The Waltz IV: The Kings of Swing

As Chopin was writing out his waltzes and Berlioz was fantasising about a scene in a ballroom, the Strauss Family's father, Johann Strauss I, was getting into his stride. The craze for the waltz may have been starting to fade in Britain and France but it was exploding in the capital of the land of its birth where, alongside Lanner, Strauss the Elder gave the Viennese and the waltz a massive shot in the arm. We don't tend to hear a great deal of Johann the Elder's music, even at the New Year's Day concerts in Vienna - with one very obvious exception, the inescapable clap-along Radetzky March (named in honour of the Austrian field marshall Joseph Radetzky von Radetz) - but there are some delightful waltzes to be had from Strauss I (even if none of them has the magic of the best of Johann the Younger).

His best-known waltz is Lorelei Rheinklänge, Op.154 but (to put my explosion imagery earlier to good use!) his Ballracketen, Op.96 is even more delightful. As a Brit, I can't resist also linking to his Huldigung der Königin Victoria von Grossbritannien, Op. 103, a waltz that begins with Rule Britannia and ends with God Save the Queen! 

The zenith of the Viennese waltz, however, came in the second half of the Nineteenth Century when the waltz passed from father to sons - namely Johann Strauss II and his brother Josef and Eduard. Supreme artistry and popular appeal mark out Johann Strauss the Younger's contributions to the genre. His gift for a good tune was second to none and, along with his almost-as-gifted brother Josef, he invested a great deal of poetry in many of his introductions to the waltz. Johann Strauss II expanded the waltz sequence (often including an introduction and coda) as set out by Weber and added richer melodies, harmonies and orchestral colours to those of his father. 

He was a prolific composer, so offering you a decent selection of his waltzes is both easy (so many to choose from) and hard (so many to choose from). I will save some of the most famous for a later post, where they will be heard in intimate arrangements by an unlikely group of composers. OK, let's start with a popular piece, Frühlingsstimmen, Op.410 ('Voices of Spring') which shows, I think, why this Strauss is the best Strauss. It may lack a slow introduction but the sheer quality of the waltz tunes puts it in a league of its own. A whirling theme, a tune from the country with birdsong (on flute), a more wistful melody of much beauty and a jolly tune to lead us towards the close. The waltz's vocal version is sometimes included in performances of Die Fledermaus, where is it entirely at home. The whole thing is delightful and invites comparison with the piano waltzes of Chopin. I played arrangement of popular Strauss waltzes on the piano as a youngster, so many - like Voices of Spring - feel like childhood friends to me. I would try to ooze flexibility during the lovely slow introduction to Wiener Blut, Op.354 ('Vienna Blood') and then straighten up for the grander bits. Wiener Blut was written for a royal wedding, so celebratory grandeur had its place in the waltz alongside the customary charm and the loveable easy-going waltz tunes. 

It would be perverse not to include An der schönen blauen Donau, Op. 314 ('The Blue Danube', as if I really needed to translate that for you!) The tremolo strings evoking the shimmering surface of the water, the motif based on the notes of a major triad on horns (and sometimes strings) evoking the grandeur of the river, the answer high woodwinds chords evoking the glint of light on the river, the long bass notes evoking the depth and breath of the river...all those familiar, too-easily-taken-for-granted features found in the famous introduction...so well-known and yet still so impressionistic, so magical. And the waltzing hasn't even begun yet. A curious fact here is that the waltz didn't go down a storm at its première, rather unusually for a Strauss waltz. Audiences have been reacting far more appreciatively ever since! 

"What about some rarities? I mean, come on Craig, the flipping Blue Danube for goodness sake!"

Well, how about a tribute to another river, An der Elbe op. 477? The slow introduction is another lovely evocation of a river in flow - more shimmers, more triad-based magic, but also some magical light-on-water effects that don't sound a million miles away from Wagner and his Forest Murmurs. The waltz sequence that follows has plenty of tuneful appeal too. It's quite a find. So is Gartenlaube, Op.461 ('Garden Trees', I think), with its charming woodwind-dominated introduction and its deliciously-scored main theme. Music to charm the birds from the trees! And talking of charming woodwind writing, you might also enjoy the introduction to Gedanken auf den Alpen op.172 ('Thoughts in the Alps').

Going back to the start of his career, his Jugend-Träume op 12 ('Youthful Dreams') is notable as being its composer's break-through piece, winning five encores at its first performance back in 1845. All the ingredients are there - an imaginative introduction, a memorable lilting main theme and an easy flow of waltzes.

