Dublin-born Victor Herbert emigrated to America in 1896. He earned world renown as a composer of operettas with a wealth of memorable melodies that to this day have never lost their charm, and which firmly place Herbert as a giant figure in American popular music.

However, Herbert also wanted to be accepted as a writer of ‘classical’ music, and in 1911 completed an opera, Natoma, strongly influenced by Wagner, which remained in the American repertoire for a number of years. Though many of Herbert’s orchestral works came from his period in Europe, his American years produced the charming Irish Rhapsody of 1892, and the attractive Columbus Suite completed in 1903.