Johann Strauss Snr Edition Vol. 2
[1] Walzer (à la Paganini), Op.11
The Genoa-born Italian violin virtuoso Nicolò Paganini
(1782-1860) on the first of his extended concert tours through central Europe
arrived in Vienna in March 1828. A sensational reputation preceded him. There
were articles in all the newspapers about the witchcraft of his art that
Paganini could elicit from his instrument, the fascination of his gloomy
character and of the varied fortunes of his life hitherto. Music-lovers in
Vienna expected wonders from his appearance. His arrival in the city was
carefully recorded on 18th March in the official Wiener Zeitung: "Arrived on
16th March: Cav. Niklas Paganini, Professor of Music, travelling from Milan".
For his first appearance Paganini allowed time. He made a
number of carefully prepared courtesy visits. He appeared 'polite and
well-mannered'. When he gave his first concert on 29th March 1828 in the
Redoutensaal, the room was nevertheless not too full. The ticket prices that he
offered were too high for music-lovers: Paganini asked for two gulden. Since at
the time there were a relatively large number of virtuoso concerts in Vienna,
music-lovers thought this was just too much and the following concerts were
cheaper. The artistic success of the performance, however, was overwhelming.
The applause was almost endless and whole-hearted. Paganini shone not only
through a perfect technique achieved at the time by no other artist, but also
with the soulful delivery of lyrical passages. All Vienna spoke of his success.
Above all the news of the captivating rondo La campanella from Paganini's
Violin Concerto No.2 in B minor, Op.7, made the rounds.
Paganini's second concert on 13th April, also given at the
Redoutensaal in the Hofburg, was filled to capacity. The first members of the
audience were there an hour and a half before the start of the concert at noon.
The Empress Karoline Augusta, fourth wife of the 'good Emperor' Franz I,
Archduke Carl with his wife Henriette, Archduchess Sophie and Archduke Anton
Victor, patron of the Philharmonic Society, appeared with the nobility. The
leading musicians of Vienna, publishers and composers crowded into the
remaining places. Franz Schubert too attended Paganini's concerts. He thought
that in the Adagio (of the Violin Concerto) he had 'heard an angel sing'. The
less culturally aware members of the public were enthusiastic about Paganini's
technical perfection and La campanella sold in large numbers.
The 24-year-old Johann Strauss forestalled all the
enthusiasts and dealers of Vienna. He had immediately written a waltz, scoring
the rondo La campanella with the accompaniment of an F sharp bell, embellished
with artistic turns of all kinds and played à la Paganini. Since it was to be
had at his concerts at The Two Pigeons for only a kreuzer, Strauss had a huge
success.
Paganini was in Vienna until the summer. The Waltz à la
Paganini (to which Joseph Lanner had written a counterpart in the form of a
quotation in the Second Vienna Quodlibet), stayed much longer in Strauss's
repertoire.
[2] Krapfen-Waldel-Walzer, Op.12 (Krapfenwaldel Waltz)
The former excursion inn in the Krapfenwaldel on the way up
from Grinzing to the Kahlenberg has long disappeared and become part of an
upmarket bathing establishment. In the Biedermeier period it was a modest
restaurant set among trees. The illustration on the piano edition of the waltz
by Johann Strauss makes that quite clear. The composition by the future music
director is as simple as the inn itself. The work consists of six waltz
sections without an introduction, with a short coda that repeats, at first, the
motif of the first part, as later was usual in all the waltzes and those of his
son. The particularly attractive second part (in which one may imagine the cry
of a bird), and the third and sixth waltzes have the character of Landler. It
was said to have been one of the favourite waltzes of the music-loving Crown
Prince and later Emperor Ferdinand I.
The work was announced by the publisher Tobias Haslinger on
28th July 1828 in the Wiener Zeitung. It was written at the latest in the
spring of that year and first performed either at a reunion of the band in The
White Swan in Rossau or in the garden of the Krapfenwaldel inn. In the
newspapers of 1828 there is no mention either of the Krapfenwaldel or of the
waltz. In 1834 for the first time the Theaterzeitung gave its readers a very
amusing and detailed description of the inn and the way there, leading from
Grinzing through the vineyards to Krapfenwaldel. Famous too was the view of the
Danube, then divided into several channels, in Marchfeld and up to the start of
the mountain range that leads from the Danube to Moravia.
