Song | New Year's Concert 2019 Booklet Text |
Artist | Christian Thielemann |
Artist | Wiener Philharmoniker |
Artist | Zachary Crystal |
Album | New Year's Concert 2019 Booklet Text |
Download | Image LRC TXT |
[00:00.000] | 作曲 : Not Applicable |
[00:00.365] | The Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Concert is being |
[00:03.308] | conducted for the first time by Christian Thielemann in 2019. |
[00:07.524] | Thielemann has been closely associated with the orchestra since |
[00:11.206] | 2000 and has distinguished |
[00:13.204] | himself in music by the Strauβ family at least since 2008, |
[00:17.253] | when he opened that year's Philharmonic Ball. |
[00:20.324] | This year's programme begins with a march by Carl Michael |
[00:23.612] | Ziehrer dedicated to - |
[00:25.300] | and named after - Anton von Schönfeld,who was General of |
[00:29.189] | the Artillery and General Inspector of Troops |
[00:31.876] | in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.As music director of the |
[00:35.357] | Fourth Imperial and Royal Infantry Regiment - |
[00:38.212] | also known as the Hoch- und Deutschmeister - Ziehrer |
[00:41.548] | was one of those military bandmasters |
[00:43.740] | who additionally wrote music in the final decades |
[00:46.220] | of the Habsburg monarchy, |
[00:48.285] | in which capacity he also gave public concertswith |
[00:50.997] | his orchestra. |
[00:53.037] | Josef Strauβ wrote his waltz Transactionen |
[00:56.356] | (Transactions)in the summer of 1865 |
[00:59.756] | for a benefit concert in the Imperial and |
[01:02.172] | Royal People's Park in Vienna, |
[01:04.172] | after which he left for an urgently needed holiday. |
[01:07.020] | Its title harks back to his Action Waltz from |
[01:10.974] | the previous Carnival. |
[01:12.117] | In 2019 the title Transactions is also a |
[01:15.806] | suitable motto for the |
[01:17.629] | 150th anniversary of the resumption of |
[01:20.308] | diplomatic relations between Austria and Japan. |
[01:23.636] | When the Meiji dynasty came to power in Japan in |
[01:27.629] | 1868,it ended the country's traditional isolation and |
[01:31.644] | introduced a far-reaching programme of reforms at |
[01:34.708] | home.A prominent role in this process was played |
[01:37.908] | by the introduction of western music,which |
[01:40.470] | primarily meant German and Austrian music. |
[01:43.196] | The first Austrian soloists appeared in Japan, |
[01:46.197] | and in 1888,on the recommendation of |
[01:48.932] | Vienna's Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, |
[01:52.804] | Bruckner's pupil Rudolf Dittrich was named |
[01:54.708] | director of the newly founded State Academy |
[01:57.452] | of Music in Tokyo.Three years later |
[02:00.372] | the first Japanese student - Nobu Koda - |
[02:03.133] | enrolled at the Gesellschaft's Conservatory. |
[02:06.716] | The Vienna Philharmonic first went on tour to |
[02:09.292] | Japan in 1956 under Paul Hindemith |
[02:12.236] | and since then has visited the country no |
[02:15.164] | fewer than thirty-six times,enjoying |
[02:17.413] | a degree of popularity with local audiences |
[02:20.037] | that can only be expressed in superlatives. |
[02:22.957] | Transactionen was even heard in Japan in 1983 |
[02:24.661] | and 1986.since 1978 the New Year's Concert |
[02:31.652] | has been broadcast in Japan,making it an integral |
[02:34.724] | part of Austro-Janpenese musical relations.Strangely |
[02:38.965] | enough,it was on 19 |
[02:40.100] | May That the Japenese broadcaster NHK first showed a |
[02:44.756] | New Year's Concert from Vienna. |
[02:47.164] | Mono broadcasts on 1 January began in 1984,and since |
[02:51.740] | 1987 the concerts have been relayed live in stereo on |
[02:55.445] | both television and radio. |
[03:01.060] | It was Josef Hellmesberger(II)who was instrumental in |
[03:04.580] | ensuring Dittrich's appointment in Japan. |
[03:06.572] | "Peipi"Hellmesverger held a variety of posts in the |
[03:09.900] | musical life of Vienna:as |
[03:11.700] | solo violinist in the Court Opera Orchestra and with |
[03:14.821] | the Vienna Philharmonic,Court Kapellmeister, |
[03:17.692] | Mahler's successor as conductor of the Philharmonic's |
[03:21.262] | subscription concerts,and professor |
[03:24.028] | of violin at the Gesellschaft's Conservatory.During his |
[03:27.348] | period of military service he had also been the concert-master |
[03:31.100] | of the |
[03:31.388] | Hoch- und Deutschmeister regiment.His gossamer-light |
[03:34.622] | Elfenreigen(Elfin Dance)was written in 1903 |
[03:39.534] | within the context of his work at the Court Opera. |
[03:42.012] | Johann Strauβ's polka schnell Expreβ was written in |
[03:47.012] | the wake of the |
[03:47.988] | Austro-Prussian War of 1866,a war lost with remarkble |
[03:52.942] | speed by the Austrian army, |
[03:54.812] | but no one listening to this piece would guess its |
[03:57.308] | bellicose background.In the aftermath of the war, |
[04:00.348] | the Strauβ brothers launched their Biennese season |
[04:03.212] | only in the late autumn.First performed in the People's Garden, |
[04:07.125] | the Expreβ polka strikes a demonstratively carefree note. |
[04:11.300] | In the late 1870s Strauβ,recently remarried,spent his |
[04:17.870] | summer vacations on the North Frisian |
[04:20.900] | island of Föhr,where the couple were treated as celevrities. |
[04:24.661] | Husum's mayor,for example,insisted |
[04:27.564] | on writing a poem in honour of Strauβ's new wife,Angelika. |
[04:31.244] | Their 1879 visit to the island found |
[04:33.964] | expression in the elaborate tone-painterly walyz |
[04:37.140] | Nordseebilder(Pictures of the North Sea)that was |
[04:40.917] | premiered by Eduard Strauβ in Vienna's Musikvereinssaal |
[04:44.181] | the following autumn.Curiosly enough,the title-page |
[04:47.668] | of the printed edition does not depict a low-lying |
[04:50.300] | beach lapped by the waves of the North Sea |
[04:53.324] | as suggested by the introduction and first waltz |
[04:55.908] | theme but a gloomy fjord of a kind that |
[04:58.829] | the widely travelled Strauβ never saw.The great |
[05:02.781] | Austro-Hungarian expedition to the North Pole - |
[05:06.140] | rather than the North Sea - had taken place only |
[05:08.460] | a few years earlier,resulting not least in the |
[05:12.366] | Arctic archipelago being named Franz Josef Land, |
[05:15.868] | a name that it retains to this day. |
[05:18.606] | Eduard Struaβ's polka schnell Mit Extrapost |
[05:22.108] | (Post-Haste)dates from the final phase |
[05:26.364] | of the Strauβ Orchestra's existence and refers |
[05:28.420] | to what was then the fastest form of horse-drawn |
[05:31.868] | transport.But by the date of its first performance |
[05:35.157] | in 1887 this form of transport was already |
[05:38.948] | becoming an anachronism.For decades relatively |
[05:42.780] | lengthy sections of a journey could be covered |
[05:45.068] | more quickly and more comfortable by rail,a mode of |
