The Johann Strauss Edition Johann Strauss II, the most famous and enduringly successful of 19th-century light music composers, was born in Vienna on 25...
The Johann Strauss Edition
Johann Strauss II, the most famous and enduringly successful of
19th-century light music composers, was born in Vienna on 25 October 1825.
Building upon the firm musical foundations laid by his father, Johann Strauss I
(1804-1849) and Joseph Lanner (1801-1843), the younger Johann (along with his
brothers, Joseph and Eduard) achieved so high a development of the classical
Viennese waltz that it became as much a feature of the concert hall as of the
ballroom. For more than half a century Johann II captivated not only Vienna but
also the whole of Europe and America with his abundantly tuneful waltzes,
polkas, quadrilles and marches. The thrice-married 'Waltz King' later turned
his attention to the composition of operetta, and completed 16 stage works
besides more than 500 orchestral compositions - including the most famous of
all waltzes, The Blue Danube (1867). Johann Strauss II died in Vienna on 3 June
1899.
The Marco Polo Strauss Edition is a milestone in recording history,
presenting, for the first time ever, the entire orchestral output of the 'Waltz
King'. Despite their supremely high standard of musical invention, the majority
of the compositions have never before been commercially recorded and have been
painstakingly assembled from archives around the world. All performances
featured in this series are complete and, wherever possible, the works are
played in their original instrumentation as conceived by the master
orchestrator himself, Johann Strauss II.
Persischer Marsch
(Persian March) op. 289
In autumn 1864
Johann Strauss 'harvested' a rich crop of decorations as reward for various
compositions which he had dedicated to a number of crowned heads across Europe.
His medals included the 'Persischen Sonnenorden' (Persian Order of the Sun),
awarded by his Imperial Majesty the Shah of Persia, the able and cultured Naser
od-Dïn (1831-1896), who acceded to the throne in 1848 and remained a fervent
devotee of poetry and music until his assassination at Teheran in 1896. The
honour was bestowed upon Strauss in return for the dedication of the Marche
persanne - under which fashionable French title the work was originally
published, though the German form of the name, Persischer Marsch, was
swift to find more widespread acceptance. The composer conducted the first
Viennese performance of the march on 4 December 1864 at a festival concert in
the Volksgarten, belatedly celebrating the 20th anniversary of his public debut
as composer and conductor at Dommayer's Casino in Hietzing in October 1844.
The Persischer
Marsch was actually composed for Johann's 1864 concert season at Pavlovsk,
his ninth consecutive 'Russian summer'. At first entitled Persischer
Armee-Marsch (Persian Army March), the new work was unveiled before the
public at the Vauxhall Pavilion in Pavlovsk Park on 11 July (= 29 June, Russian
calendar) and proved the most popular of his compositions in Russia that year,
being played on no less than 65 occasions. The Persischer Marsch was in
fact to prove a lifelong favourite with its composer, who attached great value
to the fact that the Trio section of the work quotes a theme from the Persian
national anthem, Johann recognised that his 'characteristic' march was pure
programme music; years later, in conversation with Ignatz Schnitzer, librettist
of Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron, 1885), he admitted: "I once w rote
a Persian march, but I cannot write like that if I need a march for the
street". Since the programmes of Johann's 1864 season included a harp solo
by Parish Alvars entitled Persischer Marsch, it may have been the
success of this latter work which not only gave Strauss the impetus to compose
his own Persian March but also furnished him with the original Persian air.
Amusingly, when
Naser od-Dïn visited Vienna for the World Exhibition in 1873, a military band,
unable to acquire the music for the authentic Persian anthem, instead played
Strauss's Persischer Marsch as a hymn for the Shah!
Nearly a century
after its première Strauss's march was almost responsible for a diplomatic
incident. The Viennese author and broadcaster, Professor Dr. Marcel Prawy,
recalls how in May 1960, when he was dramatic adviser at the Vienna Volksoper,
he was ordered by a high government official to interpolate the Persischer
Marsch into a performance of Die Fledermaus to be attended by the
reigning Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Shortly before the night in question the
instruction was hastily withdrawn when it was realised that the Shah for whom
the march was written belonged to a dynasty which had been deposed by that of
the present-day ruler!
Maxing-Tanze.
