2 Waltzes

Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)

2 Waltzes

An Artist’s Life (Künstlerleben) Op.316

Voices of Spring (Frühlingsstimmen) Op.410

The Viennese waltz, as Johann Strauss developed it and his even more successful son Johann Strauss II perfected it, is not just a one-tune affair. It might consist of many as four or five distinct waltz-time sections in succession, each one of them based on two different themes. Clearly, as the composer of well over a hundred waltzes (not including those in his operettas), Johann II was a uniquely resourceful melodist. The main theme of An Artist’s Life is anticipated in the slow intoduction, first on oboe and then on horn and solo cello, but it is only one of ten tunes allocated into five sections of two each. Most of them are recalled in a coda developed to symphonic proportions and ending with a climax based on the theme so poetically anticipated in the introduction.

Written originally as a vocal piece for the coloratura soprano Bianca Bianchi, Voices of Spring was dismissed on its first performance in 1883 as “not very melodious” - which would suggest that Mme Bianchi didn’t sing it very well. Certainly, as an orchestral waltz, it is outstanding for the quality of its tunes, not least the sensitively syncopated and delicately scored first theme of the second section. Although, unlike An Artists’s Life and others of its kind, Voices of Spring has not much of an introduction, it does have a particularly effective coda which recalls the vigorous opening theme and puts a brilliant ending to the piece.