[05:48.660] | transport that the Strauβ brothers used extensively, |
[05:51.708] | while in 1888 Bertha Benz |
[05:54.861] | ushered in the age of the automobile with her |
[05:57.164] | exhibition ride fom Mannheim to Pforzheim. |
[06:00.916] | By the time that Johann Struaβ's operetta Der |
[06:03.532] | Zigeunerbaron(The Gypsy Baron)was first |
[06:06.132] | performed at Vienna's Theater an der Wien in 1885, |
[06:10.244] | it could look back on a lengthy genesis, |
[06:13.364] | having begun life as a Hungarian comic opera before |
[06:16.812] | finally mutating into an operetta set in the |
[06:19.796] | region between the multiethnic border area of the |
[06:23.084] | Banat of Temeswar and Vienna.Both of these worlds |
[06:27.076] | can already be identified in the potpourri overture: |
[06:30.365] | on the one hand we have constrastive minor-key |
[06:33.572] | tonalities,syncopations and the sounds of the cimbalo, |
[06:37.300] | and on the other the waltz |
[06:39.844] | "Nach dem schönen Wien/Zieht mich Herz und Sinn" |
[06:42.876] | (Heart and mind draw me to beautiful Bienna), |
[06:45.806] | which revels in string sonorities and major-key |
[06:49.053] | tonalities.The action unfolds against the |
[06:52.172] | historically inaccurate background of the War of |
[06:54.772] | the Austrian Succession and required an |
[06:57.612] | external enemy to restore unity to Austria-Hungary, |
[07:01.206] | which at the time of the work's first |
[07:03.325] | performance was already beginning to fracture in |
[07:05.588] | spite of the political settlemente,or Ausgleich,of 1867. |
[07:10.868] | Josef Strauβ's polka française Die Tänzerin |
[07:15.260] | (The Ballerina)was written for the New World |
[07:18.068] | in 1867,although in this case the New World |
[07:21.933] | was not the Americas but a pleasure dome with |
[07:24.109] | music pavilions not far from Schönbrunn Palace |
[07:28.532] | in the up-market district of Hietzing. |
[07:31.300] | Although contemporary audiences enjoyed Die |
[07:33.492] | Tänzerin,the work failed to maintain a place |
[07:37.068] | for itself in the repertory and in 2019 it is |
[07:39.869] | being heard for the first time at |
[07:41.581] | one of the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Concerts. |
[07:44.932] | The whole of 1867 was overshadowed by Austria's |
[07:47.916] | defeat at the hands of the Prussians |
[07:51.036] | in the previous year's Seven Week's War.Many of |
[07:53.900] | Vienna's traditional balls had to be abandoned, |
[07:56.949] | but in spite of this,the Artists' Association |
[07:59.389] | Hesperus invited Johann Struaβ to write a |
[08:02.756] | particularly elegant and perhaps less boisterous |
[08:05.940] | waltz for its ball in the Diana Hall. |
[08:08.444] | Titled Künstlerleben(Artist's Life),it was premiered |
[08:12.604] | three days after the Blue Danube waltz. |
[08:15.637] | Strauβ took it with him to the World Fair in Paris in |
[08:18.693] | 1867,an event that provided the militarily weekend |
[08:22.324] | Habsburg monarchy with a |
[08:23.716] | welcome opportunity to return to the international |
[08:26.148] | stage.Strauβ's first wife,Henriette, |
[08:29.556] | wrote home to report on the concerts in Paris:" |
[08:33.030] | People here are simply mad about this Viennese music." |
[08:36.692] | Viennese audiences,conversely,were so spoilt by |
[08:40.644] | this music that Strauβ's first operatta, |
[08:43.172] | Indigo und die vierzig Räuber(Indigo and the Forty Thieves), |
[08:47.444] | encountered a relatively |
[08:49.196] | lukewarm response when it was premiered in February 1871, |
[08:53.037] | a response due above all to its libretto. |
[08:55.892] | By contrast,his polka schnell Die Bajadare(The Bayadè), |
[09:00.324] | which comprises the coda to the ballet |
[09:01.262] | music and motifs from the second and third acts,was |
[09:04.324] | greeted with great enthusiasm when it was performed |
[09:07.036] | for the first time at a |
[09:08.381] | concert with the Strauβ Orchestra under Eduard Strauβ |
[09:11.125] | in the People's Park in Vienna. |
[09:13.596] | The concert also included a scene from Meyerbeer's |
[09:16.542] | grand opera Les Huguenots and overture from Wagner's opera Rienzi. |
[09:20.644] | The world premiere of Eduard Strauβ's polka françise |
[09:25.125] | Opern-Soirée(Opera Soirée)in |
[09:26.813] | December 1877 was reported by the Wiener Zeitung:" |
[09:30.404] | Johann Strauβ had scarcely laid |
[09:33.780] | aside his baton when Eduard Strauβ appeared on the |
[09:36.932] | platform in order to take it up |
[09:38.868] | himeself.This was the sign for the ball to begin,the |
[09:42.180] | second and most eagerly awaited |
[09:44.645] | part of the programme."This first ball by the Court |
[09:48.364] | Opera artists in the opera house |
[09:50.412] | on the Ring-the building is celebrating its 150th |
[09:53.828] | anniversary in 2019-was the |
[09:54.812] | forerunner of today's Vienna Opera Ball.By imperial |
[10:00.020] | decree audiences were supposed |
[10:02.093] | to restrict themselves to listening to the music,but |
[10:04.693] | under Eduard Strauβ the space |
[10:06.662] | was abruptly cleared for dancing,with the Strauβ |
[10:09.228] | Orchestra replacing the Court Opera |
[10:11.708] | Orchestra.As a result the Vienna Philharmonic is |
[10:14.892] | performing the Opern-Soirée polka for |
[10:17.036] | the first time at its 2019 New Year's Concert. |
[10:20.533] | Conversely,it was the Vienna Philharmonic in its |
[10:24.652] | capacity as the Court Opera Orchestra |
[10:26.788] | that did the honours at the first performance of |
[10:29.220] | Johann Strauβ's Ritter Pásmán(Knight Pázmán) |
[10:33.444] | on 1 January 1892,when the composer himeself |
[10:36.428] | conducted the work.Viennese reactions to his |
[10:40.740] | only actual opera were among the greatest disappointments |
[10:44.220] | of his life.This time it was not |
[10:46.516] | just the banal plot to which audiences took exception - |
[10:49.740] | the action recolves around an |
[10:51.900] | extramarital kiss - but also the piece's failure to |
[10:55.181] | conform to expectations of what a "comic opera"should be. |
[10:59.324] | Among the scenes to which |
[11:01.188] | audiences responded more favourably was the waltz song sung |
[11:04.548] | by Eva - the wife of |
[11:05.836] | Knight Pázmán and the recipient of the harmless kiss - in Act |
[11:09.412] | Two.The version of the |
[11:11.453] | Eva Waltz that was played at a military concert only two days |
[11:14.877] | after the premiere of |
[11:15.868] | the opera itself at the Court Opera was prepared by the |
[11:18.788] | conductor Josef Schlar,who |
[11:21.188] | was Strauβ's assistant at the Court Opera but whose |
[11:23.940] | arrangement failed to meet with |
[11:25.420] | the composer's approval. |
[11:28.252] | If Ritter Pásmán was a flop.Strauβ's Csárdás remains |
[11:31.485] | one of the most popular of |
[11:33.916] | his compositions.This rhythmically accentuated dance |
