The 2008 New Years Concert | About the Music

About the Music

Napoleon-Marsch (Napoléon March) op.156

Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)

In autumn 1854 Johann Strauss came to a political decision: he composed a march and dedicated it reverentially to His Majesty Napoléon III, Emperor of France. By this action he took sides in a dispute which, against the background of the Crimean War, had split the population of the Danube monarchy and, above all, of Vienna, into two camps. The majority of the Viennese population, including the 28-year-old Johann Strauss, shared their diplomats’ opinion and took the side of the British, French and Prussian Allies. When the ‘French Party’ organised a “Napoléon Festival” for 12 October 1854 at Karl Schwender’s Casino in Rudolfsheim, the Morgen-Post announced that, on this occasion, Johann would conduct the Strauss Orchestra in the first performance of a specially composed Napoleons-Fest-Marsch (Napoléon Festival March). That November it was announced in the Viennese press that “his Majesty, the Emperor Napoléon III, has been pleased to accept the dedication of the ‘Napoleon March’ composed by Johann Strauss.” For his part, the French monarch expressed his gratitude to the young Viennese ‘Musikdirektor’ by arranging for him to be presented with a valuable pearl tiepin. To this day the swaggering Napoleon-Marsch enjoys considerable success wherever it is played - although it continues to present Strauss researchers with an intriguing puzzle. For the second theme of the trio section, Johann Strauss incorporated a French “national melody”, the identity of which he took with him to the grave.

Dorfschwalben aus Österreich. Walzer (Village Swallows from Austria. Waltz) op.164

Josef Strauss (1827-1870)

In summer 1864, Josef signed a contract with an impresario in Breslau to give concerts there during October of that year. So elated was Josef by the prospect of achieving triumphs far away from Vienna that, in the midst of his routine summer compositions, he produced two works that were to find an enduring place in international concert repertoire – the polka-mazurka Frauenherz (Woman’s Heart) and the Ländler-style waltz Dorfschwalben aus Österreich. Josef conducted the premières of both compositions at an open-air festival in the Vienna Volksgarten on 6 September 1864. The composer took the title for his new waltz from a collection of short stories about village life, written by his Hungarian-born friend Dr August Silberstein, to whom he dedicated the waltz. Of particular note is the introduction to Josef’s composition, in which a Ländler melody hovers above a characteristic folk-music accompaniment and serves as a reminder of the rustic origins of the Viennese Waltz itself. Josef Strauss blended the Ländler and the waltz to create a new style of Viennese Waltz.

Laxenburger-Polka (Laxenburg Polka) op.60

Josef Strauss

During the summer of 1858 Johann Strauss was away in Russia, conducting his third concert season at Pavlovsk. Josef was thus left in sole charge of the Strauss Orchestra in Vienna at a time of high excitement for the city’s inhabitants. The Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1837-1898) was expecting her third child, the eagerly awaited heir to the Habsburg throne, the Crown Prince Rudolf Francis Charles Joseph (1858-1889). Towards the end of July, she had travelled to the 18th-century Imperial summer palace at Laxenburg, some 15 kilometres south of Vienna, to prepare for the birth. Such was the level of fervent interest among the capital’s populace that organised trips were arranged to the little market town of Laxenburg and Vienna’s newspapers were daily filled with detailed reports of everything connected with the life of the Empress. Josef took advantage of the occasion to compose his Laxenburg-Polka and conducted its first performance with the Strauss Orchestra on 30 August 1858 at the “Last Summer Festival and Ball this year” at Unger’s Casino in the suburb of Hernals.

Paris. Walzer (Paris Waltz) op.101

Johann Strauss I (1804-1849)

On 4 October 1837, the elder Johann Strauss embarked with his orchestra on what was to prove the most ambitious and arduous concert tour of his career. His journey took him to towns and cities in Germany, Strasbourg, France, Belgium, Holland and, finally, Great Britain. In Paris, which he reached on 27 October and where he stayed – with only minor breaks - until the end of February 1838, such was the general enthusiasm for the Viennese conductor/composer that, as Vienna’s Allgemeine Theaterzeitung reported on 13 January 1838: “In Paris, small enamel brooches or ball motifs in Herr Strauss’s honour have become the fashion.” On 14 January 1838, at a masked ball at St Honoré, Strauss and his musicians played his Paris Walzer for the first time. This splendid and rhythmic composition was subsequently published in Vienna in April 1838. Its superbly constructed 101-bar coda includes a 31-bar arrangement in three-quarter time of Captain Rouget de Lisle’s La Marseillaise (1792).

