Lumbye Sheet Music

Lumbye Sheet Music and Biography

Black & White Portrait of Hans Christian Lumbye — Hans Christian Lumbye

Hans Christian Lumbye was a Danish composer of waltzes, polkas gallops, and marches in the nineteenth century.

He earned the nickname The Strauss of the North’ because of his style. Take a look at his Amelie Waltz and Britta Polka and you will see why.

We have a good selection of arrangements of Lumbye sheet music.

Early Life

Lumbye was born in Copenhagen on 2nd May 1810. As a child, he studied music, and by the age of fourteen, he was playing the trumpet in a military band. In 1829 Lumbye became a member of the horse guards whilst continuing with his musical education and playing in a local orchestra.

After hearing an orchestra play Johann Strauss I at the age of twenty-nine he chose to change his style. This resulted in him earning him the nickname ‘The Strauss of the North’. Quite comically his huge popularity amongst the Danes thus earned Strauss the nickname of ‘Lumbye of the South’.

Career

In 1840 he created his own orchestra consisting of twenty-two players. They performed in prestigious hotels. Their success lead to Lumbye taking the post of musical director and composer at Tivoli Gardens Concert Hall Orchestra. He held this post for about thirty years increasing the orchestra size to thirty-three players. They performed around Europe.

Lumbyecollection of works consists of polka, gallops, waltzes along with some fantasies and ballet music.

Quite unusually some of his pieces include non-musical items such as the ‘Champagne Gallop’ (which includes the pop of a champagne cork), Copenhagen Steam Railway Gallop (which depicts a train leaving and pulling into a station).

After his death in 1884 a fire sadly destroyed much of his work, thankfully many of his musicians were able to recreate them from memory.

Family

There doesn’t appear to be any information regarding his wife however he did have two sons who were both musicians: Carl Christian and Georg August. Georg took over his father’s orchestra on his death in 1874.