The Leading Classical Music Label Direct To You

Read reviews, listen to the music, and purchase the CD STRAUSS II, J.: Waltzes, Polkas, Marches and Overtures, Vol. 2

Customer Service Toll Free 866.489.4152

Music AND Flowers. The Perfect Gifts.

Spend $50 or more on NaxosDirect and we'll give you a $10 coupon for 1800Flowers.com family of stores. Offer ends Feb. 12th. Need suggestions? Click here

Flash 9 required. Click to download.

Narrow your search
with our Music Browser

Classical Music

        Ballet
        Chamber Music
        Choral
        Concertos
        Film Music
        Folk Legends
        Instrumental
        Musicals
        Opera / Operetta
        Orchestral
        Vocal

Jazz

Jazz Contemporary
Jazz Icons

New Age

Wind Band

World

        Ballad
        Bhuddist
        Chinese Music
        Classical (World)
        Early Music (World)
        Folk
        Gamelan
        Gypsy
        Hindustani
        Jazz (World)
        Klezmer
        Sufi
        Vocal (World)
        World

Special Offers:

Free MP3 Downloads

Catalogs

Internship Opportunities

Celebrating Black History

Grammy Winners on Sale

Masters of American Music

Valentine�s Day Special

Clearance

Penguin Guide

200 Essential Recordings

Recently Released

Upcoming Releases

SACD

DVD

        Ballet DVD
        Classical Concert
        Classical Documentary
        Dance Documentary
        Opera DVD
        Pop/Rock Concert

Audio Books

        Anthologies / Collections
        Arts
        Biographies
        Children's Classics
        Classic Fiction
        Great Epics and Tales
        History
        Junior Classic Fiction
        Junior History
        Literature
        Music Biographies
        Music Education
        Non-Fiction
        Philosophy
        Plays - Others
        Plays - Shakespeare
        Poetry
        Religion
        Samplers
        Sports
        Wine Guide

NaxosDirect Podcasts

Video Librarian Reviews

Labels

Naxos Label

        Naxos American Classics
        Naxos Best Of...
        Naxos Box Sets
        Naxos Cinema Classics
        Naxos Classics
        Naxos DVD
        Naxos DVD-Audio
        Naxos International
        Naxos Jazz
        Naxos Limited Edition
        Naxos Milken Archives
        Naxos Night Music
        Naxos Opera
        Naxos Orchestral
        Naxos Special Release
        Naxos Wind Band Classics
        Naxos World

Composers

Conductors

Ensembles

Orchestras

Choirs

Artists

Instruments

Producers

STRAUSS II, J.: Waltzes, Polkas, Marches and Overtures, Vol. 2

Home

Classical Music

Orchestral

STRAUSS II, J.: Waltzes, Polkas, Marches and Overtures, Vol. 2

View large image

Total playing time: 01:01:43

$8.99 (CD)

In Stock - Usually ships within 24 hours.

Link to this CD Link to this page

Johann Strauss II (1825 - 1899) To many the Strauss family has been seen as the epitome of the golden age of Vienna, the city that set Europe dancing, with...

Read more about this recording

Johann Strauss II (1825 - 1899)

To many the Strauss family has been seen as the epitome of the golden age of Vienna, the city that set Europe dancing, with its waltzes and polkas. As the capital of an Empire that embraced the most musical parts of Europe, Bohemia, Slovakia and Hungary, as well as a good part of Northern Italy and the German-speaking peoples closer to hand, Vienna proved the most fertile ground for music that the world ha$ ever known. One reason for this may lie in the inevitable cross-fertilisation of races and cultures, of which the Strauss family provides an example.

The first recorded member of the family was Johann Michael Strauss, a native of the Hungarian town of Ofen, who moved to Vienna in the service of Count Franz von Roggendorff in 1750. Jewish in origin, Johann Michael became a Christian and settled in the city as an upholsterer.

His second child, Franz Strauss, married the daughter of a coachman and worked as a waiter before taking the tenancy of a small drinking-house, Zum heiligen Florian, in the Leopoldstadt district of the city .It was here, on 14th March, 1804, that Johann Strauss the elder, founder of the Strauss musical dynasty, was born.

On the death of his father in 1816, Johann Strauss was apprenticed by his guardian to a book-binder. Even at this period he earned a living for himself playing the viola in a band run by the somewhat disreputable violinist Michael Pamer. In 1819 he joined a rival band started by the Pamer violinist Josef Lanner: in 1824 he became second conductor under Lanner, and the following year established his own orchestra. He married on 11th July, 1825: on 25th October his first son was born and named after his father.

The younger Johann Strauss, even more prolific and successful than his father, studied music at first by stealth, until his father abandoned the family in favour of his mistress in 1842. Two years later he launched his own dance orchestra and went on to unparallelled success, in which he compelled his younger brothers to share, although all three of them had been originally destined for other professions. In 1863 Johann Strauss was appointed Imperial Music Director for the balls held at court, a position he relinquished in 1871, when he was succeeded by his youngest brother, Eduard. His career took him abroad, to London, Paris, Budapest and regularly to the Russian Vauxhall at Pavlovsk. For the theatre he wrote a series of operettas, from Indigo and the Forty Thieves in 1871 and Die Fledermaus

three years later to the final Goddess of Reason in 1897. By the time of his death in 1899 Strauss had written some 500 pieces of music, waltzes, polkas, quadrilles and stage works, evidence of prolific talent and an enormous capacity for work.