Versailler-Galopp (Versailles Galop) op.107

Johann Strauss I

It is reasonable to assume that Johann composed the Versailler-Galopp during his time in Paris from October 1837 to February 1838, and gave its first performance on French soil. To date, however, no concert handbill or newspaper report has been found to support this conjecture, nor has any performance been traced during Strauss’s ensuing tour of Belgium and Great Britain. Johann Strauss did not return to Vienna from his 15-month tour until 22 December 1838, just in time to prepare for the forthcoming Vienna Carnival, and indeed it was during these 1839 festivities that Viennese newspapers first report performances by Strauss of the Versailler-Galopp. Whether this sprightly work recalled the composer’s visit to Versailles, probably early the previous year, or was perhaps suggested by Louis Dufresne’s Versailles Quadrille, which Strauss often played during his 1838 British tour, must remain a matter for speculation.

Orpheus-Quadrille op.236

Johann Strauss II

On 17 March 1860 the curtain of the Carl-Theater in Vienna rose on the first German-language production of Jacques Offenbach’s Orphée aux Enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld). The music was orchestrated by Carl Binder, who also replaced Offenbach’s original brief prelude with an overture which he crafted from the operetta’s melodies, and which continues to enjoy worldwide popularity. Sitting among the audience in the stalls of the Carl-Theater for the première was Johann Strauss. Enraptured by Offenbach’s tuneful score he at once set to and - “from recollections of Offenbach’s operetta”, as the press announcements proclaimed - combined some of the stage work’s most attractive themes into an orchestral quadrille which his publisher, Carl Haslinger, was able to announce on 8 April 1860. The first performance of Strauss’s Orpheus-Quadrille took place on 18 April at the ‘Zum grossen Zeisig’ tavern in the suburb of Neubau. The new dance piece “provoked thunders of applause”, and the Wiener Theaterzeitung of 20 April added: “It is effectively instrumented and presents the most popular melodies of the operetta with freshness and in the most original version possible”.

Kleiner Anzeiger. Galopp (Small ads. Galop) op.4

Josef Hellmesberger jun. (1855-1907)

Born in 1855, Josef (‘Pepi’) Hellmesberger bore the same name as his famous father (1828-1893), a violin virtuoso who became concert-master of the Vienna Philharmonic, teacher of an internationally renowned violin class and leader of the world famous Hellmesberger Quartet. Josef junior was likewise a born violinist. In view of his exceptional musical talent, his father strove to have him excused military service, but in 1875 he had to report for duty with the famous “Hoch und Deutschmeister” Vienna Household Regiment. Here he was appointed concert-master under the regiment’s bandmaster, Josef Dubez. He still held this position when, by way of an exception, Vienna’s prestigious Journalists’ and Authors’ Association, ‘Concordia’, engaged the services of the musicians of the “Hoch und Deutschmeister”, rather than the Strauss Orchestra, to provide the dance music for their ball during the 1876 carnival. On the night after the ball, which was held on 22 February 1876 in the ‘Golden Hall’ of the Musikverein, the evening edition of the Neues Fremdenblatt reported: “Even more unforgettable [than Dubez’s waltz dedication, ‘Inserate’] was the quick polka ‘Kleiner Anzeiger’, tingling with piquancy and freshness [...]. This new quick polka positively charged the feet with electricity and could not be repeated enough times.”

INTERVAL

Ouvertüre zu “Indigo und die vierzig Räuber” (Overture to ‘Indigo and the Forty Thieves’)

Johann Strauss II

During the late 1850s and throughout the 1860s, Viennese musical theatre was dominated by the lively and often satirical creations of the Cologne-born Parisian, Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880). It was not until Johann Strauss entered the arena of stage composition that Vienna’s theatre managers found a composer capable of standing his ground against the seemingly invincible Offenbach. For his part, Strauss had been an unwilling convert to the world of operetta, and it was due principally to the persuasiveness of his wife, the singer Jetty Treffz, that he finally made the transition from the bright lights of the ballroom to the dim glow of the theatre pit. The first of Johann’s operettas to reach production was Indigo und die vierzig Räuber, which was mounted at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien on 10 February 1871. While Strauss’s score for Indigo und die vierzig Räuber met with general praise from the reviewers, there was universal condemnation of the work’s confusing libretto. Yet despite this, Indigo enjoyed a run of 46 performances at the Theater an der Wien during 1871, as well as numerous productions throughout Austro-Hungary, Germany and further afield.