Anyone who knows this impressive vista can, when he hears
the Krapfenwaldel Waltz, picture himself again in Biedermeier Vienna. The
younger Johann Strauss also paid his homage to the Krapfenwaldel. He had the
polka he wrote in the summer of 1869 in Russia, In the Pavlovsk Woods, Op.336, performed
in Vienna under the title it has since borne, In the Krapfenwaldel. In those
days there was still bird-song and the call of the cuckoo to be heard on the
heights above Grinzing.
[3] Die beliebten Trompeten-Walzer, Op.13 (The Popular
Trumpet Waltz)
The Trumpet Waltz, which appeared from Tobias Haslinger as
Strauss's Opus 13, was among the earliest compositions of the young music
director. The date of 11th February 1828 given in the Wiener Zeitung is
slightly misleading. Haslinger first issued the work when it had already become
popular through repeated performances by the small Strauss ensemble at dances
and was known to musicians.
The Trumpet Waltz, advertising itself in the announcement as
'the so very popular Trumpet Waltz', is a relatively simple composition,
striking only in its skilful instrumentation. It consists of six waltzes with a
longer coda in which the trumpet comes in with prominent signal calls, very
different from the flute imitations of the second waltz.
Johann Strauss served as music director in 1828 at The White
Swan in Rossau, in the Danube quarter. He was also still appearing in Lanner's
dance orchestra. The Trumpet Waltz was an attraction at The White Swan at
Carnival in 1828. Whether it was also played by Lanner's orchestra is not
known, as the newspapers still gave no attention to the dance music of the
Vienna conductors. This was also the case with the novelties offered by the
leading conductor Joseph Wilde, who played for dances in the long-famous
Mehlgrube in the inner city (today Neuer Markt - Karntnerstrasse, Hotel
Ambassador) and in the Redoutensaal in the Hofburg, as well as for court balls.
Mozart too had given concerts at the Mehlgrube. Dance festivities brought
together, throughout the year, leading circles of Vienna society. These
occasions also provided a favourite topic of conversation in aristocratic and
upper middle class circles. In spite of this they were ignored by the
newspapers. Balls and reunions in the suburbs, for example at The Black Buck on
the Wieden or at The White Swan in Rossau, went unnoticed by journalists. The
era of the ball reporter only began after 1830.
That is a shame. We should like to know how things went on
at the balls where Johann Strauss conducted with almost demonic energy and
Joseph Lanner with what Philipp Fahrbach described as his 'artistic rapture'.
It must have been very impressive, since otherwise it is difficult to explain
the rapid rise of both conductors.
[4] Gesellschafts-Galoppe [Op.17] (Society Galop)
The Gesellschafts-Galoppe was first issued by Cappi and
Czerny, with the note 'Performed in the dance-hall of The Black Buck'. This was
preceded by the announcement that appeared on 30th April 1827 in the Wiener
Zeitung (No.99). On 15th December 1828 the publication of the work was
advertised, this time by Diabelli (without an opus number). This was in that
collection of fifteen galops in which the Alpenkonig-Galoppe, the
Champagner-Galoppe, the Chinese-Galoppe and the Seufzer-Galoppe were also
included. Anton Diabelli cleared out his stock.
The Gesellschafts-Galoppe is in effective but simply divided
sections: Johann Strauss offers two cheerful, leaping motifs, elegantly
swinging motifs of eight bars. There follows a Trio of twice eight bars. After
the repetition of the galop there follows a coda, the first four bars of which
repeat the leaping motif of the beginning and lead to a skilfully wrought
conclusion.
Since the note on the publication specifies 'performed in
the dance-hall of The Black Buck', the first performance at Carnival in 1827
was at one of the society balls in Lower Vienna, given by Joseph Lanner, who
was the ball director at The Black Buck, and - as the younger Johann Strauss
attested - also performed his partner's compositions. It is also possible that
Johann Strauss himself gave his first performance of the Gesellschafts-Galoppe
at Carnival 1828 at a society ball at The White Swan. The work remained in the
repertoire of the small ensemble.
[5] Champagner Walzer, Op.14 (Champagne Waltz)
The publication of various compositions of Johann Strauss by
the enthusiastic publisher Tobias Haslinger spurred on the latter's rival,
Anton Diabelli, to issue the early compositions lying in his archive by a
composer who was now known and favoured by the public. On 28th August 1828 he
followed Strauss's Champagner-Galopp, Op.8, with the Champagner-Walzer, in the
fifth number of which and in the coda of the Galopp the motto Sauf aus (Drink
up) is repeated, note for note, only in triple time. The 'Champagne Balls' held
at The White Swan under the direction of Johann Strauss for Carnival in 1828
suggested the occasion for this change. The orchestration is simple, only for
one flute, two clarinets, two horns, one trumpet, three violins and bass. The
melodies are pleasing but have the swing that continued to mark his
compositions and that helped to bring him world-wide fame.