An der schonen blauen Donau - the Blue Danube - must be the most famous of all Viennese waltzes. It was written in 1867 for the Vienna Men's Choral Society and originally intended as a purely choral work. Strauss added a hasty piano accompaniment, while Josef Weyl added words to the existing music. The title seems to have been an afterthought.

Indigo und die vierzig Rauber (Indigo and the Forty Thieves) was the first of Strauss's operettas, staged at the Theater an der Wien in 1871, and was received with the greatest enthusiasm, although some critics rightly criticized the libretto, based on The Arabian Nights. Strauss extracted from the score a number of dances and a march, which soon won their own independent popularity, which they still retain.

The waltz Wo die Citronen bl�h'n (Where the lemons bloom) derives its title from the famous song given to the gypsy girl Mignon in Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meister - Do you know the land where the lemon-trees bloom? - an evocation of the warm South. It was written for an Italian tour in 1874 with the Langenbach Orchestra, while the Strauss orchestra fulfilled engagements at home under the baton of the youngest of the Strauss brothers, Eduard. Johann Strauss conducted the first performance of the new waltz in Turin under the title Bella Italia, later changed for audiences in Vienna. The popular Pizzicato Polka was written in collaboration with his brother Josef in 1870 and first performed at Pavlovsk, the pleasure resort outside St. Petersburg, where Strauss had regular summer engagements.

The Arabian Nights, or A Thousand and One Nights, the series of tales told by Sheherazade to delay her threatened execution, was the source of the operetta Indigo and the Forty Thieves, from which the Tausendundeine Nacht (Thousand and One Night) Waltz is taken. The later operetta Die Fledermaus (The Bat) proved an even richer mine, from which the Quadrille is drawn.

Fr�hlingsstimmen (The Voices of Spring) originated as a coloratura piece for the German singer Bianca Bianchi and in this form was first performed in Vienna in March 1883. An orchestral version followed, received well in Russia and Italy, before its return to a more enthusiastic Vienna and a variety of other transcriptions. The Tritsch-Tratsch Polka

is a much earlier work, written in 1858, its title a reference to a satirical publication of the time, and first performed in Russia, while Morgenblatter (Morning Papers) declares its origin in its title, written for the Vienna Writers' and Journalists' Association Concordia ball in January, 1864.

Disc 1

An der schonen, blauen Donau (On the Beautiful, Blue Danube), waltz, op. 314, "The Blue Danube Waltz"

(more info)

Performed by: Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Johann Strauss II
Conducted by: Ondrej Lenard

An der schonen, blauen Donau (On the Beautiful, Blue Danube), waltz, op. 314, "The Blue Danube Waltz" - 9:29

Indigo und die Vierzig Rauber: Overture

(more info)

Performed by: Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra
Composed by: Johann Strauss II
Conducted by: Alfred Walter

Indigo und die Vierzig Rauber: Overture - 7:08

Wo die Citronen bluh'n, Waltz

(more info)

Performed by: Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra
Composed by: Johann Strauss II
Conducted by: Alfred Walter

Wo die Citronen bluh'n, Waltz - 9:27

Pizzicato Polka

(more info)

Performed by: Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Johann Strauss II
Conducted by: Ondrej Lenard

Pizzicato Polka - 2:35

Tausendundeine Nacht, Waltz

(more info)

Performed by: Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Johann Strauss II
Conducted by: Ondrej Lenard

Tausendundeine Nacht, Waltz - 8:23

Die Fledermaus: Quadrille

(more info)

Performed by: Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra
Composed by: Johann Strauss II
Conducted by: Alfred Walter

Die Fledermaus: Quadrille - 5:27

Fruhlingsstimmen, Waltz

(more info)

Performed by: Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Johann Strauss II
Conducted by: Ondrej Lenard

Fruhlingsstimmen, Waltz - 6:10

Tritsch-Tratsch Polka

(more info)

Performed by: Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Johann Strauss II
Conducted by: Ondrej Lenard

Tritsch-Tratsch Polka - 2:50

Morgenblatter, Waltz

(more info)

Performed by: Polish State Philharmonic Orchestra (Katowice)
Composed by: Johann Strauss II
Conducted by: Johannes Wildner

Morgenblatter, Waltz - 10:14

Reviews

Be the first to review this title

FREE SHIPPING on orders
of 5 items or more!

Earn Naxos Rewards Points by opening an account and buying your favorite music today! Create your account here.

See all of our great site features here.

Flash 9 required. Click to download.

Composer(s):
Strauss II, Johann

Conductor(s):
Lenard, Ondrej; Walter, Alfred; Wildner, Johannes

Orchestra(s):
Polish State Philharmonic Orchestra (Katowice); Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra; Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra

Label: Naxos Classics
UPC: 730099533720
Item Number: 8550337
Release Date: May 11, 1990