Johann Strauss himself conducted the overture to Indigo und die vierzig Räuber at the operetta’s opening night at the Theater an der Wien. This, however, marked only the first public performance, for the composer had already conducted it at the end of December 1870 at a private concert in the apartments of the Archduchess Sophie in the Imperial Hofburg Palace, attended also by the heir to the Habsburg throne, the Crown Prince Rudolf.

Freuet euch des Lebens. Walzer (Enjoy life. Waltz) op.340

Johann Strauss II

As the title page of C. A. Spina’s first piano edition of Johann Strauss’s waltz Freuet euch des Lebens makes clear, the composer dedicated this work “To the Society of the Friends of Music in Vienna for their inaugural ball”. This sparkling event took place in the Golden Hall of the Society’s recently opened Musikverein building on 15 January 1870. All three Strauss brothers contributed dedications to this festivity, but posterity has cast its verdict firmly in favour of Freuet euch des Lebens. Johann took the title of his splendid new waltz from a poem of 1793 by Johann Martin Usteri (1763-1827), “Freuet euch des Lebens, weil noch das Lämpchen glüht” (‘Enjoy life, for the little lamp is still aglow’), which Hans Georg Nägeli had set to music the following year. The waltz’s title also echoes one of Johann’s own maxims: “Enjoy life, and only complain when there is something genuine to complain about.”

Bluette. Polka française (Artistic trifle, French polka) op.271

Johann Strauss II

Johann Strauss honoured each of his three wives with the dedication of a dance music composition. Strauss’s first wife was the mezzo-soprano Jetty Treffz (1818-1878), whom he married in Vienna’s Stephansdom (St Stephen’s Cathedral) on 27 August 1862. She at once proved herself an indispensable partner for the often disorganised and financially naïve ‘Waltz King’, and aside from her wifely duties also fulfilled those of advisor in artistic and monetary matters, translator, private secretary and even music copyist. It was for Jetty that Johann wrote his charming Bluette, Polka française, which he conducted for the first time at a St Katherine’s Day masked ball in the Redoutensaal of the Imperial Hofburg Palace in Vienna on 23 November 1862.

Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka (Tittle-tattle Polka) op.214

Johann Strauss II

The Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka was a sensation from its first performance on 24 November 1858, prompting the Wiener Theaterzeitung to state in its edition of 27 November: “No dance composition of such freshness, humorous colouring and piquant instrumentation can have appeared for years.” Although Strauss may have conceived the Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka in Russia during his 1858 summer season of concerts there, the stimulus for the polka’s title most definitely stemmed from Vienna. On 7 March 1858 a new paper had appeared on Vienna’s news-stands: entitled Tritsch-Tratsch, it was described as a “humorous, satirical weekly publication”. It featured an entertaining masthead engraving on the front page, showing the title Tritsch-Tratsch and depicting an elephant clambering from the mouth of a jovial carnival jester figure - an allegoric portrayal of ‘telling whoppers’ - together with a small inset of St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. In its edition of 21 March 1858, the satirical Tritsch-Tratsch publication had devoted a thumbnail sketch to Strauss, arguing that his Russian visits and the development of his compositional style had worked to the detriment of Vienna’s dance-loving public. Johann’s response, following a further concert season in Russia, was to write his Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka.

Hof-Ball-Tänze. Walzer (Court Ball Dances. Waltz) op.161

Joseph Lanner (1801-1843)

Joseph Lanner and Johann Strauss, with their contrasting musical styles, became the true architects of the Viennese Waltz. Unlike Strauss, however, Lanner travelled little outside the confines of the Habsburg Empire, and this factor has contributed to the relative unfamiliarity of his name and music further afield. The elder Johann Strauss had for many years conducted the music for balls at the Imperial Court, but during the 1839 Vienna Carnival these were instead entrusted to Lanner alone. On 16 January 1840 Lanner was commanded with his orchestra to provide the music for a chamber ball at Court, and for it he wrote his waltz Hof-Ball-Tänze, which he dedicated to “Her Imperial Highness The Most Serene Madame the Archduchess Maria Dorothea of Austria, née Princess of Württemberg”. Joseph Lanner’s biographer, Fritz Lange, observed of the splendid Hof-Ball-Tänze: “The work is one of the most graceful waltz compositions ever written. [...] Everywhere there is happy laughter, and the harmless merriment seems to go on for ever.”