[11:37.126] | derives its name from the |
[11:39.076] | Hungarian word for a country inn(csárda)but was widely |
[11:42.540] | found in the traditional |
[11:43.884] | music of the Roma in neighbouring countries as well. |
[11:47.036] | Its roots lie in the verbunkos |
[11:49.317] | of 18th-century taverns,where soldiers were conscripted |
[11:52.492] | into the Habsburg army. |
[11:55.060] | Whereas Hungarian elements are frequently found in |
[11:59.013] | Strauβ's music,his Egyptian |
[12:00.356] | March had little to do with Egypt,at least initially. |
[12:03.916] | Written at Pavlovsk near |
[12:06.333] | St Peterburg in the summer of 1869,it reflects the |
[12:10.348] | orientalism that was then in |
[12:12.348] | vogue.Within days of its first performance it was |
[12:14.980] | being repeated under the new |
[12:16.622] | name of the Circassian March but it soon reverted |
[12:19.764] | to its original title,a change |
[12:21.732] | presumably undertaken within the context of the |
[12:23.821] | sensational opening of the Suez Canal in November |
[12:28.468] | 1869,an event that excited international attention. |
[12:33.157] | In addition to his many other appointments in Vienna, |
[12:36.316] | Josef Hellmesberger was also |
[12:38.252] | active as a composer and conductor of ballets.His |
[12:42.029] | librettist Leopold Krenn reports |
[12:45.260] | that "Hellmesberger wrote music with astonishing |
[12:48.276] | facility,Whenever the director of the |
[12:50.756] | Court Opera,Wilhelm Jahn,accepted a ballet and it |
[12:53.980] | turned out that an additional number |
[12:57.068] | was needed,Hellmesberger was able to provide entire |
[13:00.166] | divertissements within only a |
[13:02.500] | couple of days."His Entr'acte Waltz must have been |
[13:06.604] | used on several occasions, |
[13:08.324] | both as ballet music and in the concert hall.It is |
[13:11.637] | contained in a suite of ballet |
[13:13.532] | numbers published in 1905,where it appears under |
[13:16.934] | the title Tanz auf der Spitze(Dancing en Pointe). |
[13:21.236] | With Johann Strauβ's polka mazur Lob der Frauen |
[13:24.764] | (In Praise of Women),the 2019 New Year's |
[13:27.796] | Concert returns to the 1867 Paris World Fair.For |
[13:32.195] | his guest performances Strauβ relied on |
[13:35.133] | the support of the Austrian ambassador,Prince |
[13:37.652] | Metternich,and his wife Pauline.He had also |
[13:41.388] | made contact with Benjamin Bilse,who had played |
[13:44.028] | in his father's orchestra in 1842 before |
[13:47.412] | running his own orchestra in Silesia and Berlin. |
[13:50.893] | It was from the Berlin-based |
[13:52.614] | Bilse'sche Kapelle that the Berlin Philharmonic |
[13:55.612] | emerged in 1882.In |
[13:58.796] | 1867 Strauβ and Bilse shared the conducting of |
[14:02.180] | the latter's orchestra.Among the works |
[14:04.460] | Strauβ performed was Lob der Frauen,which had |
[14:08.389] | first been heard at the Vienna Carnival earlier that same year. |
[14:11.405] | If the official part of Christian Thielemann's |
[14:14.116] | programme for his first New Year's Concert |
[14:16.516] | ends with Josef Strauβ's waltz Sphärenklänge |
[14:19.252] | (Music of the Spheres),then this makes logical |
[14:21.884] | sense since its introduction contals a number of |
[14:25.268] | reminiscences of Wagner.After all,Thieleman |
[14:29.133] | is only the second conductor in the history of the |
[14:32.124] | Bayreuth Festival to have conducted all |
[14:34.109] | the canonical works there.With their distant echo of |
[14:37.892] | Act Three of Tannhäuser,the opening bars |
[14:40.964] | also recall the fact that the Strauβ |
[14:43.244] | Orchestra was performing excerpts from Wagner's operas |
[14:46.645] | and music dramas at its concerts |
[14:48.900] | long before these works had entered the Court Opera repertory. |
[14:52.020] | Josef Strauβ wrote his waltz |
[14:54.660] | for the Medics'Ball in 1868.This circumstance is referenced |
[14:59.332] | in the title inasmuch as Pythagoras, |
[15:01.780] | the Greek philosopher who advanced the geocentric theory of |
[15:05.182] | concentric celestial bodies sounding |
[15:07.644] | together in particular mathematical relationships,was aslo a |
[15:11.733] | physician in the widest sense of the term. |
[15:14.452] | But according to a local newspaper,the Fremden-Blatt,the |
[15:17.989] | medically trained audience at the |
[15:19.653] | first performance of Josef Strauβ's Waltz heard nether |
[15:22.623] | Wagner nor the heavenly constellations |
[15:25.300] | in the opening chords but the afterlife.Yet this five-part |
[15:29.892] | series of waltzes soon livens up and |
[15:32.764] | gives us every reason to assume that the case |
[15:34.693] | is by no means hopeless. |
[00:00.000] | zuo qu : Not Applicable |
[00:00.365] | The Vienna Philharmonic' s New Year' s Concert is being |
[00:03.308] | conducted for the first time by Christian Thielemann in 2019. |
[00:07.524] | Thielemann has been closely associated with the orchestra since |
[00:11.206] | 2000 and has distinguished |
[00:13.204] | himself in music by the Strau family at least since 2008, |
[00:17.253] | when he opened that year' s Philharmonic Ball. |
[00:20.324] | This year' s programme begins with a march by Carl Michael |
[00:23.612] | Ziehrer dedicated to |
[00:25.300] | and named after Anton von Sch nfeld, who was General of |
[00:29.189] | the Artillery and General Inspector of Troops |
[00:31.876] | in the AustroHungarian Empire. As music director of the |
[00:35.357] | Fourth Imperial and Royal Infantry Regiment |
[00:38.212] | also known as the Hoch und Deutschmeister Ziehrer |
[00:41.548] | was one of those military bandmasters |
[00:43.740] | who additionally wrote music in the final decades |
[00:46.220] | of the Habsburg monarchy, |
[00:48.285] | in which capacity he also gave public concertswith |
[00:50.997] | his orchestra. |
[00:53.037] | Josef Strau wrote his waltz Transactionen |
[00:56.356] | Transactions in the summer of 1865 |
[00:59.756] | for a benefit concert in the Imperial and |
[01:02.172] | Royal People' s Park in Vienna, |
[01:04.172] | after which he left for an urgently needed holiday. |
[01:07.020] | Its title harks back to his Action Waltz from |
[01:10.974] | the previous Carnival. |
[01:12.117] | In 2019 the title Transactions is also a |
[01:15.806] | suitable motto for the |
[01:17.629] | 150th anniversary of the resumption of |
[01:20.308] | diplomatic relations between Austria and Japan. |
[01:23.636] | When the Meiji dynasty came to power in Japan in |
[01:27.629] | 1868, it ended the country' s traditional isolation and |
[01:31.644] | introduced a farreaching programme of reforms at |
[01:34.708] | home. A prominent role in this process was played |
[01:37.908] | by the introduction of western music, which |
[01:40.470] | primarily meant German and Austrian music. |
[01:43.196] | The first Austrian soloists appeared in Japan, |