Walzer (Maxing Dances. Waltz) op. 79
The title page
illustration adorning the first piano edition of Johann Strauss's waltz Maxing-Tanze
depicts the wooden Swiss-style country villa, 'Maxing', which had been built
for the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian (1832-1867), to his own design,
in Maxing Park near Hetzendorferstrasse (today, Maxingstrasse) in the Viennese
suburb of Hietzing. Archduke Maximilian, younger brother of the Austrian Emperor
Franz Josef I, was created Emperor of Mexico in 1864 but was executed three
years later at Queretaro by the republican army.
On 6 July 1850
Maximilian celebrated his eighteenth birthday and the formal opening of his new
residence with a glittering evening festivity organised in his honour by the
community of Hietzing. Undoubtedly at the recommendation of Ferdinand Dommayer,
a leading figure behind the 'Maxing' festival and proprietor of the
neighbouring Dommayer's Casino in Hietzing where Johann Strauss acted as 'house
conductor', Strauss and his orchestra were invited by the young Archduke to
provide the musical entertainment for the event, along with a military band.
Johann must have welcomed the engagement with open arms: at a time when he was
energetically striving to ingratiate himself at Court after unwittingly making
himself persona non grata through his pro-Revolutionary support in 1848, this
festivity was his first chance to establish contact with a member of the
Imperial family. Strauss and his orchestra were situated in the gallery of the villa which shimmered
through the illumination of thousands of coloured lamps. At around nine
o'clock, trumpets and timpani announced the arrival of the Archduke and his
retinue and, after the National Anthem and various speeches, the Strauss
Orchestra commenced their concert with Beethoven's Leonore Overture. The
programme, which included Meyerbeer's Coronation March from Le Prophet and two
works by Johann Strauss Father - the Ferdinand-Quadrille op. 151 and the waltz Loreley-Rhein-Klange
op. 154 - also featured the first performance of an enchanting new waltz Johann
had written especially for the 'Maxing' festival: Maxing-Tanze.
In 1955, just over
a century after its construction, the wooden 'Maxing' villa, by then in a
dilapidated state, was considered to be a fire risk and was demolished. Near
its former site there now stands another building - ironically also constructed
from wood.
The first public performance of the
waltz was scheduled for a magnificent "Decorations- and
Music-Festival" at Dommayer's Casino on 10 July, but this event,
proclaimed as a "Symbol of Imperial Homage or Patriotic Festival of
Honour", was postponed until 17 July and its seems likely that the public
première was instead given at Johann's own benefit concert in the Volksgarten
on 16 July. The new waltz proved popular, and in its review of the Dommayer
evening the Theater Zeitung (23 July 1850) drew particular attention to the
evocative and apposite Coda section "with its evening bells and shams [an
effect created by oboes, bassoons and clarinet], in Swiss style."
L'Inconnue. Polka
française (The Unknown One. French polka) op. 182
Johann Strauss the
Younger married for the first time on 27 August 1862 at St. Stephen's Cathedral
in Vienna. He was thirty-six years old. His bride, Henriette Carolina Josepha
Chalupetzky, who gained widespread fame as a professional mezzo-soprano under
the name of Jetty Treffz, was seven years his senior. Up until his wedding day
Johann had been one of Europe's most eligible and sought-after bachelors,
constantly surrounded by female admirers and with a string of love-affairs
behind him. (A confidential file in the Office of the Master of the Royal
Household in June 1856 described Strauss as having led "a reckless,
improper and profligate life" since becoming a Musikdirektor!). At one
time his name was romantically linked with that of Kathi Lanner, daughter of
his father's great rival, the conductor/composer Joseph Lanner; then there was
Elise, a lady of Viennese society whom Johann's mother at one time viewed as a
possible wife for her oldest son and who is probably remembered in Johann's
French polka Elisen op. 151 (Volume 5). Jetty herself was well aware of
her husband's past flirtations, freely admitting in a letter written on 19
October 1868 to a Herr Lang in Berlin that Johann "was a fiance a mere 13
times - and only on the 14th time did he score a bullseye and win himself a
little wife".
