Composers › Josef Strauss › Programme note
Ohne Sorgen! (Without a Care) quick polka, Op.271
Gerald Larner wrote 3 versions of differing length — choose one below.
Josef Strauss (1827-1870)
Ohne Sorgen! Polka schnell, Op.271
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Ohne Sorgen!”
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.
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Ohne sorgen”
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 ambitious. He had trained as an architect and agreed to conduct Strauss concerts and write music for them only when an emergency threatened 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.
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Ohne sorgen/n.rtf”