[01:46.197] | and in 1888, on the recommendation of |
[01:48.932] | Vienna' s Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, |
[01:52.804] | Bruckner' s pupil Rudolf Dittrich was named |
[01:54.708] | director of the newly founded State Academy |
[01:57.452] | of Music in Tokyo. Three years later |
[02:00.372] | the first Japanese student Nobu Koda |
[02:03.133] | enrolled at the Gesellschaft' s Conservatory. |
[02:06.716] | The Vienna Philharmonic first went on tour to |
[02:09.292] | Japan in 1956 under Paul Hindemith |
[02:12.236] | and since then has visited the country no |
[02:15.164] | fewer than thirtysix times, enjoying |
[02:17.413] | a degree of popularity with local audiences |
[02:20.037] | that can only be expressed in superlatives. |
[02:22.957] | Transactionen was even heard in Japan in 1983 |
[02:24.661] | and 1986. since 1978 the New Year' s Concert |
[02:31.652] | has been broadcast in Japan, making it an integral |
[02:34.724] | part of AustroJanpenese musical relations. Strangely |
[02:38.965] | enough, it was on 19 |
[02:40.100] | May That the Japenese broadcaster NHK first showed a |
[02:44.756] | New Year' s Concert from Vienna. |
[02:47.164] | Mono broadcasts on 1 January began in 1984, and since |
[02:51.740] | 1987 the concerts have been relayed live in stereo on |
[02:55.445] | both television and radio. |
[03:01.060] | It was Josef Hellmesberger II who was instrumental in |
[03:04.580] | ensuring Dittrich' s appointment in Japan. |
[03:06.572] | " Peipi" Hellmesverger held a variety of posts in the |
[03:09.900] | musical life of Vienna: as |
[03:11.700] | solo violinist in the Court Opera Orchestra and with |
[03:14.821] | the Vienna Philharmonic, Court Kapellmeister, |
[03:17.692] | Mahler' s successor as conductor of the Philharmonic' s |
[03:21.262] | subscription concerts, and professor |
[03:24.028] | of violin at the Gesellschaft' s Conservatory. During his |
[03:27.348] | period of military service he had also been the concertmaster |
[03:31.100] | of the |
[03:31.388] | Hoch und Deutschmeister regiment. His gossamerlight |
[03:34.622] | Elfenreigen Elfin Dance was written in 1903 |
[03:39.534] | within the context of his work at the Court Opera. |
[03:42.012] | Johann Strau' s polka schnell Expre was written in |
[03:47.012] | the wake of the |
[03:47.988] | AustroPrussian War of 1866, a war lost with remarkble |
[03:52.942] | speed by the Austrian army, |
[03:54.812] | but no one listening to this piece would guess its |
[03:57.308] | bellicose background. In the aftermath of the war, |
[04:00.348] | the Strau brothers launched their Biennese season |
[04:03.212] | only in the late autumn. First performed in the People' s Garden, |
[04:07.125] | the Expre polka strikes a demonstratively carefree note. |
[04:11.300] | In the late 1870s Strau, recently remarried, spent his |
[04:17.870] | summer vacations on the North Frisian |
[04:20.900] | island of F hr, where the couple were treated as celevrities. |
[04:24.661] | Husum' s mayor, for example, insisted |
[04:27.564] | on writing a poem in honour of Strau' s new wife, Angelika. |
[04:31.244] | Their 1879 visit to the island found |
[04:33.964] | expression in the elaborate tonepainterly walyz |
[04:37.140] | Nordseebilder Pictures of the North Sea that was |
[04:40.917] | premiered by Eduard Strau in Vienna' s Musikvereinssaal |
[04:44.181] | the following autumn. Curiosly enough, the titlepage |
[04:47.668] | of the printed edition does not depict a lowlying |
[04:50.300] | beach lapped by the waves of the North Sea |
[04:53.324] | as suggested by the introduction and first waltz |
[04:55.908] | theme but a gloomy fjord of a kind that |
[04:58.829] | the widely travelled Strau never saw. The great |
[05:02.781] | AustroHungarian expedition to the North Pole |
[05:06.140] | rather than the North Sea had taken place only |
[05:08.460] | a few years earlier, resulting not least in the |
[05:12.366] | Arctic archipelago being named Franz Josef Land, |
[05:15.868] | a name that it retains to this day. |
[05:18.606] | Eduard Strua' s polka schnell Mit Extrapost |
[05:22.108] | PostHaste dates from the final phase |
[05:26.364] | of the Strau Orchestra' s existence and refers |
[05:28.420] | to what was then the fastest form of horsedrawn |
[05:31.868] | transport. But by the date of its first performance |
[05:35.157] | in 1887 this form of transport was already |
[05:38.948] | becoming an anachronism. For decades relatively |
[05:42.780] | lengthy sections of a journey could be covered |
[05:45.068] | more quickly and more comfortable by rail, a mode of |
[05:48.660] | transport that the Strau brothers used extensively, |
[05:51.708] | while in 1888 Bertha Benz |
[05:54.861] | ushered in the age of the automobile with her |
[05:57.164] | exhibition ride fom Mannheim to Pforzheim. |
[06:00.916] | By the time that Johann Strua' s operetta Der |
[06:03.532] | Zigeunerbaron The Gypsy Baron was first |
[06:06.132] | performed at Vienna' s Theater an der Wien in 1885, |
[06:10.244] | it could look back on a lengthy genesis, |
[06:13.364] | having begun life as a Hungarian comic opera before |
[06:16.812] | finally mutating into an operetta set in the |
[06:19.796] | region between the multiethnic border area of the |
[06:23.084] | Banat of Temeswar and Vienna. Both of these worlds |
[06:27.076] | can already be identified in the potpourri overture: |
[06:30.365] | on the one hand we have constrastive minorkey |
[06:33.572] | tonalities, syncopations and the sounds of the cimbalo, |
[06:37.300] | and on the other the waltz |
[06:39.844] | " Nach dem sch nen Wien Zieht mich Herz und Sinn" |
[06:42.876] | Heart and mind draw me to beautiful Bienna, |
[06:45.806] | which revels in string sonorities and majorkey |
[06:49.053] | tonalities. The action unfolds against the |
[06:52.172] | historically inaccurate background of the War of |
[06:54.772] | the Austrian Succession and required an |
[06:57.612] | external enemy to restore unity to AustriaHungary, |
[07:01.206] | which at the time of the work' s first |
[07:03.325] | performance was already beginning to fracture in |
[07:05.588] | spite of the political settlemente, or Ausgleich, of 1867. |
[07:10.868] | Josef Strau' s polka fran aise Die T nzerin |
[07:15.260] | The Ballerina was written for the New World |
[07:18.068] | in 1867, although in this case the New World |
[07:21.933] | was not the Americas but a pleasure dome with |
[07:24.109] | music pavilions not far from Sch nbrunn Palace |
[07:28.532] | in the upmarket district of Hietzing. |
[07:31.300] | Although contemporary audiences enjoyed Die |
[07:33.492] | T nzerin, the work failed to maintain a place |
[07:37.068] | for itself in the repertory and in 2019 it is |
[07:39.869] | being heard for the first time at |
[07:41.581] | one of the Vienna Philharmonic' s New Year' s Concerts. |
[07:44.932] | The whole of 1867 was overshadowed by Austria' s |
[07:47.916] | defeat at the hands of the Prussians |
[07:51.036] | in the previous year' s Seven Week' s War. Many of |