Much has been
written about one romantic chapter in Johann's life concerning Olga
Smirnitzkaja (the widely adopted form 'Smirnitzky' is incorrect), a musically
gifted daughter of aristocratic Russian parents - a deep involvement which
commenced during Strauss's 1858 summer concert engagement in Pavlovsk and ended
abruptly there in spring 1860. Memories of Olga live on in Johann's
polka-mazurka Der Kobold (The Imp) op. 226, but she was certainly far
from being the only Russian maiden to fall under his spell! In 1856, during
Strauss's first concert season in Pavlovsk, which lasted from 18 May (= 6 May,
Russian calendar) to 13 October (= 1 October) - and during the 149 days he and
his orchestra performed without a day of rest - rumours reached Vienna of his
amorous involvements, of jealous rivals and husbands and even of clandestine
betrothals. However, Johann's discretion regarding his female companions was
such that he never intended us to identify the special young lady immortalised
in his polka L'Inconnue. The composition was the second published
Strauss work to be specifically designated a 'French polka' - a dance form
imported from Paris to Vienna where it became popular in ballrooms from 1854 as
a more elegant variant of the rhythmic Bohemian polka. Johann introduced L'Inconnue
at his second benefit concert, held at the Vauxhall Pavilion, Pavlovsk, on 14
August (= 2 August) 1856. Such was its reception that he was forced to repeat
it, and to give a further encore at the close of the concert at around 12.45am.
The evening also brought the première of a new Strauss waltz, Kronungs-Lieder
(op. 184), and the composer mentioned both works in a letter written to Carl
Haslinger, his Viennese publisher, on 14 September (= 2 September):
"Moreover I have composed a polka. L'Inconnue, and a waltz: Kronungswalzer
[sic!], with which two pieces I have had great success here. Although I
had little time, I had even less confidence about their successful
outcome". In the event, L'Inconnue proved to be Johann's third most
played composition during the 1856 Russian season (after the waltz Juristen-Ball-Tanze
op. 177 and the Sans-Souci-Polka op. 178), being performed no less than
seventy-five times. Viennese audiences were given their first taste of the new
polka, with its strong Russian flavour, when Johann conducted it (together with
his Kronungs-Marsch op. 183) in the Volksgarten on 21 December 1856 at
the first concert he gave upon his return to his native city.
Controversen Walzer (Controversies
Waltz) op. 191
The sheer
effectiveness and economy of Johann Strauss's orchestral writing is discernible
in the Introduction to Controversen, the waltz he dedicated "to the
Gentlemen Students of Law at Vienna University" for their ball held in the
splendour of the Sofienbad-Saal on 27 January 1857, on which occasion Johann
first conducted it with the Strauss Orchestra. In the space of just 32 bars,
the composer portrays the mounting tension of a controversy gathering momentum
as more and more voices join in the increasingly heated debate.
Not surprisingly,
the waltz Controversen numbered among the dance novelties written for the 1857
Carnival which Johann took with him to Russia for his second season of concerts
at the Vauxhall Pavilion in Pavlovsk, lasting from 14 May (= 2 May, Russian
calendar) until 14 October (= 2 October). It is to be regretted that F. A.
Zimmermann, a viola-player in the Strauss Orchestra, whom posterity must thank
for keeping a series of diaries (preserved in the collection of the Wiener
Stadt-und Landesbibliothek, Vienna) meticulously detailing the programmes of
music performed during many of Strauss's summer seasons at Pavlovsk, did not
participate in the 1857 concerts. For this reason, and because the St
Petersburger Zeitung only rarely concerned itself with events at Pavlovsk, one
must look elsewhere for confirmation of when Controversen was given its first
performance before the Russian public. The precise date - 14 May 1857 (= 2 May)
- is revealed in a letter from the composer himself, written that same month to
Carl Haslinger, his publisher in Vienna: "I am very happy with our
reception by the Russian audiences... Controversen and Une Bagatelle [op. 187]
also go down better than any other waltz or polka-mazurka, as a result my
recent pieces which were played in the first concert, such as: Etwas Kleines
[op. 190], Une Bagatelle, Controversen (I did not yet want to play any of the
other new compositions) once again allowed me to achieve a wonderful
success".
Carnevals-Spektakel-Quadrille
(Carnival's Hubbub Quadrille) op. 152
The hubbub of
Vienna's annual carnival festivities can well be imagined when one considers
not only the number of her dance establishments but also the sheer capacity
which some of them boasted: the largest of all, the short-lived Odeon-Saal,
could accommodate no less than 8,000 people in its vast ball-arena. As public
demand continued to grow, new dance halls were built, especially in the
outlying suburbs.