To finish though this short survey of an artist's life, it's time a couple more famous ones to finish, both from the height of Johann the Younger's fame - Künstlerleben op.316 and G'schichten aus dem Wienerwald, Op.325  ('Tales from the Vienna Woods'). The latter must be heard with its slow introduction, for it is a thing of delight. Open fourths and fifths suggestive of nature call beckoningly on winds, a drone begins and a grand invitation to the dance is issued. A solo cello sings to us and gentle melodious fills us with warmth. A bird sings and the zither (or muted strings) sings its magical song, calling us to the Vienna Woods. A sequence of five waltzes and a coda (with reprise) follows. Any performance that omits that introduction should be roundly booed. (Only joking!)

As for Josef Strauss, I refer you to to a post of mine from a year ago, New Year Swallows from Austria, for an appreciation of his art - especially his gift for crafting beautiful introductions. I shall re-quote his brother Johann here about Josef: "Pepi [his family nickname] is the more gifted of us two; I am merely the more popular." I think Johann was being overly modest there, but there's no doubt that his brother's gifts were of a high order. As a fresh example of his genius, please try his Geheime Anziehungskrafte (Dynamiden), op.173. The title evokes the secret powers of attraction and the play of atoms and the introduction to the waltz sequence conjures a dream-like vision in much of symphonic power. As I said in my earlier post about Josef, it does rather seem a shame that he couldn't have dropped the waltz sequence altogether and expanded his introduction into a miniature symphonic poem. Still, the reliably tuneful, colourfully-orchestrated waltz sequence gives the listener such a good feeling that such qualms almost dissolve. The main waltz tune here begins with nine notes that fans of an unrelated Strauss, Richard, might recall as being the same first nine notes of one of his waltz tunes from Der Rosenkavalier (5.11 into this link). It could be co-incidence, of course (after all, it's a simple waltz tune formula that could easily keep cropping up), or it could be a deliberate echo by Richard. Who knows! 

What though of brother Eduard? Eduard Strauss was definitively in his brothers' shadows and made a speciality of polkas and conducting. His waltzes - such as Schleier und Krone, Op.200 ('Veil and Crown'), written for an Imperial wedding, Glockensignale, Op.198 ('Bell Signals') and Doctrinen, Op.79 ('Doctrines') - show talent but I can't detect the spark found in his brothers' finest pieces. Can you?

Eduard's eldest son, Johann Strauss III, became the last of the Strauss dynasty (dying in 1939) - not that you ever hear his music. (Well, until now that is!)  By all accounts, the lad got off to a disastrous start with one of his pieces going down so badly with the public that he was told by critics to use a pseudonym so as not to tarnish the family name. (Ouch!) Trying out his Unter den Linden Walzer, Op.30 and Kronungs-Walzer, Op.40 ('Coronation Waltz'), written for the coronation of our own Edward VII, shows that he got over this crisis and went on to be a highly competent Strauss - if not a great Strauss. I wouldn't mind hearing more of JSIII. 

The Strauss Dynasty (1804-1939), purveyors of pleasure in three-four time to millions for almost two hundred years now. Long may that continue!

More New Year Swallows from Austria

So this year's New Year's Day concert from Vienna with Mariss Jansons was a triumph. My family greatly enjoyed commenting on the Maestro's expressions (the word 'maestro' has always made me smile ever since Seinfeld) and I expressed my satisfaction that he wore a good grey suit. (By the way, what's with those black Mao suits that seem to have become so popular with conductors in recent years. Mark Elder wore one when conducting for the BBC's Symphony series recently. It makes them look like Kim Jong Un, which surely isn't a good look?)

Kim Jung Un

The concert hall looked as stunning as ever, there was a fetching lady harpist (one of just two women in the orchestra - how very sexist of them!) and the ballet scenes on television were as fantastical and feel-good (and silly) as anything out of Disney. The Vienna Phil were as immaculately delightful as ever and, by being so, showed for another year the sheer mastery of orchestral colour that the Strauss Family could seemingly conjure at will.