[07:53.900] | Vienna' s traditional balls had to be abandoned, |
[07:56.949] | but in spite of this, the Artists' Association |
[07:59.389] | Hesperus invited Johann Strua to write a |
[08:02.756] | particularly elegant and perhaps less boisterous |
[08:05.940] | waltz for its ball in the Diana Hall. |
[08:08.444] | Titled Kü nstlerleben Artist' s Life, it was premiered |
[08:12.604] | three days after the Blue Danube waltz. |
[08:15.637] | Strau took it with him to the World Fair in Paris in |
[08:18.693] | 1867, an event that provided the militarily weekend |
[08:22.324] | Habsburg monarchy with a |
[08:23.716] | welcome opportunity to return to the international |
[08:26.148] | stage. Strau' s first wife, Henriette, |
[08:29.556] | wrote home to report on the concerts in Paris:" |
[08:33.030] | People here are simply mad about this Viennese music." |
[08:36.692] | Viennese audiences, conversely, were so spoilt by |
[08:40.644] | this music that Strau' s first operatta, |
[08:43.172] | Indigo und die vierzig R uber Indigo and the Forty Thieves, |
[08:47.444] | encountered a relatively |
[08:49.196] | lukewarm response when it was premiered in February 1871, |
[08:53.037] | a response due above all to its libretto. |
[08:55.892] | By contrast, his polka schnell Die Bajadare The Bayade, |
[09:00.324] | which comprises the coda to the ballet |
[09:01.262] | music and motifs from the second and third acts, was |
[09:04.324] | greeted with great enthusiasm when it was performed |
[09:07.036] | for the first time at a |
[09:08.381] | concert with the Strau Orchestra under Eduard Strau |
[09:11.125] | in the People' s Park in Vienna. |
[09:13.596] | The concert also included a scene from Meyerbeer' s |
[09:16.542] | grand opera Les Huguenots and overture from Wagner' s opera Rienzi. |
[09:20.644] | The world premiere of Eduard Strau' s polka fran ise |
[09:25.125] | OpernSoire e Opera Soire e in |
[09:26.813] | December 1877 was reported by the Wiener Zeitung:" |
[09:30.404] | Johann Strau had scarcely laid |
[09:33.780] | aside his baton when Eduard Strau appeared on the |
[09:36.932] | platform in order to take it up |
[09:38.868] | himeself. This was the sign for the ball to begin, the |
[09:42.180] | second and most eagerly awaited |
[09:44.645] | part of the programme." This first ball by the Court |
[09:48.364] | Opera artists in the opera house |
[09:50.412] | on the Ringthe building is celebrating its 150th |
[09:53.828] | anniversary in 2019was the |
[09:54.812] | forerunner of today' s Vienna Opera Ball. By imperial |
[10:00.020] | decree audiences were supposed |
[10:02.093] | to restrict themselves to listening to the music, but |
[10:04.693] | under Eduard Strau the space |
[10:06.662] | was abruptly cleared for dancing, with the Strau |
[10:09.228] | Orchestra replacing the Court Opera |
[10:11.708] | Orchestra. As a result the Vienna Philharmonic is |
[10:14.892] | performing the OpernSoire e polka for |
[10:17.036] | the first time at its 2019 New Year' s Concert. |
[10:20.533] | Conversely, it was the Vienna Philharmonic in its |
[10:24.652] | capacity as the Court Opera Orchestra |
[10:26.788] | that did the honours at the first performance of |
[10:29.220] | Johann Strau' s Ritter Pa sma n Knight Pa zma n |
[10:33.444] | on 1 January 1892, when the composer himeself |
[10:36.428] | conducted the work. Viennese reactions to his |
[10:40.740] | only actual opera were among the greatest disappointments |
[10:44.220] | of his life. This time it was not |
[10:46.516] | just the banal plot to which audiences took exception |
[10:49.740] | the action recolves around an |
[10:51.900] | extramarital kiss but also the piece' s failure to |
[10:55.181] | conform to expectations of what a " comic opera" should be. |
[10:59.324] | Among the scenes to which |
[11:01.188] | audiences responded more favourably was the waltz song sung |
[11:04.548] | by Eva the wife of |
[11:05.836] | Knight Pa zma n and the recipient of the harmless kiss in Act |
[11:09.412] | Two. The version of the |
[11:11.453] | Eva Waltz that was played at a military concert only two days |
[11:14.877] | after the premiere of |
[11:15.868] | the opera itself at the Court Opera was prepared by the |
[11:18.788] | conductor Josef Schlar, who |
[11:21.188] | was Strau' s assistant at the Court Opera but whose |
[11:23.940] | arrangement failed to meet with |
[11:25.420] | the composer' s approval. |
[11:28.252] | If Ritter Pa sma n was a flop. Strau' s Csa rda s remains |
[11:31.485] | one of the most popular of |
[11:33.916] | his compositions. This rhythmically accentuated dance |
[11:37.126] | derives its name from the |
[11:39.076] | Hungarian word for a country inn csa rda but was widely |
[11:42.540] | found in the traditional |
[11:43.884] | music of the Roma in neighbouring countries as well. |
[11:47.036] | Its roots lie in the verbunkos |
[11:49.317] | of 18thcentury taverns, where soldiers were conscripted |
[11:52.492] | into the Habsburg army. |
[11:55.060] | Whereas Hungarian elements are frequently found in |
[11:59.013] | Strau' s music, his Egyptian |
[12:00.356] | March had little to do with Egypt, at least initially. |
[12:03.916] | Written at Pavlovsk near |
[12:06.333] | St Peterburg in the summer of 1869, it reflects the |
[12:10.348] | orientalism that was then in |
[12:12.348] | vogue. Within days of its first performance it was |
[12:14.980] | being repeated under the new |
[12:16.622] | name of the Circassian March but it soon reverted |
[12:19.764] | to its original title, a change |
[12:21.732] | presumably undertaken within the context of the |
[12:23.821] | sensational opening of the Suez Canal in November |
[12:28.468] | 1869, an event that excited international attention. |
[12:33.157] | In addition to his many other appointments in Vienna, |
[12:36.316] | Josef Hellmesberger was also |
[12:38.252] | active as a composer and conductor of ballets. His |
[12:42.029] | librettist Leopold Krenn reports |
[12:45.260] | that " Hellmesberger wrote music with astonishing |
[12:48.276] | facility, Whenever the director of the |
[12:50.756] | Court Opera, Wilhelm Jahn, accepted a ballet and it |
[12:53.980] | turned out that an additional number |
[12:57.068] | was needed, Hellmesberger was able to provide entire |
[13:00.166] | divertissements within only a |
[13:02.500] | couple of days." His Entr' acte Waltz must have been |
[13:06.604] | used on several occasions, |
[13:08.324] | both as ballet music and in the concert hall. It is |
[13:11.637] | contained in a suite of ballet |
[13:13.532] | numbers published in 1905, where it appears under |
[13:16.934] | the title Tanz auf der Spitze Dancing en Pointe. |
[13:21.236] | With Johann Strau' s polka mazur Lob der Frauen |
[13:24.764] | In Praise of Women, the 2019 New Year' s |
[13:27.796] | Concert returns to the 1867 Paris World Fair. For |
[13:32.195] | his guest performances Strau relied on |
[13:35.133] | the support of the Austrian ambassador, Prince |
[13:37.652] | Metternich, and his wife Pauline. He had also |