In 1833 a German,
Karl Schwender (1806-66), travelled from Karlsruhe to Vienna where he settled,
working first as a waiter and then as a billiard-marker at the Paradiesgartl in
the Volksgarten. In 1835 he converted an old cowshed on ground adjoining the
country house of Baroness Pereira-Arnstein in the suburb of Braunhirschengrund
into a coffee-house and, moreover, enterprisingly organised regular transport
for his customers between the city centre and the area in front of the
Mariahilferlinie (one of the outer wall fortifications of the old inner city of
Vienna which had been constructed on the orders of Prince Eugen at the
beginning of the 18th century), in the vicinity of his premises. From such
modest beginnings, and through a process of continual rebuilding work, arose
Schwender's massive and grandiose entertainment establishment, the 'Colosseum',
which opened in 1865.
In 1854, however,
Schwender's establishment was still comparatively small - though the Viennese
press described it as "excellent" and "splendid" - and each
event was guaranteed massive public patronage. Accordingly, on Tuesday 21
February, there was a large attendance for Johann Strauss's benefit ball in the
dance salon at Schwender's. The evening occasioned the première of a
high-spirited quadrille, the seventh new work written by Johann for that year's
carnival. The Wiener Neuigkeits-Blatt (23 February 1854) reported:
"Alternating with his brother [Josef] the popular beneficiary conducted
the ball music and, besides his recently composed waltzes, amongst which the
charming 'Schneeglockchen' is to be mentioned, performed a new
'Karnevals-Spektakel-Quadrille' which, composed with extreme originality,
enjoyed the greatest applause and had to be played six times. In the casino
room the able military band [Prince Schwarzenberg Infantry Regiment] of Herr
Tischler performed chiefly compositions by the beneficiary".
The din of
carnival is entertainingly captured on the title page illustration for the
first piano edition of the Carnevals-Spektakel-Quadrille: a central
vignette shows groups of carnival-goers chatting animatedly, while either side
members of the orchestra play their instruments with great gusto, as Johann
Strauss himself wields his baton over all.
Nachtigall-Polka
(Nightingale Polka) op. 222
In July 1858 Italy's scheming foreign
minister, Camillo Benso Cavour, finally persuaded France's Emperor Napoleon III
to join forces to help Italy liberate Sardinia from Austrian domination which
had existed since 1849. On 22 April 1859, however, after Austria's ultimatum to
the kingdom of Sardinia to disarm had been rejected, the combined forces of
Sardinia and France declared war on Austria. These political events were to
have a direct bearing on the plans of Johann Strauss as he prepared for his
fourth 'Russian summer' season of concerts at Pavlovsk, scheduled to commence
on 22 May (= 10 May, Russian calendar) 1859.
Earlier, that
March, towards the close of the exceptionally long Vienna Carnival of 1859,
Johann had suffered a virtual nervous breakdown and planned to leave Vienna on
25 April, well in advance of the start of his Russian engagement. The apparent
inevitability of war (which in fact broke out on 26 April) caused Strauss to
delay his departure, and he announced a final farewell concert for 1 May at
Unger's Casino in the Viennese suburb of Hernals. It was naturally expected of
the young Musikdirektor that he would bring with him a parting musical gift
with which to say 'auf wiedersehen' to his Viennese public. He did not
disappoint them, and at the head of the Strauss Orchestra gave the first
performance of his cheery Nachtigall-Polka. The choice of title and
venue could scarcely have been more fitting. As so often during his life,
Johann had turned for inspiration to the world of nature, in this instance to
the migratory nightingale (Luscinia megarhyncha) whose wonderful bird song
graced many a spring and summer evening spent in the large tavern garden of
Franz Unger's premises. But Strauss was not content to present merely stylised
bird calls in this dance and, within the narrow confines of the polka's 2/4
tempo, he managed to mimic, with considerable accuracy, the song pattern of the
nightingale.
Immer heiterer.
