Paul Lincke was born in Berlin, Germany, on November 7, 1866. After
completing his music study he played the violin and bassoon in numerous
theater orchestras. He later distinguished himself as a theater
conductor. In 1897 he had his first operetta produced in Berlin.
Thereafter he wrote many operettas, all originally given in Berlin; he
became one of the foremost exponents of the light musical theater in
Germany of his time. The most famous were _Frau Luna_ (1899), _Fraeulein
Loreley_ (1900), _Lysistrata_ (1902), _Prinzessin Rosine_ (1905), and
_Casanova_ (1914). His last operetta was _Ein Liebestraum_, produced in
Hamburg in 1940. From 1918 to 1920 he was conductor at the
Folies-Bergère in Paris. He died in Klausthal-Zellernfeld, Germany, on
September 3, 1946.
His most famous composition is a song from _Lysistrata_ (1902): “The
Glow Worm” (“_Gluehwuermchen_”), which achieved phenomenal popularity
throughout the world independent of the operetta. It is still famous
both as a vocal composition and in orchestral transcriptions. A new
vocal version, with amusing lyrics by Johnny Mercer, was published and
popularized in the United States in 1952.