Halle Viennese 2008

New Year in Vienna – and beyond

New Year celebrations and the music of Johann Strauss seem to be such natural and inseparable companions that the association must, you might think, go back well into the composer’s lifetime. In fact, the tradition didn’t begin until forty years after his death – in a Vienna very different from the city he knew (and very different from the city we know now). Austria having been annexed by Germany 1938, Clemens Krauss and the Vienna Philharmonic chose to give a “Special Concert” of music by the Strauss family on the last day of 1939 as, it is said, a discreet act of Viennese cultural defiance. Ironically, the Nazi authorities liked the idea. In 1941, the event having been switched from New Year’s Eve to the morning of New Year’s Day, German Radio began the annual wartime practice of broadcasting the Vienna Philharmonic’s Strauss concert to the glory of “Greater Germany.”

There was just one problem for the Nazis. According to a record in the register of St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, a Johann Michael Strauss who got married there in 1762 was “a baptised Jew.” What that means is that – by way of Johann Michael’s son Franz Borgias – Johann I, the founder of the Strauss musical dynasty, and his sons Johann II, Josef and Eduard were of (partly) Jewish descent. However, while the Nazi regime evidently believed that banning Mendelssohn and Mahler would do their cause no harm, they felt that they could not afford to lose Johann Strauss. So, to conceal the Jewish origin of his great-grandfather, they falsified the entry in the St Stephen’s register and continued to support the annual broadcast of the New Year’s Day concerts from the Musikverein. The annual sequence was broken by the proximity of the fighting in 1945 but was taken up again a year later, in very different political circumstances, and has gone on to this day. Since Austrian TV began its live broadcasts of the concerts in 1959 they have become an international institution of ever growing popularity.

The combination of Strauss waltzes and polkas proved to be such a winning formula in fact that other orchestras, the Hallé not the latest among them, were quick to adopt it for their own concerts – not just at New Year but also as a regular highlight of summer Proms and similar holiday-season concerts. Refreshingly, while the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year programmes have contnued to exclude all but a handful of composers who were not part of the Strauss family, orchestras not so rigidly observant of tradition have expanded the repertoire in all directions, admitting not only a wide variety of music associated with Vienna in one way or another but also some of the most attractive waltz-time compositions from other countries.

Otto Nicolai (1810-1849)

The Merry Wives of Windsor: Overture

Among the traditional events in the calendar of the Vienna Philharmonic, alongside its New Year’s Day celebration, is an annual Nicolai concert, dedicated to the memory of Otto Nicolai, who founded the orchestra in 1842. Although he conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in the Overture to The Merry Wives of Windsor (Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor) in 1847, the opera itself was turned down the by Royal Opera in Vienna and it was only in 1849, after he had returned to Germany as musical director of the Berlin Royal Opera, that he was able to see it performed. Sadly, he died before he was able to witness the immense success his opera was to enjoy – particularly in Vienna, where it retains its place in the repertoire alongside that other masterful version of Shakespeare’s comedy, Verdi’s Falstaff.

The atmospheric material of the slow introduction to the Overture derives from the last scene, set at night by Herne’s Oak in Windsor Forest. As Falstaff’s tormentors enter, disguised as fairies, the tempo accelerates to allegro vivace, its lightly articulated main theme eventually being offset by a lovely lilting melody on violins – a melody which, although it is one of the best in the whole score, never appears in the opera itself.

Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)

Tritsch-Tratsch quick polka Op.214

Tritsch-Tratsch has always been one of the most popular of Viennese polkas. After its first performance in 1858 there was such a demand for it that the sheet music was sold out within a few days of its publication and was hastily reprinted – to the delight no doubt of the owners of the recently issued Tritsch-Tratsch magazine from which it takes its name. A brilliant example of the quick polka (Polka schnell), it demonstrates just how swiftly and how irresistibly chit-chat or tittle-tattle can get round a crowded ballroom.

Johann Strauss II

Wo die Zitronen blühn (Where the Lemon Trees Bloom) Waltz, Op.364

As its title suggests, Wo die Zitronen blühn – taken from the first line “Kennst du das Land wo die Zitronen blühn?”of Goethe’s famous Mignon song – was written for Italy. It was, in fact, first performed (as Bella Italia) under the composer’s direction at the Teatro Regio in Turin in 1875. Introduced by a miniature tone poem evocative of the Italian countryside, it presents three main sections, each with two well contrasted waltz tunes, and recapitulates them in reverse order before briefly returning to the countryside. While it is not the most ambitious of Johann II’s concert waltzes, it is certainly one of the most lyrical.