Walzer im Landlerstyle (Ever more cheerful. Waltz in Landler-style) op. 235
Like Johann's
dances Die Zillerthaler (op. 30), Dorfgeschichten (op. 47), D'Woaldbuama,
Die Waldbuben (op. 66), Volkssanger (op. 119), Man lebt nur
einmal! (op.167) and Grillenbanner (op. 247), Immer heiterer
is designated by the composer as a "Waltz in Landler-style", a
typical 'peasant waltz' harking back to one of the true antecedents of the
Viennese Waltz - the rustic Landler of Lower Austria. The rather ungainly
hopping and stamping steps from this generally alfresco dance are demonstrated
by the couples pictured on the cover of the first piano edition of Immer
heiterer.
The work was one of a clutch of new
dance pieces written by Johann for the 1860 Vienna Carnival, during which the
34-year-old "Herr Musikdirektor" once more reigned supreme despite
the musical activities of his younger brother, Josef. Wherever there was
dancing, people wanted Johann Strauss. An article in a Viennese newspaper from
21 February 1860 attempted to capture the magic of his presence at the head of
his orchestra: "How the couples fly along in tempestuous haste and
passionate delight when Strauss, his violin supported against his rhythmically
moving knee, stands on the conductor's rostrum; when he himself begins to play,
his violin held high far above the horizontal, twisting his body in endless
undulations, drawing his bow in swift strokes across the strings - that
inflames the hearts, sends electric currents through the legs!"
Johann conducted
the Strauss Orchestra in the first performance of Immer heiterer on 20
February 1860 at a genial "Strauss Ball" in the 'Sperl' dance hall in
the Viennese suburb of Leopoldstadt. The event was to prove the last festivity
of that description, and while the new composition did not meet with the same
success as some of Johann's other carnival novelties, notably the waltz Accelerationen
(op. 234), it is nevertheless worthy of attention. Particularly effective is
Waltz 3B, where Strauss unexpectedly introduces a soaring legato melody
entrusted to the cello and bassoon sections. In keeping with the jovial
sentiment expressed in the work's title, Johann even calls for the members of
the orchestra to exercise their vocal chords in a chorus of laughter during the
course of the Coda!
Quadrille nach
Motiven der Operette: 'Der lustige Krieg' (Quadrille on themes from the
operetta 'The Merry War') op. 402
The score of
Johann Strauss's eighth operetta, Der lustige Krieg (The Merry War),
comprising an Overture and nineteen musical numbers, yielded sufficient melodic
material for its composer to arrange no less than ten separate orchestral
numbers for the ballroom and concert-hall - a total not surpassed in any of his
other stage works. The operetta itself [Première: Theater an der Wien, Vienna. 25 November 1881] enjoyed swift and
considerable success, and within a short time the new work had been seen at
more than one hundred theatres across Europe and overseas: one of the first to
produce the operetta was the small municipal theatre at Laibach in Austria (now
Ljubljana in Yugoslavia), where the rehearsals were directed by a still unknown
young conductor named Gustav Mahler. Although credited on the first night
playbill solely to the librettist team of F. Zell and Richard Genee, the
story-line of Der lustige Krieg owed something to that of the opera-comique Les
Dames Capitaines (1857) by Anne Honore Joseph Melesville (with music by
Napoleon-Henri Reber).
In steering her
husband away from the strenuous and time-consuming rôle of dance music
conductor/composer, the financially astute Jetty Strauss (1818-78) intended
that Johann should instead direct his energies towards theatre composition
which, unlike dances and marches, attracted royalties. Once the stage work had
been created, little additional effort was required to assemble melodies from
the score into separate orchestral numbers for performance beyond the confines
of the theatre, thus reaping further income for their composer. The six
sections (or figures) of the Lustige Krieg-Quadrille comprise thematic
material from the following sources:
Pantalon - Act
2 Ensemble and Dutch Song (No. 12) and Act 1 Finale (No. 7)
Éte - Act 2 Ensemble and Ariette Chorus (No. 10) and Umberto's Act 1 aria
"Ein Blitz, ein Knall" (No. 21/2)
Poule - Act
1 Introduction (No. 1) and Act 1 Balthasar's Song (No. 3) - the latter melody
also featuring complete for orchestra alone as the Act 1 'Sorti' music (No. 31/2)
TrÉnis - Act
3 Chorus (No. 16) and Act 3 Duet (No. 17)
Pastourelle - The
first melody is untraceable in the published piano/vocal score of the operetta,
and may have been discarded before the première. The remaining two themes are
to be found in the Overture (Piu vivo section) and the Act 1 Finale (No. 7)
Finale - Act
2 Introduction (Artemesia's aria, No. 8 and opening chorus of the Act 1
Introduction (No. 1)
Together with the
quick polka Entweder - oder! op. 403 (Volume 18), also based on themes
from the operetta, the Lustige Krieg-Quadrille was Johann's contribution
to the 1882 'Concordia' Ball - the annual dance festivity of the Vienna
Authors' and Journalists' Association - held in the Sofienbad-Saal on St.