[13:41.388] | made contact with Benjamin Bilse, who had played |
[13:44.028] | in his father' s orchestra in 1842 before |
[13:47.412] | running his own orchestra in Silesia and Berlin. |
[13:50.893] | It was from the Berlinbased |
[13:52.614] | Bilse' sche Kapelle that the Berlin Philharmonic |
[13:55.612] | emerged in 1882. In |
[13:58.796] | 1867 Strau and Bilse shared the conducting of |
[14:02.180] | the latter' s orchestra. Among the works |
[14:04.460] | Strau performed was Lob der Frauen, which had |
[14:08.389] | first been heard at the Vienna Carnival earlier that same year. |
[14:11.405] | If the official part of Christian Thielemann' s |
[14:14.116] | programme for his first New Year' s Concert |
[14:16.516] | ends with Josef Strau' s waltz Sph renkl nge |
[14:19.252] | Music of the Spheres, then this makes logical |
[14:21.884] | sense since its introduction contals a number of |
[14:25.268] | reminiscences of Wagner. After all, Thieleman |
[14:29.133] | is only the second conductor in the history of the |
[14:32.124] | Bayreuth Festival to have conducted all |
[14:34.109] | the canonical works there. With their distant echo of |
[14:37.892] | Act Three of Tannh user, the opening bars |
[14:40.964] | also recall the fact that the Strau |
[14:43.244] | Orchestra was performing excerpts from Wagner' s operas |
[14:46.645] | and music dramas at its concerts |
[14:48.900] | long before these works had entered the Court Opera repertory. |
[14:52.020] | Josef Strau wrote his waltz |
[14:54.660] | for the Medics' Ball in 1868. This circumstance is referenced |
[14:59.332] | in the title inasmuch as Pythagoras, |
[15:01.780] | the Greek philosopher who advanced the geocentric theory of |
[15:05.182] | concentric celestial bodies sounding |
[15:07.644] | together in particular mathematical relationships, was aslo a |
[15:11.733] | physician in the widest sense of the term. |
[15:14.452] | But according to a local newspaper, the FremdenBlatt, the |
[15:17.989] | medically trained audience at the |
[15:19.653] | first performance of Josef Strau' s Waltz heard nether |
[15:22.623] | Wagner nor the heavenly constellations |
[15:25.300] | in the opening chords but the afterlife. Yet this fivepart |
[15:29.892] | series of waltzes soon livens up and |
[15:32.764] | gives us every reason to assume that the case |
[15:34.693] | is by no means hopeless. |
[00:00.000] | zuò qǔ : Not Applicable |
[00:00.365] | The Vienna Philharmonic' s New Year' s Concert is being |
[00:03.308] | conducted for the first time by Christian Thielemann in 2019. |
[00:07.524] | Thielemann has been closely associated with the orchestra since |
[00:11.206] | 2000 and has distinguished |
[00:13.204] | himself in music by the Strau family at least since 2008, |
[00:17.253] | when he opened that year' s Philharmonic Ball. |
[00:20.324] | This year' s programme begins with a march by Carl Michael |
[00:23.612] | Ziehrer dedicated to |
[00:25.300] | and named after Anton von Sch nfeld, who was General of |
[00:29.189] | the Artillery and General Inspector of Troops |
[00:31.876] | in the AustroHungarian Empire. As music director of the |
[00:35.357] | Fourth Imperial and Royal Infantry Regiment |
[00:38.212] | also known as the Hoch und Deutschmeister Ziehrer |
[00:41.548] | was one of those military bandmasters |
[00:43.740] | who additionally wrote music in the final decades |
[00:46.220] | of the Habsburg monarchy, |
[00:48.285] | in which capacity he also gave public concertswith |
[00:50.997] | his orchestra. |
[00:53.037] | Josef Strau wrote his waltz Transactionen |
[00:56.356] | Transactions in the summer of 1865 |
[00:59.756] | for a benefit concert in the Imperial and |
[01:02.172] | Royal People' s Park in Vienna, |
[01:04.172] | after which he left for an urgently needed holiday. |
[01:07.020] | Its title harks back to his Action Waltz from |
[01:10.974] | the previous Carnival. |
[01:12.117] | In 2019 the title Transactions is also a |
[01:15.806] | suitable motto for the |
[01:17.629] | 150th anniversary of the resumption of |
[01:20.308] | diplomatic relations between Austria and Japan. |
[01:23.636] | When the Meiji dynasty came to power in Japan in |
[01:27.629] | 1868, it ended the country' s traditional isolation and |
[01:31.644] | introduced a farreaching programme of reforms at |
[01:34.708] | home. A prominent role in this process was played |
[01:37.908] | by the introduction of western music, which |
[01:40.470] | primarily meant German and Austrian music. |
[01:43.196] | The first Austrian soloists appeared in Japan, |
[01:46.197] | and in 1888, on the recommendation of |
[01:48.932] | Vienna' s Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, |
[01:52.804] | Bruckner' s pupil Rudolf Dittrich was named |
[01:54.708] | director of the newly founded State Academy |
[01:57.452] | of Music in Tokyo. Three years later |
[02:00.372] | the first Japanese student Nobu Koda |
[02:03.133] | enrolled at the Gesellschaft' s Conservatory. |
[02:06.716] | The Vienna Philharmonic first went on tour to |
[02:09.292] | Japan in 1956 under Paul Hindemith |
[02:12.236] | and since then has visited the country no |
[02:15.164] | fewer than thirtysix times, enjoying |
[02:17.413] | a degree of popularity with local audiences |
[02:20.037] | that can only be expressed in superlatives. |
[02:22.957] | Transactionen was even heard in Japan in 1983 |
[02:24.661] | and 1986. since 1978 the New Year' s Concert |
[02:31.652] | has been broadcast in Japan, making it an integral |
[02:34.724] | part of AustroJanpenese musical relations. Strangely |
[02:38.965] | enough, it was on 19 |
[02:40.100] | May That the Japenese broadcaster NHK first showed a |
[02:44.756] | New Year' s Concert from Vienna. |
[02:47.164] | Mono broadcasts on 1 January began in 1984, and since |
[02:51.740] | 1987 the concerts have been relayed live in stereo on |
[02:55.445] | both television and radio. |
[03:01.060] | It was Josef Hellmesberger II who was instrumental in |
[03:04.580] | ensuring Dittrich' s appointment in Japan. |
[03:06.572] | " Peipi" Hellmesverger held a variety of posts in the |
[03:09.900] | musical life of Vienna: as |
[03:11.700] | solo violinist in the Court Opera Orchestra and with |
[03:14.821] | the Vienna Philharmonic, Court Kapellmeister, |
[03:17.692] | Mahler' s successor as conductor of the Philharmonic' s |
[03:21.262] | subscription concerts, and professor |
[03:24.028] | of violin at the Gesellschaft' s Conservatory. During his |
[03:27.348] | period of military service he had also been the concertmaster |
[03:31.100] | of the |
[03:31.388] | Hoch und Deutschmeister regiment. His gossamerlight |
[03:34.622] | Elfenreigen Elfin Dance was written in 1903 |
[03:39.534] | within the context of his work at the Court Opera. |
[03:42.012] | Johann Strau' s polka schnell Expre was written in |
[03:47.012] | the wake of the |
[03:47.988] | AustroPrussian War of 1866, a war lost with remarkble |
[03:52.942] | speed by the Austrian army, |