Die Libelle. Polka-Mazur (The Dragonfly. Polka-mazurka) op.204

Josef Strauss

Josef Strauss, Johann’s younger brother, entered the family music business very much against his will. When a severe mental and physical collapse temporarily removed the ‘Waltz King’ from public life in 1853, Josef selflessly deputised for his brother, initially on an interim basis, although eventually relinquishing a brilliant career as an engineer for a life in music. Johann’s own assessment: “Pepi [Josef] is the more gifted of us two, I am merely the more popular” has found increasing support amongst present-day Strauss scholars and devotees. Josef’s polka-mazurka Die Libelle (1866) is a case in point. Surely one of the most perfect works in the entire Strauss family repertoire, the work is a miniature sound-sketch in which Josef conjures up memories of drowsy summer days beside a shaded water’s edge, interrupted only by a dragonfly as it flits across the surface. Josef conducted the piece for the first time with the Strauss Orchestra on 21 October 1866 at an evening concert in the Vienna Volksgarten.

Russischer Marsch (Russian March) op.426

Johann Strauss II

The Russischer Marsch, one of Johann Strauss’s ‘characteristic marches’, belongs to that group of new compositions with which the Viennese maestro charmed audiences attending his series of charity concerts in St Petersburg in 1886. The appearance of the Viennese maestro in St Petersburg in 1886 occasioned an outbreak of ‘Strauss fever’, with shops offering pictures, busts and statuettes of the conductor/composer, while one enterprising manufacturer even produced “Strauss Cigarettes” with Johann’s likeness on the packet. Johann composed four new works especially for his 1886 Russian visit - two waltzes, a polka and a march. It was at his third concert, held on 29 April 1886 (= 17 April, Russian calendar), that he unveiled his Marche des Gardes à Cheval (March of the Horse Guards), written as a tribute to the Tsar’s bodyguard in whose riding school the concerts took place.

Die Pariserin. Polka française (The Parisienne. French polka) op.238

Johann Strauss II

Almost nineteen years before Johann Strauss wrote his Pariser-Polka (Parisian Polka) op.382 of 1879, he composed another polka glorifying one of the delights of the French capital - namely, the Parisienne. Although in 1860, when the earlier work was written, Johann had not yet visited ‘the city on the Seine’, he was certainly aware of the many chic demoiselles for whose education a visit to such centres of European culture as Vienna and St Petersburg was almost de rigeur. One such elegantly attired young lady graces the cover of the first piano edition of Johann’s Die Pariserin, as she gazes into the ornate mirror of her dressing table, surrounded by such feminine accoutrements as her jewellery box and perfume. The stimulus for writing Die Pariserin seems to have been an invitation for Strauss to give concerts in Paris and London during summer 1860, an invitation that existing contractual commitment in Russia obliged him to decline. After making his preparations for the trip to Pavlovsk, the composer took his leave of his Viennese public on Sunday 6 May 1860 with a ‘Farewell Concert’. On this occasion Johann shared the conducting of the Strauss Orchestra with his brother Josef, and included in the programme the first performance of his new dance piece, Die Pariserin.

Chineser-Galopp (Chinese Galop) op.20

Johann Strauss I

In 1830 the elder Johann Strauss wrote a potpourri, which he entitled Wiener Tagesbelustigung (Viennese Daytime Entertainment, op.37). By this title he meant the delights and amusements on offer to the Viennese by the various entertainment establishments in and around the capital. In the early decades of the nineteenth century a popular entertainment in Western Europe was provided by showmen who exhibited strange and wonderful folk from far-off lands. The elder Johann Strauss may, or may not, have seen any Chinese at one of these many ‘human exhibitions’, but the idea was enough to spark his fertile imagination for a nimble Chinese Galop. As almost nothing was known of Chinese music in Vienna at that time, Strauss turned elsewhere to capture a flavour of the ‘exotic’, taking as his model a style of music known in the Austrian capital as ‘Turkish’. Clearly discernible in the Chineser-Galoppe is the influence of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Rondo alla turca, from the Piano Sonata in A major (K. 331) of 1778. Johann Strauss seemingly gave the first performance of his Chineser-Galoppe with his orchestra during the Vienna Carnival of 1828, at a festivity in the popular ‘Zur Kettenbrücke’ restaurant in the suburb of Leopoldstadt.