Valentine's Day, 14 February. The Strauss Orchestra was conducted on this
occasion by the composer's brother, Eduard, as indeed it was just under a
fortnight later at the first public performance of both works at a concert in
the Musikverein on Sunday 26 February.
Aus der Heimat.
Polka-Mazurka (From the Homeland. Polka-mazurka) op. 347
Aus der Heimat was one of six polkas which Johann Strauss arranged
from melodies in Indigo und die vierzig Rauber (Indigo and the Forty
Thieves), the first of his sixteen stage works to be mounted. Press notices
following the operetta's opening night at Vienna's Theater an der Wien on 10
February 1871 were mixed, though even the generally apprehensive Eduard
Hanslick (Neue Freie Presse, 12.02.1871) recognised the
"singability" of the "fresh, lively music" and "the
strong rhythmical quality of the melodies in 'Indigo'".
Having made the
transition from the ballroom to the theatre, albeit reluctantly at first but at
the insistence of his wife, Johann wascontentforthe nine separate orchestral
numbers he had fashioned from the score of Indigo to be introduced to the
Viennese public by his brother, Eduard, who had now assumed sole charge of the
Strauss Orchestra. The polka-mazurka Aus der Heimat featured for the
first time on the programme of Eduard's concert in the Volksgarten on 2 June
1871. The idea for the work's title was sparked by part of the text of the
opening song of Act 1 ("Liebchen, ach, wie hab' ich dich gern, war' ich
mit dir doch in der schonen Heimat fern'"), sung by the 'merry councillor'
Janio, and it is the Andantino con moto section of this number which also
provides the principal melody of the polka-mazurka. The themes in the Trio
section of Aus der Heimat are to be found in the Act 2 Duet (No. 12) and
the Act 1 Song with Chorus (No.3).
Ninetta-Walzer
(Ninetta Waltz) op. 445
After the
unequivocal failure of his laudable, if misguided, venture into the world of
grand opera with Ritter Pasman (1892), Johann Strauss found himself once again
forced back for financial reasons into "the hated work on an
operetta", as he w rote to his brother Eduard in autumn 1892. The new
operetta was Fürstin Ninetta (Princess Ninetta), written by the
successful comedy-writing team of Julius Bauer and Hugo Wittmann. Yet,
notwithstanding the setting of this "scatterbrained and bombastic
tale" in Strauss's favourite milieu - Italy - the composer's numerous
letters to friends and colleagues indicate that he feared the very worst for
this stage work. The day before the opening night of Fürstin Ninetta at
the Theater an der Wien on 10 January 1893, Johann wrote to Adolf Müller
junior, who was to conduct the new work: "Following the première of
'Ninetta', this, like all of my productions after their performance, no longer
exists for me. But if it gets more than 20 performances, then I should like to
hear it to ascertain how it is going when it has been worked on". In the
event, Johann must have been dumbfounded by the complete success of Fürstin
Ninetta at its première, an occasion attended by the Austrian Emperor Franz
Josef himself, and by the stage work's eventual run of seventy-six performances.