There were plenty of old favourites, but part of the appeal of these concerts is that they also give us rarities, and these can prove highly palatable morsels. I'll mention just one example - the work that opened the concert. Given its title and the circumstances of its composition (a time of war), the Vaterlandischer Marsch (a joint effort between Johann II and Josef) could so easily have been a patriotic potboiler but proved instead to be a delight, glittering with geniality. Its perky second tune shows how piccolos and flutes atop a string tune can perk it up even more and the more rhythmically insistent third tune demonstrates a classic Strauss Family ploy, starting quite sparely with winds and strings before the full strings, the heavier brass and the percussion enter to give added glamour. The piece quotes their father's famous Radetzky Marsch (which, as ever, ended the concert with a little help from the audience), plus the Rákóczi Marsch (which Berlioz arranged so memorably in his Damnation of Faust) and the Austrian national anthem of the time (borrowed from Haydn), now associated with a certain neighbouring country. The orchestra, as you can hear and see from the given link (yes, it's on YouTube already!), make it sing, swing and sparkle. 

Ah, thank you Vienna, we love you!

New Year Swallows from Austria

New Year, a fresh start, out with the old and in with new, etc, but however disinclined I might feel beforehand I always seem to end up listening to and/or watching the world-famous New Year's Day Concert from Vienna where, year in and year out, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra does what it does so well and delights us with the music of various Strausses (though not usually Richard), plus a smattering of non-Strausses. Tomorrow it's Mariss Jansons conducting and the non-Strausses are Carl Maria Ziehrer, Joseph Hellmesberger, the Dane Hans Christian Lumbye and, unusually, Tchaikovsky (a bit of Sleeping Beauty).

Johann Strauss the Younger is, of course, always the star composer, but my ears always prick up when I hear something by his brother, Josef. Johann famously said of his slightly younger brother, "Pepi [his family nickname] is the more gifted of us two; I am merely the more popular." Josef is, like Johann, a fine tunesmith but his harmonic palette is richer than his brother's and the range of feeling is wider too. He was, by all accounts, quite a melancholy man and this strain in his character can be heard from time to time in his works. Tomorrow the Vienna Phil will be giving us three polkas, namely the Jockey Polka, Kunstler-Gruss and Feuerfest, plus the polka-mazurka Brennende Liebe and one of his most famous pieces, the waltz Delirien.

Some of the most enchanting music from the Strauss Family comes in the slow introductions to their pieces and this is especially the case with Josef. They can be quite surprising on first hearing. Take Delirien, for example. Yes, it soon turns into a waltz sequence of the kind any Viennese concert goer (or radio listener) would instantly recognise as being a typical example of a Strauss Family tunefest, full of festive amiability, but it begins with what sounds remarkably like a Wagnerian tone-poem in miniature - a very dramatic piece of writing which wouldn't sound out of place in the Ring, with its stormy tremolo string writing and vivid lightning flashes of wind colour

This highly winning blend of depth (in the introductions) and lightness (in the waltz sequences) can also be heard in another of Josef's most performed pieces, the waltz Spharenklange (Music of the Spheres), whose opening harmonies and scoring recall Wagner's Lohengrin before drifting through various keys towards a romantic melody that might have been by Richard Strauss at his lushest. This tune, made light, becomes the main tune of the genial waltz sequence that follows. I have to admit, as with Delirien, that it's almost a shame that the waltz sequence has to begin at all, so bewitching is this introductory music. If I'm confessing the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I'd add that part of me wishes that Josef had ignored the waltz sequences altogether and just kept on in the vein of his introductions right through to the end.

Even so light-heated a waltz as Dorfschwalben aus Osterreich (Village Swallows from Austria), with its chirruping bird noises, has a lovely little pastoral introduction where the clarinet sings a sweet, slightly wistful tune. Another 'introduction to the waltz' to savour is Studentenraume (Student Rooms), which has a warmth and a beguiling tune for the flute that I suspect you will find particularly endearing, and please check out the beautiful introductions to the Wiegenlieder (Cradle Songs) and Musen-Klange (Music for the Muses) waltzes . All last for a short time, then give birth to sequences of the expected kind.

Though only about half as prolific as his more famous brother, he still penned hundreds of pieces and routine inevitably occasionally takes over. Still, the more works I hear by Josef Strauss the higher the opinion I have of him. You may have heard the adorable polka-mazurka Die Libelle (The Dragonfly), the lilting tunefulness of its main melody, aided and abetted by some delicious scoring, making it one of his gems. Other outstanding examples of his art are the Petitionen (Petition) waltz, which keeps its high standards up throughout, as does the Landler-style Stiefmutterchen (Pansy) polka-mazurka.

So here's to Josef Strauss and 2012!
Happy New Year!