The publisher Anton Diabelli took a great deal of trouble
over the piano edition of the Champagne Waltz. On the original title-page the
title of the work sparkles from a champagne glass.
[6] Chineser-Galoppe, [Op.20] (Chinese Galop)
In the years of peace after the Congress of Vienna (1814-15)
social life flourished in Vienna. The city was full of music. Ludwig van
Beethoven and Franz Schubert wrote unforgettable works, but dance music in many
small inns in the capital and its suburbs could also claim to have reached a
high artistic standard. At the peak of music directors and composers of
Viennese music stood, in the Biedermeier decade, Joseph Lanner and the older
Johann Strauss. In middle-class houses the Viennese still danced the old
dances, the Deutsch or German dance and the Schottisch, which a whole series of
skilful composers, with Schubert at their head, tirelessly played for them. In
dance halls there were new Viennese dances, the waltz and the rapid galop in
which people could express their joie de vivre and let off steam. In 1827 the
23-year-old Johann Strauss wrote a series of waltzes and galops. He took
inspiration for these pieces wherever he could find it, in theatre music and in
folk-tunes from around Vienna. The exotic also aroused his interest. This gave
rise to the Chinese Galop, although he had probably never seen any son of the
Middle Kingdom. In Vienna one might have some familiarity, to an extent, with
Chinese porcelain and painting, but virtually nothing would be known of Chinese
music. Strauss therefore took as a model the music then known as Turkish in
Vienna as the idea for the galop, only a few bars long, and actually the
Chinese Galop recalls Mozart's Alla turca. The little work won immediate
popularity. The Viennese thoroughly enjoyed it wherever Strauss and perhaps
also Joseph Lanner, in whose orchestra Strauss still played, performed it. The
first part was always repeated, and when the sound faded away the dancers and
audience at The Black Buck in the Lower Wieden, its dance hall lit by Chinese
lanterns, later at The Two Pigeons in the New Market, in the district of
today's concert hall, at The White Swan in Rossau and at The Chain-Bridge on the
banks of the Danube would applaud until Joseph Lanner and Johann Strauss and
their small orchestra repeated the galop, continuing until the dancers were
exhausted. Strauss triumphed. He quickly became the favourite dance-music
violinist and composer of the capital. When the Chinese Galop appeared in print
in 1828 the edition was very quickly sold out. Now the music was also heard in
middle-class houses and in domestic balls. The styles of dancing changed, but
the Chinese Galop was never forgotten. It appeared in Anton Diabelli's Latest
Collection of Favourite Galops on 15th December 1828.
[7] Die so sehr beliebten Erinnerungs-Landler, Op.15 (The
Very Favourite Reminiscence Landler (in A major))
Like the Champagne Waltz, Op.14, the Reminiscence Landler,
Op.15, by Johann Strauss was not written shortly before its publication by
Tobias Haslinger on 12th February 1829. Since on the title-page of the piano
edition there is the information 'performed in the dance hall of The
Chain-Bridge' we have the place and the rough date of the first performance.
Johann Strauss began his activity at The Chain-Bridge in the Carnival of 1828
(qv.Op.3) and gave the position up when he became music director at The Sperl
in autumn 1829, taking over from Joseph Lanner.
The Reminiscence Landler recalls a similar work by Joseph
Lanner and could therefore have been written during 1828 or, at the latest, at
the beginning of Carnival 1829. It is a tuneful but very simple composition,
with six sections respectively of eight bars, which are repeated, and a short
coda of six bars.
The work did not stay long in the repertoire of the
orchestra, since it did not appear again. It was a forerunner of a later
composition by Strauss in 1843, his Brother Lustig, Op.155, a 'waltz in Landler
style'.
[8] Carolinen Galoppe, Op.21a (Caroline Galop)
[10] Kettenbrücke Galoppe, Op.21b (Chain-Bridge Galop)
Tobias Haslinger published two works as Opus 21, the
Caroline Galop and the Chain-Bridge Galop. Both works are similar in character
and were advertised in the space of a few months in the Wiener Zeitung, the
first on 16th November 1827, the second on 25th January 1828, without naming
the composer (in the collection Favourite Galops for the Pianoforte). Each of
them must have been performed for the first time on a different occasion, the
Caroline Galop at The Two Pigeons, which at the time was reached by the
Caroline bridge over the River Wien, and the Chain-Bridge Galop in the dance
hall of The Chain-Bridge Inn, by the bridge that spanned a branch of the Danube
(today the Danube canal). Johann Strauss served as music director in both
establishments in 1828 and in the Carnival season couples danced them both.