Musically, Fürstin
Ninetta has much to commend it, and the separate orchestral numbers which
Johann fashioned from its score exemplify many of the features which made him
the leading dance music composer of his day. Among these pieces is the Ninetta-Walzer,
first performed in the Redoutensaal of the Hofburg Palace in Vienna on 21
January 1893 on the occasion of an Imperial 'family dinner' to celebrate the
forthcoming marriage on 24 January of Duke Albrecht of Württemberg (1865-1939),
the Viennese-born heir-presumptive to the German Württemberg throne, and
Archduchess Margarethe Sofie (1870-1902), eldest daughter of Archduke Karl
Ludwig and sister of the ill-fated Archduke Franz Ferdinand (assassinated at
Sarajevo in 1914). This world première performance was conducted neither by the
composer nor by Eduard Strauss, but by Carl Michael Ziehrer (1843-1922)
bandmaster of Infantry Regiment No. 4, the famous 'Hoch- und Deutschmeister'
(also known as the Viennese 'Hause Regiment'). The first public performance of
the new waltz followed a day later, on 22 January, when the band of the
Archduke Franz Ferdinand Infantry Regiment No. 19 featured it in their concert
in the Vienna Volksgarten. Not until 29 January 1893 did the Strauss Orchestra
present a performance of the Ninetta-Walzer, when Johann personally
conducted it at one of brother Eduard's regular Sunday public concerts in the
Musikverein. On the same programme Johann also directed what was claimed as the
first Viennese concert performance of another novelty - the Neue
Pizzicato-Polka (ap. 449, Volume 2), which he had originally written for
Eduard Strauss's concerts in Hamburg in April and May 1892, and which he
subsequently interpolated into the Fürstin Ninetta score, first of all
as a children's ballet and later as an intermezzo. The capacity audience in the
Musikverein demanded two encores of the Ninetta-Walzer and three of the Neue
Pizzicato-Polka. It should be noted, however, that while the advertisements
for Eduard's Musikverein concert announced that both the Ninetta-Walzer and the
Neue Pizzicato-Polka were enjoying their first public performances - patently
incorrect, as we have seen - the audience gathered at Ronacher's establishment
for a promenade concert given a little earlier that same afternoon by the 'Hoch
- und Deutschmeister' band under Carl Michael Ziehrer were also being treated
to a performance of these two works.
Strauss invested
his Ninetta-Walzer with a tranquil Introduction of great beauty, and the
entire work breathes the unmistakeable warmth of Italy which had inspired its
creation. The opening waltz section (1A), foreshadowed at the start of the
Introduction, presents an orchestral arrangement of the operetta's most popular
number, "Einst traumte mir" (Once I dreamed), sung in Act 3 (No. 14)
by the Egyptian Finance Minister, Kassim Pascha - a rôle performed at the
operetta's première by Alexander Girardi. The principal melody of this waltz
song also makes a fleeting appearance in the Blüthenkranz Johann
Strauss'scher Walzer (Garland of Johann Strauss Waltzes) op. 292 which
Eduard Strauss selected and arranged in 1894 in celebration of the 50th
anniversary of his brother's public debut as composer and conductor.
The sources of the
remaining themes in the Ninetta-Walzer may be found within the following
numbers:
Waltz 18 - As 1A, Act 3 (No. 14), Kassim's waltz song
Waltz 2A - Act 2 (No. 10), Ninetta's waltz
song
Waltz 28 - Act 3 (No. 14), Kassim's waltz
song
Waltz 3A
& 38 - Act 2 (No. 8) Ouintet
Waltz 4A & 48 - Act 1 (No. 6) Finale
Klipp
klapp-Galopp/Schnell-Polka (Click-clack. Galop/Ouick polka) op. 466
Waldmeister (Woodruff) was Johann Strauss's penultimate original
operetta, receiving its première at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, on 4
December 1895. Despite its relatively brief stage life, Waldmeister was
in many respects the most successful of the composer's later theatre works and
contained some delightful moments, such as a "Lawn-Tennis-Chorus" for
the ladies! In his obituary notice for Johann Strauss, written in June 1899,
the retired Viennese music critic, Eduard Hanslick, wrote: "What stands
out even in Strauss's less inventive operettas is the genuine musical feeling,
the natural flow of song and, finally, the wonderful orchestration. At the
première of 'Der Waldmeister', Brahms remarked to me that Strauss's
orchestrations reminded him of Mozart".
Waldmeister is set
in Saxony, and in Act 1 we meet a group of young men and women who, while on an
excursion, are caught in a sudden storm and seek refuge in a mill. A number of
the ladies, at their head the celebrated opera singer Pauline, hurriedly
exchange their sodden attire for the peasant clothing of female millworkers.