Carl Zeller (1842-1898)

The Master Miner (Der Obersteiger): “Don’t be cross” (Sei nicht bös)

Though once a member of the Vienna Boys’ Choir and an obviously promising musician in his youth, Carl Zeller decided not to devote his adult life exclusively to music. Even so, as a full-time and high-ranking civil servant, he helped to revive the declining fortune of Viennese operetta in the early 1890s with Der Vogelhändler (The Bird handler) and wrote an equally successful example, Der Obersteiger (The Master Miner) in 1894. The most popular number in the latter work, “Sei nicht bös” (Don’t be cross), is actually a tenor aria – sung in the original by Martin, a foreman miner to his indecisive girlfriend Nelly – but ever since Elisabeth Schumann took a liking to its disarming waltz-time melody, it has become a favourite soprano item. It probably sounds even better that way.

Johann Strauss II (arr Oskar Stalla and Bernard Grün)

Die Tänzerin Fanny Elssler (Fanny Elssler, Dancer): “Draussen in Sievering” (Yonder in Sievering)

Such was the demand for Strauss operettas that other composers continued to manufacture them out of Johann II’s dance music for literally decades after his death. The score of Die Tänzerin Fanny Elssler, compiled round a libretto by Hans Adler on the scandalous life of a celebrated Viennese dancer, is the second-hand creation of Oskar Stalla and his colleague Bernard Grün. First performed in the Deutsches Theater in Berlin in 1934, it scored a particular success with “Draussen in Sievering” , a number which, having appropriated one of Johann II’s most seductive waltz melodies and one of his most attractive polka tunes to make its romantic tribute to Vienna, could scarcely have failed.

Josef Strauss (1827-1870)

Ohne Sorgen! (Without a Care) quick polka, Op.271

Of the three Strauss brothers – Johann II, Josef and Eduard – Josef was neither the most prolific nor the most eambitious. He had trained as an architect and agreed to conduct Strauss concerts and write music for them only when an emergency threated to sink the family business. He was, however, the most sensitive composer amongst them, as Sphärenklänge (to be heard later in this programme) so attractively demonstrates. Ohne Sorgen (Without a Care) was written only a few months before his early death when he was already suffering from the illness (now thought to be a brain tumour) that was to kill him. Anything but sensitive on the surface, it is a bravely exuberant expression of the joy of life guaranteed to raise a laugh whenever it is performed.

Johann Strauss II

Emperor Waltz (Kaiser-Walzer), Op.437

The Emperor Waltz is not only a great piece of music but also a great piece of diplomacy. It was written to celebrate the historic state visit made by Kaiser Franz Joseph I of Austria to Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany in Berlin in 1889 and was given its grand but neutral title so as to offend neither emperor but to flatter them both. Imperial in inspiration, it is also imperial in stature. The introduction takes the form of a delicately scored march, while the first of the waltz tunes – briefly anticipated in march time before its definitive introduction in waltz time on horn and violins – must be the most dignified of its kind. Although none of the following three waltzes is quite as stately, trumpets and trombones certainly make an imposing entry in the last but one of them. Not satisfied with a recapitulation of almost symphonic proportions, recalling the second and third waltzes as well as the main theme itself, Strauss adds an epilogue featuring a thoughtful solo cello and a brilliantly ceremonial ending.

Johann Strauss II

Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron): Entrance March and Overture

The score of Johann II’s operetta Der Zigeunerbaron is an intriguing if sometimes incongruous mix of gypsy music and Viennese polkas and waltzes. The Entrance March in the third act, however, has nothing Hungarian or specifically Viennese in it since it is a brisk military march accompanying the triumphant return of the Imperial troops from a Spanish campaign. According to the composer’s instruction to the management of the Theatre an der Wien, where Der Zigeunerbaron was first performed in 1885, “The Entrance March must be imposing. About 80 –100 soldiers (on foot, on horse), camp-followers in Hungarian, Viennese (and Spanish) dress, common-folk, children with shrubs and flowers – which latter they strew before the returning soldiers – must appear.” Among the victorious soldiers is our hero, the “Gypsy Baron,” whose valour in battle entitles him to become a real baron and to marry his beloved Saffi, who is not the gypsy he once thought she was but – surprise, surprise – a princess.

The Overture to Der Zigeunerbaron is constructed, appropriately enough, like a Hungarian rhapsody. It begins with a slow section, anticipating the gruff rhythms associated with the gypsies on their entry in the first act, presenting expressive melodic improvisations on woodwind and dwelling lovingly on a pretty oboe tune that is to be taken up later by the (to all appearances) gypsy heroine Saffi. Although the quick section begins with a polka, most of it is based on Hungarian material. After the necessary waltz-time intervention, based on “So voll Fröhlichkeit” (So full of joy) from the second act, Strauss is quick to restore his gypsy disguise, flaunting it most effectively of all in a brilliant coda with characteristically spirited rhythmic syncopations.