[03:54.812] | but no one listening to this piece would guess its |
[03:57.308] | bellicose background. In the aftermath of the war, |
[04:00.348] | the Strau brothers launched their Biennese season |
[04:03.212] | only in the late autumn. First performed in the People' s Garden, |
[04:07.125] | the Expre polka strikes a demonstratively carefree note. |
[04:11.300] | In the late 1870s Strau, recently remarried, spent his |
[04:17.870] | summer vacations on the North Frisian |
[04:20.900] | island of F hr, where the couple were treated as celevrities. |
[04:24.661] | Husum' s mayor, for example, insisted |
[04:27.564] | on writing a poem in honour of Strau' s new wife, Angelika. |
[04:31.244] | Their 1879 visit to the island found |
[04:33.964] | expression in the elaborate tonepainterly walyz |
[04:37.140] | Nordseebilder Pictures of the North Sea that was |
[04:40.917] | premiered by Eduard Strau in Vienna' s Musikvereinssaal |
[04:44.181] | the following autumn. Curiosly enough, the titlepage |
[04:47.668] | of the printed edition does not depict a lowlying |
[04:50.300] | beach lapped by the waves of the North Sea |
[04:53.324] | as suggested by the introduction and first waltz |
[04:55.908] | theme but a gloomy fjord of a kind that |
[04:58.829] | the widely travelled Strau never saw. The great |
[05:02.781] | AustroHungarian expedition to the North Pole |
[05:06.140] | rather than the North Sea had taken place only |
[05:08.460] | a few years earlier, resulting not least in the |
[05:12.366] | Arctic archipelago being named Franz Josef Land, |
[05:15.868] | a name that it retains to this day. |
[05:18.606] | Eduard Strua' s polka schnell Mit Extrapost |
[05:22.108] | PostHaste dates from the final phase |
[05:26.364] | of the Strau Orchestra' s existence and refers |
[05:28.420] | to what was then the fastest form of horsedrawn |
[05:31.868] | transport. But by the date of its first performance |
[05:35.157] | in 1887 this form of transport was already |
[05:38.948] | becoming an anachronism. For decades relatively |
[05:42.780] | lengthy sections of a journey could be covered |
[05:45.068] | more quickly and more comfortable by rail, a mode of |
[05:48.660] | transport that the Strau brothers used extensively, |
[05:51.708] | while in 1888 Bertha Benz |
[05:54.861] | ushered in the age of the automobile with her |
[05:57.164] | exhibition ride fom Mannheim to Pforzheim. |
[06:00.916] | By the time that Johann Strua' s operetta Der |
[06:03.532] | Zigeunerbaron The Gypsy Baron was first |
[06:06.132] | performed at Vienna' s Theater an der Wien in 1885, |
[06:10.244] | it could look back on a lengthy genesis, |
[06:13.364] | having begun life as a Hungarian comic opera before |
[06:16.812] | finally mutating into an operetta set in the |
[06:19.796] | region between the multiethnic border area of the |
[06:23.084] | Banat of Temeswar and Vienna. Both of these worlds |
[06:27.076] | can already be identified in the potpourri overture: |
[06:30.365] | on the one hand we have constrastive minorkey |
[06:33.572] | tonalities, syncopations and the sounds of the cimbalo, |
[06:37.300] | and on the other the waltz |
[06:39.844] | " Nach dem sch nen Wien Zieht mich Herz und Sinn" |
[06:42.876] | Heart and mind draw me to beautiful Bienna, |
[06:45.806] | which revels in string sonorities and majorkey |
[06:49.053] | tonalities. The action unfolds against the |
[06:52.172] | historically inaccurate background of the War of |
[06:54.772] | the Austrian Succession and required an |
[06:57.612] | external enemy to restore unity to AustriaHungary, |
[07:01.206] | which at the time of the work' s first |
[07:03.325] | performance was already beginning to fracture in |
[07:05.588] | spite of the political settlemente, or Ausgleich, of 1867. |
[07:10.868] | Josef Strau' s polka fran aise Die T nzerin |
[07:15.260] | The Ballerina was written for the New World |
[07:18.068] | in 1867, although in this case the New World |
[07:21.933] | was not the Americas but a pleasure dome with |
[07:24.109] | music pavilions not far from Sch nbrunn Palace |
[07:28.532] | in the upmarket district of Hietzing. |
[07:31.300] | Although contemporary audiences enjoyed Die |
[07:33.492] | T nzerin, the work failed to maintain a place |
[07:37.068] | for itself in the repertory and in 2019 it is |
[07:39.869] | being heard for the first time at |
[07:41.581] | one of the Vienna Philharmonic' s New Year' s Concerts. |
[07:44.932] | The whole of 1867 was overshadowed by Austria' s |
[07:47.916] | defeat at the hands of the Prussians |
[07:51.036] | in the previous year' s Seven Week' s War. Many of |
[07:53.900] | Vienna' s traditional balls had to be abandoned, |
[07:56.949] | but in spite of this, the Artists' Association |
[07:59.389] | Hesperus invited Johann Strua to write a |
[08:02.756] | particularly elegant and perhaps less boisterous |
[08:05.940] | waltz for its ball in the Diana Hall. |
[08:08.444] | Titled Kü nstlerleben Artist' s Life, it was premiered |
[08:12.604] | three days after the Blue Danube waltz. |
[08:15.637] | Strau took it with him to the World Fair in Paris in |
[08:18.693] | 1867, an event that provided the militarily weekend |
[08:22.324] | Habsburg monarchy with a |
[08:23.716] | welcome opportunity to return to the international |
[08:26.148] | stage. Strau' s first wife, Henriette, |
[08:29.556] | wrote home to report on the concerts in Paris:" |
[08:33.030] | People here are simply mad about this Viennese music." |
[08:36.692] | Viennese audiences, conversely, were so spoilt by |
[08:40.644] | this music that Strau' s first operatta, |
[08:43.172] | Indigo und die vierzig R uber Indigo and the Forty Thieves, |
[08:47.444] | encountered a relatively |
[08:49.196] | lukewarm response when it was premiered in February 1871, |
[08:53.037] | a response due above all to its libretto. |
[08:55.892] | By contrast, his polka schnell Die Bajadare The Bayadè, |
[09:00.324] | which comprises the coda to the ballet |
[09:01.262] | music and motifs from the second and third acts, was |
[09:04.324] | greeted with great enthusiasm when it was performed |
[09:07.036] | for the first time at a |
[09:08.381] | concert with the Strau Orchestra under Eduard Strau |
[09:11.125] | in the People' s Park in Vienna. |
[09:13.596] | The concert also included a scene from Meyerbeer' s |
[09:16.542] | grand opera Les Huguenots and overture from Wagner' s opera Rienzi. |
[09:20.644] | The world premiere of Eduard Strau' s polka fran ise |
[09:25.125] | OpernSoiré e Opera Soiré e in |
[09:26.813] | December 1877 was reported by the Wiener Zeitung:" |
[09:30.404] | Johann Strau had scarcely laid |
[09:33.780] | aside his baton when Eduard Strau appeared on the |
[09:36.932] | platform in order to take it up |
[09:38.868] | himeself. This was the sign for the ball to begin, the |
[09:42.180] | second and most eagerly awaited |
[09:44.645] | part of the programme." This first ball by the Court |
[09:48.364] | Opera artists in the opera house |