Kaiser-Walzer (Emperor Waltz) op.437

Johann Strauss II

In the autumn of 1889, the Neue Freie Presse announced that the ‘Waltz King’ had signed a contract with the management of Berlin’s new Königsbau concert hall and that “he has composed for his Berlin concerts a charming waltz, entitled ‘Hand in Hand’, which will be played for the first time in the ‘Königsbau’.” The title Strauss chose for the new work was an allusion to Austria extending “the hand of friendship” to Germany. More specifically it referred to the toast made by the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph on 13 August 1889, on the occasion of his visit to the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II (1859-1941). In advance of his arrival in the German capital, Johann had sent the waltz Hand in Hand to his Berlin publisher, Fritz Simrock, with the intention that it should available in print as soon as possible. The astute Simrock, however, suggested to Johann that a more suitable title might be Kaiser-Walzer (Emperor Waltz) and, furthermore, that by not dedicating the work to either monarch the vanity of both Franz Joseph and Wilhelm would be satisfied. It was under this, now familiar, title that the magnificent composition was first performed, by an orchestra of 100 players, on 21 October 1889 at Johann’s third concert in Berlin. A later review in Fremden-Blatt reported enthusiastically: “The latest waltz begins in a Prussian, martial mood; one really sees and hears the guards of ‘Old Fritz’ marching by - but then the Viennese in the composer prevails and everything once again takes on the usual, truly-Viennese, animated dash and swing.” The review concluded prophetically: “The ‘Kaiserwalzer’ has already taken its place in Viennese concert repertoire.”

Die Bajadere. Polka schnell (The Bayadere. Quick polka) op.351

Johann Strauss II

In Johann Strauss’s first operetta, Indigo und die vierzig Räuber (Indigo and the Forty Thieves), mounted at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien on 10 February 1871, the principal female rôle is that of Fantasca, a Viennese girl shipwrecked in a storm, who has become the favourite temple dancer, or bayadere, of Indigo, the ruler of Macassar, a faraway land which is the setting for this tale very loosely based on The Arabian Nights. It is the coda of the Act 3 ballet music which provides the opening section of the quick polka Die Bajadere, one of the nine separate orchestral pieces Strauss arranged on themes from this abundantly tuneful operetta. The remaining themes in Die Bajadere are drawn from Act 2 and elsewhere in Act 3. In common with all the separate orchestral numbers fashioned from the score of Indigo, it was left to Eduard Strauss, the composer’s brother, to conduct the première of Die Bajadere. The first orchestral performance of the new work was not given until 16 June 1871, when it was heard during an evening concert in the Vienna Volksgarten.

ENCORE ITEMS

Sport-Polka (schnell) op.170

Josef Strauss

By the middle of the 19th century Vienna found itself gripped by the twin crazes of ice-skating and gymnastics, the latter having swept in from Germany. As early as 1829 the elder Johann Strauss had paid homage to the capital’s sportsmen, specifically the horse-racing fraternity, with a Wettrennen-Galopp (Racing Galop) op.29a. Twelve years later he acknowledged another breed of sportsmen with his waltz Die Wettrenner (The Runners) op.131 (1841). The dance compositions of Strauss’s second son, Josef, also recognise the diverse world of sport and include a Turner-Quadrille (Gymnasts’ Quadrille) op.92 (1860) and a quick polka Vélocipède (Cycle) op.259 (1869) But Josef Strauss’s abiding passion was the sport of horse racing and this is chronicled, for example, in his Steeple Chase, Polka (schnell) op.43 (1857) and Jokey-Polka (schnell) (Jockey. Quick polka op.278 (1870). The title page illustration on the piano edition of Josef’s Sport-Polka (schnell) op.171 of 1864 also shows where the composer’s thoughts lay when he was creating the work, for the lithograph shows a jockey in a whirlwind dance with a chic Viennese girl. And if one is of a mind to query whether this horse-racing association was only in the mind of the illustrator, such qualms are at once dismissed upon hearing Josef Strauss’s use of vital rhythms in the polka’s main section, invoking the relentless pounding of the horses’ hooves. The composer conducted the first performance of his hectic Sport-Polka (schnell) at the “Farewell Festive Concert” he gave with his brother Eduard in the Dianabad-Saal, Vienna, on 9 October 1864, immediately prior to his leaving for a series of guest concerts in Breslau.