Josef Strauss (1827-1870)

Sphärenklänge (Music of the Spheres): Waltz, Op.235

The Viennese waltz as the Strauss family developed it – with its four or five main sections offering two tunes each – was a formidable challenge to a composer’s melodic invention. It was a challenge they were always ready to accept, however, not least because they had perfected the musically rewarding art of setting a waltz melody free from its triple-time accompaniment. The inspired main theme of Sphärenklänge, the one that glides in on violins and woodwind once the waltz tempo is established, floats with heavenly serenity above the gently articulated but persistent rhythm of even crotchets below it. Melodies of this distinction – there are rarely more than one in each waltz – are usually anticipated in a slow introduction, as this one so appealingly is in an episode as atmospheric as any scena in a ballet. Like its counterparts in most other Viennese waltzes, it is then presented in its definitive form as the first main theme and is finally recalled in glory at the end. The nine comparatively modest tunes that are heard in the meantime in this particular piece are chosen not so much for their spherical relevance as for their entertainment value and their potential as contrasting material.

Johann Strauss II

Die Fledermaus (The Bat): Csárdás – “Klänge der Heimat” (Sounds of home)

The most popular of Johann II’s operettas has always been Die Fledermaus – partly, perhaps, because it is the only one actually set in contemporary Vienna. At its centre is a lavish ball given in his villa by Prince Orlovsky, who is known for his wealth and his liberal attitude in spending it. Among the guests are Rosalinde and her husband Gabriel von Eisenstein, who has no idea that she is there and who, when he sees her in her disguise as a Hungarian countess, makes a fool of himself by flirting with her. It is in order to prove her Hungarian credentials that Rosalinde takes it upon herself to sing the longest and most elaborate aria in the whole score – a csárdás introduced by an authentic-sounding Hungarian gypsy clarinet and consisting of a characteristically nostalgic slow section and a brilliantly fiery ending.

Johann Strauss II (arr Anton Paulik)

A Night in Venice (Eine Nacht in Venedig): Tipsy Song (Schwips-Lied)

There is another lavish ball scene in Eine Nacht in Venedig, which was first performed in Berlin and Vienna in 1883, nine years after Die Fledermaus and with almost as much success in spite of its clumsy libretto. Although the occasion for the ball in this case is a Carnival night in 18th century Venice, it is just like the other in providing a context for masks, disguises and mistaken identities. It also gave Anton Paulik, who made a new version of the work for the Vienna Volksoper in 1948, and excuse to introduce an extra song for Anina, a fisher girl who is admitted to the Duke of Urbino’s palace in disguise as a Senator’s wife. In this version, not being used to the high life, she finds herself getting rather tipsy – as she indicates in a charming little song based on a tune from one of the most popular of Johann II’s ballroom pieces, the Annen Polka.

Johann Strauss II

Unter Donner und Blitz (Thunder and Lightning) quick polka, Op.324

The theory that the most famous of all Strauss polkas was first performed under the title Sternschnuppe (Shooting Star) is difficult to accept. Given what seems to be a whole series of brilliantly witty observations on a severe meteorological situation – a roll of thunder in the opening bars followed by a flurry of evasive activity, a hectic middle section where the storm rages in lightning cymbal clashes and bass–drum thunder claps – it is scarcely credible that Unter Donner und Blitz could have been written with any other scenario in mind. Certainly, the final section betrays not the least sign of a dampening of the irrepressible Viennese genius for having a good time.

Johann Strauss II

An der schönen blauen Donau (By the Beautiful Blue Danube): Waltz, Op.314

The Blue Danube, as it is usually known in English, is the most famous of all waltzes. Written in 1867, it has achieved the status of a Viennese folk song, or anthem even. Although the original version, written for the Vienna Men’s Choral Association, has fairly frivolous words attached to it, the choral version usually performed today has a new text which, added in 1890, confirms the depth of the local sentiment inspired by the waltz in the meantime. But that doesn’t have the splendid coda which in the purely orchestral version recapitulates and develops the main themes of four of the five main sections, referring back to the leisurely introduction and effortlessly completing a perfectly integrated construction. Johann II’s melodic genius was such that even if the river itself were to dry up Vienna and the Danube would be inseparable.

Gerald Larner © 2007/8