The galops, which have two eight bar sections, one following
the other were ideally suited to their purpose. With sharply accentuated
rhythms they drive the rhythm forward, with the leaping motifs similarly
marking the steps of the dance. In the Caroline Galop a post-horn call is heard
in the coda, as the coach perhaps crosses the bridge, travelling south. Both
dances had their season and in 1829 were replaced by new galops from the
growing repertoire of the Strauss orchestra.
[9] Fort nacheinander! Walzer, Op.16 (Off after one another!
Waltz)
When the publisher Tobias Haslinger issued Strauss's waltz
Off after one another! on 26th September 1828, an editor of The Musical
Advertiser (Der musikalische Anzeiger), with some delay, on 25th April 1829,
felt himself bound to criticize not the work but the publisher. He complained
that Haslinger 'without embarrassment or shame had printed such tomfoolery with
so much ballyhoo'.
He was right insofar as the advertisement in the Wiener
Zeitung, with which Haslinger, seeking the greatest possible publicity,
announced the new compositions of Johann Strauss, now appeared in a respectable
format. With a line in a group advertisement of several new works nothing more
could be done. The editor conceded, however, that it must be so since only from
the takings from the publication of dance music could profit be made with which
the publisher could issue less sought after 'worthwhile musical works'.
Actually the journalist had drawn attention to the care that Tobias Haslinger exercised
over the title-pages of his piano editions of waltzes. The title Fort
nacheinander! gives the idea of a smart ball scene in a small ball-room.
Couples sway together to the waltz.
This suited very well Strauss's Opus 16, which was first
performed at The White Swan in the summer of 1828. Immediately the whirling
first bars of the introduction and the following chords invite the couple to
take to the dance floor. It was Johann Strauss that Heinrich Laube
characterized as 'the Austrian Napoleon'*. The summons is followed by charming
melodies in the first and second waltzes, which move briefly into the minor,
before immediately returning to B flat major. A stylish staccato section ends
with strong chords and is followed by a graceful duet between violin and flute.
The sixth part has something of the character of a Landler, but returns in a
skilful transition back to the clear-cut waltz rhythm. The coda offers an
attractive new motif and a brilliant conclusion. It is hard to see why Tobias
Haslinger should not provide a suitable advertisement for this thoroughly
artistic waltz.
*In the chapter 'Sperl in floribus' in his book Reise durch
das Biedermeier.
[11] Lust-Lager-Walzer, Op.18 (Pleasure Camp Waltz)
As often during the Congress of Vienna from 1814 and 1815,
so too in 1828 units of the Imperial Army were brought together for a joint
exercise and stationed in a so-called 'Pleasure Camp' in the district of
Traiskirchen in Lower Austria. On 9th September 1828 the camp was set up.
Tradesmen from the town made use of the occasion and set up stalls and huts,
among them even a restaurant and a coffee-house. Pretty market girls offered
'drink for the spirit' (a sort of schnaps). How this pleasure camp may be
envisaged can be seen from the drawing on the title-page that Tobias Haslinger
provided for the piano edition of the Pleasure Camp Waltz, which appeared on
7th January 1829. Such a cheerful scene as in this picture was never seen at
Traiskirchen after 9th September 1828. First there was a ceremonial inspection
with members and guests of the Imperial family (Prince Wilhelm of Prussia had
come from Berlin), but from 13th September constant rain turned the fields into
a quagmire and the camp had temporarily to be evacuated. Finally the closing
manceuvre was held at the foot of the Eichkogel, which offered slightly higher
ground and at the end of September the camp-site returned to peace again. It is
not known when and for what occasion Johann Strauss first performed his
occasional waltz, to which his son Joseph in 1858 composed a counterpart, the
Bivouac Quadrille, Op.58. Perhaps he delayed the first performance until his
start at The Sperl on 4th October 1829. Probably, though, he chose an occasion
soon after the end of the Traiskirchen camp for his activity at The White Swan
or at The Chain-Bridge. The work was evidently played wherever the Strauss
orchestra appeared and won some popularity.
