Die Fledermaus overture
Skaters Waltz (Les Patineurs)
Bauern Polka
Bahn Frei
Die Schonbrunner Waltzes
Pizzicato Polka
Persian March
Emperor Waltz
- INTERVAL -
Fruhlingstimmen Waltz (Voices of Spring)
Annen Polka
Ohne Sorgen
Gold and Silver
Tritsch-Tratsch Polka
Blue Danube
Thunder and Lightning
Radetzky March
During the 19th century, Vienna was the European capital of popular music and operettas. One early exponent was Michael Pamer, whose orchestra was often heard in the city's cafés and inns. One of the popular dances at the beginning of the century was the Ländler, a slow rustic folk dance in 3/4 time which originated in the Landel area of Austria. The tradition was for male dancers to wear hob-nailed boots which perhaps gave the dance its slow and slightly heavy character. However, with the transition of the dance from the village inn to fashionable city ballrooms (complete with more delicate wooden parquet floors!), the Ländler's characteristic 'hopping' movement and stamping rotation were replaced by a sliding step and gliding rotation. As a result, the dance became quicker and the Viennese Waltz was born. The Viennese Waltz's popularity spread throughout Europe and, together with the Polka, March and Galop, it found its place as one of the most fashionable and popular dances of the time.
The composer often referred to as the 'inventor' of the Viennese Waltz was Joseph Lanner. He had been a violinist in Pamer's band, but left in 1818 to form his own string trio. The trio subsequently became a quartet when they were joined by another 'refugee' from Pamer's band - the viola player Johann (I) Strauss. Further rapid expansion followed and the group eventually became a small string orchestra. Such was their popularity that a second orchestra was formed within the group, with Strauss as its conductor. Strauss left Lanner's orchestra the following year in order to set up his own orchestra. He took some of Lanner's other players with him, but in spite of their professional rivalry, the two men remained friends. Lanner's output as a composer numbered over 200 works. His best known works include the 'Hofballtänze', and 'Schönbrunner Waltzes'. Strauss and his orchestra performed in many of Vienna's most popular inns and also toured Europe. His fame grew, and with it the musical reputation of Vienna. In recognition of his achievements, the Emperor gave him the title of Hofballmusikdirektor (Director of Music for the Imperial-Royal Court Balls). His compositions numbered over 300, although considering how important he was in the development of the Viennese Waltz it is perhaps slightly ironic that the work he is particularly remembered for is the 'Radetzky March', composed in 1848 in honour of the Commander in Chief of the Austrian Army, which nowadays forms the traditional conclusion to the annual New Year's Day concerts given by the Vienna Philharmonic.
It was not just as a composer that Strauss was prolific. He fathered no fewer than 13 children - 6 with his wife Anna, and 7 more with Emilie Trampusch, a young seamstress for whom he left Anna in 1842. It was as a result of the effects of Scarlet Fever caught from one of his children that he died in 1849. However, although Strauss did not want any of his children to choose a career in music, 3 of his and Anna's sons were destined to follow him, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, into what was to become the 'family business'. His eldest son, also called Johann, developed an early interest in music. He worked as a bank clerk but secretly took violin and composition lessons. In 1844 he established his own orchestra performing his own and his father's compositions. When Johann (I) died 5 years later, Johann (II) amalgamated their two orchestras thereby establishing the pre-eminent popular music orchestra in Vienna and enhancing his own personal standing in the city's musical life. As well as performing in Vienna, the orchestra toured Europe - during a visit to London in 1867, they performed no fewer than 63 concerts at Covent Garden Opera House - and for 10 years, from 1855, Johann (II) directed a series of summer concerts in St. Petersburg. Like his father before him, he became the Hofballmusikdirektor and conducted the Austrian court balls between 1863 and 1872. He composed nearly 400 waltzes, justifiably earning himself the title of "The Waltz King". The list of his best-known waltzes reads like something of a "Top Ten Chart" of the greatest examples of the form ever composed - 'The Blue Danube', 'The Emperor Waltz', 'Voices of Spring', 'Tales from the Vienna Woods', 'Roses from the South' and 'Wine, Women & Song', to name but a few. In addition to his waltzes, Johann (II) composed numerous other dances many of which - such as the 'Annen', 'Bauern', 'Champagne', 'Tritsch-Tratsch' and 'Thunder & Lightning' polkas and the 'Persian' and 'Egyptian' marches - are as well-known as his most famous waltzes. He also composed a number of operettas, most famous of which are 'Die Fledermaus' (The Bat) and 'The Gypsy Baron'.