[09:50.412] | on the Ringthe building is celebrating its 150th |
[09:53.828] | anniversary in 2019was the |
[09:54.812] | forerunner of today' s Vienna Opera Ball. By imperial |
[10:00.020] | decree audiences were supposed |
[10:02.093] | to restrict themselves to listening to the music, but |
[10:04.693] | under Eduard Strau the space |
[10:06.662] | was abruptly cleared for dancing, with the Strau |
[10:09.228] | Orchestra replacing the Court Opera |
[10:11.708] | Orchestra. As a result the Vienna Philharmonic is |
[10:14.892] | performing the OpernSoiré e polka for |
[10:17.036] | the first time at its 2019 New Year' s Concert. |
[10:20.533] | Conversely, it was the Vienna Philharmonic in its |
[10:24.652] | capacity as the Court Opera Orchestra |
[10:26.788] | that did the honours at the first performance of |
[10:29.220] | Johann Strau' s Ritter Pá smá n Knight Pá zmá n |
[10:33.444] | on 1 January 1892, when the composer himeself |
[10:36.428] | conducted the work. Viennese reactions to his |
[10:40.740] | only actual opera were among the greatest disappointments |
[10:44.220] | of his life. This time it was not |
[10:46.516] | just the banal plot to which audiences took exception |
[10:49.740] | the action recolves around an |
[10:51.900] | extramarital kiss but also the piece' s failure to |
[10:55.181] | conform to expectations of what a " comic opera" should be. |
[10:59.324] | Among the scenes to which |
[11:01.188] | audiences responded more favourably was the waltz song sung |
[11:04.548] | by Eva the wife of |
[11:05.836] | Knight Pá zmá n and the recipient of the harmless kiss in Act |
[11:09.412] | Two. The version of the |
[11:11.453] | Eva Waltz that was played at a military concert only two days |
[11:14.877] | after the premiere of |
[11:15.868] | the opera itself at the Court Opera was prepared by the |
[11:18.788] | conductor Josef Schlar, who |
[11:21.188] | was Strau' s assistant at the Court Opera but whose |
[11:23.940] | arrangement failed to meet with |
[11:25.420] | the composer' s approval. |
[11:28.252] | If Ritter Pá smá n was a flop. Strau' s Csá rdá s remains |
[11:31.485] | one of the most popular of |
[11:33.916] | his compositions. This rhythmically accentuated dance |
[11:37.126] | derives its name from the |
[11:39.076] | Hungarian word for a country inn csá rda but was widely |
[11:42.540] | found in the traditional |
[11:43.884] | music of the Roma in neighbouring countries as well. |
[11:47.036] | Its roots lie in the verbunkos |
[11:49.317] | of 18thcentury taverns, where soldiers were conscripted |
[11:52.492] | into the Habsburg army. |
[11:55.060] | Whereas Hungarian elements are frequently found in |
[11:59.013] | Strau' s music, his Egyptian |
[12:00.356] | March had little to do with Egypt, at least initially. |
[12:03.916] | Written at Pavlovsk near |
[12:06.333] | St Peterburg in the summer of 1869, it reflects the |
[12:10.348] | orientalism that was then in |
[12:12.348] | vogue. Within days of its first performance it was |
[12:14.980] | being repeated under the new |
[12:16.622] | name of the Circassian March but it soon reverted |
[12:19.764] | to its original title, a change |
[12:21.732] | presumably undertaken within the context of the |
[12:23.821] | sensational opening of the Suez Canal in November |
[12:28.468] | 1869, an event that excited international attention. |
[12:33.157] | In addition to his many other appointments in Vienna, |
[12:36.316] | Josef Hellmesberger was also |
[12:38.252] | active as a composer and conductor of ballets. His |
[12:42.029] | librettist Leopold Krenn reports |
[12:45.260] | that " Hellmesberger wrote music with astonishing |
[12:48.276] | facility, Whenever the director of the |
[12:50.756] | Court Opera, Wilhelm Jahn, accepted a ballet and it |
[12:53.980] | turned out that an additional number |
[12:57.068] | was needed, Hellmesberger was able to provide entire |
[13:00.166] | divertissements within only a |
[13:02.500] | couple of days." His Entr' acte Waltz must have been |
[13:06.604] | used on several occasions, |
[13:08.324] | both as ballet music and in the concert hall. It is |
[13:11.637] | contained in a suite of ballet |
[13:13.532] | numbers published in 1905, where it appears under |
[13:16.934] | the title Tanz auf der Spitze Dancing en Pointe. |
[13:21.236] | With Johann Strau' s polka mazur Lob der Frauen |
[13:24.764] | In Praise of Women, the 2019 New Year' s |
[13:27.796] | Concert returns to the 1867 Paris World Fair. For |
[13:32.195] | his guest performances Strau relied on |
[13:35.133] | the support of the Austrian ambassador, Prince |
[13:37.652] | Metternich, and his wife Pauline. He had also |
[13:41.388] | made contact with Benjamin Bilse, who had played |
[13:44.028] | in his father' s orchestra in 1842 before |
[13:47.412] | running his own orchestra in Silesia and Berlin. |
[13:50.893] | It was from the Berlinbased |
[13:52.614] | Bilse' sche Kapelle that the Berlin Philharmonic |
[13:55.612] | emerged in 1882. In |
[13:58.796] | 1867 Strau and Bilse shared the conducting of |
[14:02.180] | the latter' s orchestra. Among the works |
[14:04.460] | Strau performed was Lob der Frauen, which had |
[14:08.389] | first been heard at the Vienna Carnival earlier that same year. |
[14:11.405] | If the official part of Christian Thielemann' s |
[14:14.116] | programme for his first New Year' s Concert |
[14:16.516] | ends with Josef Strau' s waltz Sph renkl nge |
[14:19.252] | Music of the Spheres, then this makes logical |
[14:21.884] | sense since its introduction contals a number of |
[14:25.268] | reminiscences of Wagner. After all, Thieleman |
[14:29.133] | is only the second conductor in the history of the |
[14:32.124] | Bayreuth Festival to have conducted all |
[14:34.109] | the canonical works there. With their distant echo of |
[14:37.892] | Act Three of Tannh user, the opening bars |
[14:40.964] | also recall the fact that the Strau |
[14:43.244] | Orchestra was performing excerpts from Wagner' s operas |
[14:46.645] | and music dramas at its concerts |
[14:48.900] | long before these works had entered the Court Opera repertory. |
[14:52.020] | Josef Strau wrote his waltz |
[14:54.660] | for the Medics' Ball in 1868. This circumstance is referenced |
[14:59.332] | in the title inasmuch as Pythagoras, |
[15:01.780] | the Greek philosopher who advanced the geocentric theory of |
[15:05.182] | concentric celestial bodies sounding |
[15:07.644] | together in particular mathematical relationships, was aslo a |
[15:11.733] | physician in the widest sense of the term. |
[15:14.452] | But according to a local newspaper, the FremdenBlatt, the |
[15:17.989] | medically trained audience at the |
[15:19.653] | first performance of Josef Strau' s Waltz heard nether |
[15:22.623] | Wagner nor the heavenly constellations |
[15:25.300] | in the opening chords but the afterlife. Yet this fivepart |
[15:29.892] | series of waltzes soon livens up and |
[15:32.764] | gives us every reason to assume that the case |
[15:34.693] | is by no means hopeless. |