The waltz set that Strauss wrote for this damp occasion,
calls for a larger orchestra than earlier compositions. The composer now needed
one oboe, one bassoon, two trumpets and a trombone. As in any military work,
trumpet and drum are needed to provide important emphasis. At the very
beginning there is a trumpet signal. The first parts allude rather to the
cheerful and varied activities between the tents and stalls, in the course of
which a drum roll in waltz 1b corresponds to the busy turbulence of the camp.
The tender melodies are striking in waltz 3b, marked dolce, which suggests
later developments in the form, and the B minor clouding over in waltz 5a,
which nevertheless follows a livelier motif. In the coda, in which the
beginning of the waltz is first repeated, recalling to the conductor Max
Schonherr and the critic Max Graf the Military Symphony of Haydn*, trumpet and
drum join energetically and provide for a conclusion, as is frequent in
military music.
* Max Schonherr and Karl Reinohl: Johann Strauss Vater,
Universal Edition, 1954.
[12] Erinnerungs-Galoppe, Op.27 (Reminiscence Galop)
The Erinnerungs-Galoppe is simple and unsophisticated, but,
with its leaping motifs, a very effective dance. The galop is through-composed,
with twice eight bars without introduction and a coda. The high-spirited
couples follow each other through the dance hall. It can be imagined how
envious those not dancing would be in the midst of these couples dancing past
or watching them from the side of the room in their wild activity. Johann
Strauss had taken motifs from the operas of Gioachino Rossini as a model. They
were familiar to him, as he had played them in skilful arrangements and worked
them into his medleys, which soon became an essential element in his concerts.
The publisher Tobias Haslinger took no special care with
these collections of galops. The work must already have been written in 1828,
as can be ascertained from the instrumentation, but was then left in the
publisher's archive, although it must already have been popular under the title
Navariner-Galoppe*. The Reminiscence Galop was first published on 23rd February
1829 in a group of no less than thirty galops, appearing as No.24 in a
collection under the title Favourite Galops. In this compilation that was put
on the market there were works by fourteen composers. Among them as No.9 was
Strauss's Caroline Galop, as No.10 the Gratzer-Galopp of the late Franz
Schubert**, as No.16 the Ladies Galop and as No.28 the Hollabrunn Galop of
Joseph Lanner. Johann Strauss was further represented in the collection by his
Chain-Bridge Galop, and by his later Shepherd Galop, Race Galop and Tell Galop.
Clearly for the skilful publisher Tobias Haslinger this not
particularly careful publication of favourite galops, essential elements in the
dance halls of the time, was adequate. There followed, incidentally, further
series of Favourite Galops. Expensive individual editions were not worth
issuing. In 1840 the publication of galops was put to one side.
* The sea battle of Navarino Bay took place on 23rd July
1827. The victory of a Franco-British fleet over a Turkish squadron determined
Greek independence.
** Franz Schubert died on 28th November 1828.
[13] II. Lieferung der Kettenbrücke-Walzer [Op.19] (Second
Part of the Chain-Bridge Waltz)
Johann Nestroy once said with some justification: 'There is
not much to say for second parts. That is true'. That is incidentally the case
with his farce The Families Leim, Zwirm and Knieriem (Glue, String and
Knee-Strap). It could not repeat the success of his masterpiece
Lumpacivagabundus, of which it was the sequel. This applies not only to theatre
pieces. The Second Part of the Chain-Bridge Waltz by Johann Strauss, published
by Tobias Haslinger on 8th May 1829, did not achieve the popularity of the
Chain-Bridge Waltz, Op.4, of 1828.
The waltz listed as Op.19 is certainly interesting. The
festive introduction is succinct and precise, and suggests interest in the
first waltz. This part of the composition, however, dallies in abrupt contrast
to the introductory part, and waltz 1b is superior in melodic line and rhythm.
The second waltz is again almost elegiac ('dolce'). The dialogue between the
post-horn and the strings is amusing in the third waltz, but in the fifth waltz
the hitherto generally strict structure yields to two repetitions of an
eight-bar melody. The first part offers sixteen bars. The sixth waltz is only
sixteen bars that are repeated. The coda is interesting. It begins again
resolutely, then recalls the fourth waltz and allows the motif of the first
part to die gently away. It is not known how the dancers reacted to this
unconventional ending*. It is also not known when and where the second part of
the Chain-Bridge Waltz was first performed. Johann Strauss was still director
of music at The Chain-Bridge in Leopoldstadt at Carnival and in the summer of
1828, and the first performance probably took place there, but no date can be
given.
* Max Schonherr and Karl Reinohl: Johann Strauss Vater,
Universal Edition, 1954.
Franz Mailer
English version by Keith Anderson