An der schönen, blauen Donau. Walzer (By the beautiful, blue Danube. Waltz) op.314

Johann Strauss II

It is interesting to reflect that Johann Strauss II’s An der schönen, blauen Donau, the most famous of all orchestral waltzes, was conceived and first performed as a showpiece for male voice choir. The work was Johann’s first choral waltz, written as a commission for the prestigious Wiener Männergesang-Verein (Vienna Men’s Choral Association) with whom he was to enjoy a close association over the years, creating for the choir a total of six choral master waltzes, two polkas and a march. The waltz, which is also dedicated to the Wiener Männergesang-Verein, was first performed at Vienna’s Dianabad-Saal during the Association’s “Faschings-Liedertafel” (Carnival Programme of Songs) on 15 February 1867. Strauss himself was not present, as he had been commanded to conduct his orchestra at the Imperial Court that night. In contrast to the widespread myth of the waltz’s initial failure, many newspapers reported the extraordinary success of the première. Die Presse, for example, commented prophetically in its edition of 17 February 1867: “The lovely waltz, with its catchy rhythms, ought soon to belong among the most popular of the prolific dance-composer”. The Viennese were treated to the first purely orchestral rendition of An der schönen, blauen Donau - complete with introduction and full-length coda - on Sunday 10 March 1867 in the Imperial-Royal Volksgarten at the Strauss Orchestra’s annual “Carnival Revue”. During the 1867 Carnival, An der schönen, blauen Donau was merely regarded as a pearl amongst many others, and only a little later did the unique position which it was to assume, and maintain, as the unofficial national anthem of both Vienna and Austria, become evident.

Radetzky-Marsch op.228

Johann Strauss I

The revolution that flared in Vienna on 13 March 1848 was not the only threat that year to the stability of the Habsburg monarchy. Elsewhere in the realm, and especially in those provinces of Italy and Poland which were under Habsburg rule, nationalist uprisings against foreign domination were growing. The resignation of Chancellor Prince Clemens Metternich (1773-1859), tendered in Vienna on 13 March, provided the final impetus for Lombardy to revolt. It called upon Charles Albert (1798-1849), king of Sardinia, for assistance, and on 23 March he declared war on Austria. Following a series of military engagements during spring and early summer, on 25 July 1848 the 82-year-old Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Austrian army, Johann Joseph Wenzel, Count Radetzky von Radetz (1766-1858), led his Habsburg troops to a decisive victory over Piedmontese forces at Custozza. With Radetzky’s army in pursuit the Italians withdrew to Milan, where Charles Albert endured a hostile demonstration before returning to Piedmont. On 6 August Radetzky entered Milan: three days later Austria and Piedmont concluded an armistice, with the latter agreeing to evacuate Lombardy and Venetia. In Vienna itself, still gripped by revolution, this significant military event was greeted with rejoicing by those loyal to the Habsburg monarchy. A “Grand Impressive Victory Festival [...] in Honour of our Courageous Army in Italy, and for the Benefit of the Wounded Soldiers” was duly announced for the evening of 31 August 1848. The handbills of 31 August advertising that day’s celebration also announced that “Imperial-Royal Court Ball Music Director Johann Strauss will conduct the music and will have the honour to perform, among several new pieces, also a new march entitled ‘Radetzky-Marsch’, composed in honour of the great Commander-in-Chief and dedicated to the Imperial-Royal Army”. The success of the Radetzky-Marsch was evident from the first. The Wiener Allgemeine Theaterzeitung, reporting on the first performance in its edition of 2 September, observed: “This imposing festival, which took place on the Wasserglacis the day before yesterday, 31 August, was one of the finest this year. […] Particularly the new ‘Radetzky-Marsch’ by Strauss was very well received, and upon tempestuous demand had to be repeated twice”.

The elder Johann Strauss’s homage to the octogenarian military hero, who was known simply as ‘Vater Radetzky’ (Father Radetzky) to the soldiers who idolized him, may remain a symbol of a bygone age, but it has never lost its ability to galvanise and captivate audiences around the world.