Following the ladies' example, the male members of the party, mainly forestry
apprentices, don the clothing of miller boys. Thus arrayed, the troupe of
"honest miller's apprentices" launch into their ensemble,
"Klipp, klapp, klipp, klapp, rasch dem Glücke nach". This
entertaining number has an interesting provenance, reported by the press in both
Austria and Britain. In his youth, Strauss had evidently courted a miller's
beautiful young daughter and composed for her a song entitled "Klipp
klapp". When, in 1894, Strauss was offered the libretto of Waldmeister,
with its opening act played in a mill, he recalled the melody he had written
some fifty years earlier and incorporated it in the new operetta. One might be
tempted to disregard this report as pure journalistic fantasy, were it not for
the existence of a letter written by Josef Weyl (author of, amongst other works,
the original text for the Blue Danube Waltz) to Johann in October 1884 on the
occasion of Strauss's fortieth jubilee as conductor/composer. Recalling
"the happy hours we experienced together 44 years ago today", Weyl
elaborated: "Do you still remember the naive little song: Klipp klapp!
klipp klapp, geht die Mühle im Thal/Müller, Müller! War sehr radical etc.
[Click-clack!click-clack, goes the mill in the valley/Miller, miller! Was very
radical etc.] I wrote it in five minutes, you took hardly any longer to compose
it, then the poor, unforgettable brother Pepi [= Josef Strauss] had to sing it!
How often I dared to scrape your splendid melodies on my violin, and you had
the touching patience to accompany me on the piano. Present day Vienna has
absolutely no idea of the artistic treats which the four-handed waltz playing
of the brothers Johann and Josef offered!"
Strauss created a
total of six separate orchestral numbers from the score of Waldmeister,
among them the quick polka Klipp klapp, echoing the rhythmic sound of a
working mill. The galop's title and principal theme derive from the Act I
ensemble, "Klipp, klapp, klipp, klapp, rasch dem Glücke nach",
although it should be mentioned that this same theme is requoted in purely
orchestral form (in the correct key of F) in the 'Melodrama' section of the Act
II Finale. The sources of the remaining melodies are as follows:
Theme B - Act 1: Jeanne's Entrance
Couplet, "Das, das ist wahrhaftig kein Spass"
Trio A - Act 1: Ensemble, "So lang
für dich die Welt noch blüht"
Trio B - Overture: 2nd theme of
Allegretto moderato section
The world première
of the Klipp klapp-Galopp (Schnell-Polka) was given by the Strauss
Orchestra under the direction of the composer's brother, Eduard, at the annual
ball of the Vienna Authors' and Journalists' Association, 'Concordia', held in
the Sofienbad-Saal on 10 February 1896. The first public performance of the new
piece followed just under two weeks later, on 23 February, when Eduard Strauss
again conducted it with the orchestra at one of his regular Sunday concerts in
Vienna's prestigious Musikverein.
Programme notes ©
1991 Peter Kemp. TheJohann Strauss Societyof Great Britain.
The author is
indebted to Professor Franz Mailer for his assistance in the preparation of
these notes.
Czecho-Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra (Kosice)
The East Slovakian town of Kosice boasts a long and distinguished
musical tradition, as part of a province that once provided Vienna with
musicians. The State Philharmonic Orchestra is of relatively recent origin and
was established in 1968 under the conductor Bystrik Rezucha. Subsequent
principal conductors have included Stanislav Macura and Ladislav Slovak, the
latter succeeded in 1985 by his pupil Richard Zimmer. The orchestra has toured
widely in Eastern and Western Europe and plays an important part in the Kosice
Musical Spring and the Kosice International Organ Festival.
For Marco Polo the orchestra has made the first compact disc recordings
of rare works by Granville Bantock and Joachim Raff. Writing on the last of
these, one critic praised the orchestra for its competence comparable to that
of the major orchestras of Vienna and Prague. The orchestra has contributed
several successful volumes to the complete compact disc Johann Strauss II and
for Naxos has recorded a varied repertoire.
Johannes Wildner
Johannes Wildner was
born in the Austrian resort of Mürzzuschlag in 1956 and studied violin and
conducting, taking his diploma at the Vienna Musikhochschule and proceeding to
a doctorate in musicology. A member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, he
has toured widely as leader of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra's Johann Strauss
Ensemble and of the Vienna Mozart Academy. As a conductor he has directed the
Orchestra Sinfonica dell'Emilia Romagna Arturo Toscanini, the Budapest State
Opera Orchestra, the Silesian Philharmonic and the Malmo Symphony Orchestra.
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Persischer Marsch (Persian March), Op. 289 - 1:57 
