Victor Herbert

Victor Herbert led three musical lives: cellist, Broadway composer, and advocate for musicians' rights. Born in Dublin in 1859 and trained in Germany, he came to New York in 1886 when his wife, a soprano, was engaged by the Metropolitan Opera, and he quickly established himself as a leading cellist and conductor in America.

Then Broadway found him. From the 1890s on he wrote a long string of operettas, including Babes in Toyland and Naughty Marietta, whose tunes became part of American popular song before there was such an industry. He also fought for the people who wrote that music: in 1914 he helped found ASCAP, the organization that collects royalties for composers when their work is performed, and he pursued a landmark copyright case on composers' behalf. He died in New York in 1924.

Start with the Cello Concerto no. 2 in E minor, the work of his that concert audiences still hear; it impressed Dvořák, then living in New York, as he planned his own cello concerto.