (1891) was also re-arranged into 3/4 time to form the first waltz in the instrumental-only "Hearts and Flowers" Waltzes by Moses-Tobani though this is now never heard.
Today the piece "Hearts and Flowers" has a connection in popular culture with having been associated with silent film accompaniment music. The connection is entirely a latter-day one however as silent film scores were typically assembled from music that specifically was unfamiliar to the audience so as to not distract attention from the on-screen action.
Nevertheless, the instrumental violin version has in the collective popular imagination come to symbolize all that is melodramatic, sentimental or mock-tragic. Indeed, the humming of the tune is often combined with the miming of violin-playing to indicate mock-sympathy at someone's misfortunes.
The term 'hearts-and-flowers' has entered the English language with the sense "extreme sentimentality, cloying sweetness".
Famous quotes containing the words hearts and/or flowers:
“Had not God, for some strong purpose, steeled
The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,
And barbarism itself have pitied him.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)