Johann (I)'s second son was Josef. His father wanted him to join the army, but Josef had other ideas, choosing to study engineering and subsequently becoming an architect. (He actually designed the horse-drawn fore-runner of the modern road-sweeping vehicle!) Like his elder brother he studied music in secret and when Johann (II) became ill and was prescribed an extended 'rest cure', Josef was persuaded to pick up the baton of the orchestra in his place. He was bitten by the bug and eventually gave up his own career and turned to music full-time. In addition to conducting, he composed nearly 300 pieces. Nowadays his Polkas - including 'Ohne Sorgen' (Without a Care) and the 'Pizzicato Polka' (co-composed with his elder brother) - are played more than his waltzes. Johann (II) clearly thought highly of his younger brother, saying : "Pepi [Josef] is the more gifted of us two; I am merely the more popular...."
The last of Johann (I)'s sons to take up music was his youngest, Eduard. He studied languages intending to join the Austrian Consular Service. However, on discovering that this would take him away from Vienna for at least ten years, his mother made such a fuss that he eventually gave in to her wishes and resigned himself to joining the 'family business'. He joined the orchestra as a harpist in 1855, before becoming one of the orchestra's conductors in 1862. He took over Johann (II)'s conducting roles in St. Petersburg and at the court balls in Vienna, and when Josef died in 1870 he took over management of the orchestra. He finally disbanded it in 1901. Another prolific composer, he wrote over 300 dances but only a handful of his polkas, in particular 'Bahn Frei' (Track Clear), are still performed with any regularity.
The Strauss family were the toast of Vienna in the second half of the nineteenth century. While they played a significant part in establishing the Viennese popular music tradition, other composers also made their marks in the city. Franz von Suppé began to compose operettas even earlier than Johann (II), and was followed by the likes of Heuberger, Millöcker and especially Franz Lehár ('The Merry Widow', 'The Count of Luxembourg' and the magnificent 'Gold and Silver Waltz'). The influence of the Strausses spread throughout Europe and other composers began to compose in their style. Indeed, after the Strausses, the most popular composer of waltzes was probably the Frenchman, Emile Waldteufel, most famous for 'Les Patineurs' (The Skaters Waltz).
Over a century on, the music of the Strauss family is more popular than ever, but it was so nearly not to be. Eduard Strauss's chief claim to fame, or more accurately notoriety, was that in 1907 he burned all the manuscripts of the Strauss family's compositions, apparently because he felt that the world did not deserve to possess them. The story goes that he was fulfilling a promise to his brothers. He burned all the manuscripts in the boiler room of a friend's chair factory. It took him seven hours to complete his task, accompanied by the vain protestations of the many onlookers who witnessed this terrible deed. However, many of the works had been arranged for piano and it is through these arrangements that the music of the Strauss family survived the inferno.
Today, the most famous celebrations of the Strauss family's music are Vienna's annual New Year's Day concerts given in the Musikverein by the Vienna Philharmonic. For many years, these concerts were directed from the violin by the Orchestra's leader, Willi Boskovsky, in the way in which Lanner, Johann (I) and Johann (II) had done. After Boskovsky retired, the task fell to some of the biggest names in the world of conducting - in recent years conductors have included Georges Prêtre, Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta, Mariss Jansons, Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Muti, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Seiji Ozawa. Most just wielded the baton, although Maazel - formerly a violinist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra - also dusted off his violin to play in a few pieces. Tonight's concert will also be conducted by a violinist - how will he approach the task.......?
