Adagietto | Johann Strauss II - The Blue Danube Waltz @Adagietto | Uploaded April 2017 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Johann Strauss, Jr. (II) | An der schönen, blauen Donau (On the Beautiful, Blue Danube), waltz for orchestra (with chorus ad lib), Op. 314 (RV 314), 1867.
Johann Strauss Jr.'s status as an internationally recognized Austrian icon began with the success of his waltz, An der schönen, blauen Donau (The Blue Danube Waltz), at the Paris Exhibition of 1867. The Austrians, still smarting from their military defeat at the hands of the Prussians at Königgrätz in July of 1866, whole-heartedly supported Strauss's music; when the Blue Danube achieved a resounding success at the Paris exhibition, the Viennese felt they had shown the French that Austria, despite its recent military setback, was still an important cultural force. Writers even described Strauss's triumph with military imagery, calling Strauss a "Napoleon among composers."
Strauss's international triumph in Paris makes it easy to forget that this was neither the first performance of the Blue Danube, nor representative of the piece's original conception. Composed for the Wiener Männergesang-Verein (Vienna Men's Singing Society), the waltz was originally scored for four-part choir and orchestra or piano. Josef Weyl (1821-1895) supplied the text; it was in this version that the world first heard the Blue Danube waltz on February 15, 1867, sung by the Wiener Männergesang-Verein, and accompanied by the orchestra of the Forty-Second Infantry Regiment, directed by Rudolf Weinwurm. The waltz was first performed without voices probably on March 4, 1867, and was certainly played in its familiar format on March 10, 1867, at a benefit concert for Strauss's brothers.
The title An der schönen, blauen Donau may have been derived from a poem by Karl Beck (1817-1879) entitled, An der Donau; the poem, Die feindlichen Brüder also contains the line, "An der schönen, blauen Donau liegt mein Dörfchen still und fein." Strauss sold the Blue Danube for only 250fl. to Carl Anton Spina (1827-1906), who published the work in 1867. Spina realized an exceptional return on his investment.
Like most of Strauss's waltzes, the Blue Danube features five distinct "mini-waltzes," each with two sections. To modern listeners, the slow introduction to the Blue Danube is the ultimate tease, delaying what seemingly all of us know in our sleep. At the Paris exhibition, however, the opening probably produced a different effect: a heightened sense of anticipation, and curiosity about when the actual dance will begin. Even after the orchestra reaches a waltz tempo there still is no real tune, and the music seems to amble without aim.
Strauss's wealth of melodic material provides great contrast; waltz sections featuring melodies with large leaps give way to those with linear tunes within a narrow range. Quarter-note motion is juxtaposed with eighth-note motion and, of course, there are contrasting keys. The D major first waltz follows an introduction on the dominant, A major, while the second half of the second is in B flat and the entire fourth waltz is in F. The coda partially summarizes the entire piece, revisiting the first part of Waltzes two and four (again in F), and then Waltz one in D. Variations of the first waltz precede the work's rousing close.
Anyone who has traveled to Vienna knows that the Danube is not, in fact, blue, unless it is placid and reflecting the sky on a clear day. That is not the point. Like Strauss’s other large-scale waltzes, this one is a tone poem whose successive segments capture different facets of Austria’s charm. The tremolo strings evoke sunlight playing on the ripples of the river. The Danube meanders through picturesque countryside, past quaint villages nestled near its banks, beneath vineyards and ruined castles up in the hills. This waltz is perhaps Strauss’s most successful symphonic attempt to encapsulate the spirit of a city, a country, and a people.
Music: MusOpen
Johann Strauss, Jr. (II) | An der schönen, blauen Donau (On the Beautiful, Blue Danube), waltz for orchestra (with chorus ad lib), Op. 314 (RV 314), 1867.
Johann Strauss Jr.'s status as an internationally recognized Austrian icon began with the success of his waltz, An der schönen, blauen Donau (The Blue Danube Waltz), at the Paris Exhibition of 1867. The Austrians, still smarting from their military defeat at the hands of the Prussians at Königgrätz in July of 1866, whole-heartedly supported Strauss's music; when the Blue Danube achieved a resounding success at the Paris exhibition, the Viennese felt they had shown the French that Austria, despite its recent military setback, was still an important cultural force. Writers even described Strauss's triumph with military imagery, calling Strauss a "Napoleon among composers."
Strauss's international triumph in Paris makes it easy to forget that this was neither the first performance of the Blue Danube, nor representative of the piece's original conception. Composed for the Wiener Männergesang-Verein (Vienna Men's Singing Society), the waltz was originally scored for four-part choir and orchestra or piano. Josef Weyl (1821-1895) supplied the text; it was in this version that the world first heard the Blue Danube waltz on February 15, 1867, sung by the Wiener Männergesang-Verein, and accompanied by the orchestra of the Forty-Second Infantry Regiment, directed by Rudolf Weinwurm. The waltz was first performed without voices probably on March 4, 1867, and was certainly played in its familiar format on March 10, 1867, at a benefit concert for Strauss's brothers.
The title An der schönen, blauen Donau may have been derived from a poem by Karl Beck (1817-1879) entitled, An der Donau; the poem, Die feindlichen Brüder also contains the line, "An der schönen, blauen Donau liegt mein Dörfchen still und fein." Strauss sold the Blue Danube for only 250fl. to Carl Anton Spina (1827-1906), who published the work in 1867. Spina realized an exceptional return on his investment.
Like most of Strauss's waltzes, the Blue Danube features five distinct "mini-waltzes," each with two sections. To modern listeners, the slow introduction to the Blue Danube is the ultimate tease, delaying what seemingly all of us know in our sleep. At the Paris exhibition, however, the opening probably produced a different effect: a heightened sense of anticipation, and curiosity about when the actual dance will begin. Even after the orchestra reaches a waltz tempo there still is no real tune, and the music seems to amble without aim.
Strauss's wealth of melodic material provides great contrast; waltz sections featuring melodies with large leaps give way to those with linear tunes within a narrow range. Quarter-note motion is juxtaposed with eighth-note motion and, of course, there are contrasting keys. The D major first waltz follows an introduction on the dominant, A major, while the second half of the second is in B flat and the entire fourth waltz is in F. The coda partially summarizes the entire piece, revisiting the first part of Waltzes two and four (again in F), and then Waltz one in D. Variations of the first waltz precede the work's rousing close.
Anyone who has traveled to Vienna knows that the Danube is not, in fact, blue, unless it is placid and reflecting the sky on a clear day. That is not the point. Like Strauss’s other large-scale waltzes, this one is a tone poem whose successive segments capture different facets of Austria’s charm. The tremolo strings evoke sunlight playing on the ripples of the river. The Danube meanders through picturesque countryside, past quaint villages nestled near its banks, beneath vineyards and ruined castles up in the hills. This waltz is perhaps Strauss’s most successful symphonic attempt to encapsulate the spirit of a city, a country, and a people.
Music: MusOpen
![Richard Strauss - Vier Letzte Lieder | Four Last Songs | Jessye Norman, Wolfgang Sawallisch [HD]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RdRq7ynfkHs/hqdefault.jpg "Richard Strauss - Vier Letzte Lieder | Four Last Songs | Jessye Norman, Wolfgang Sawallisch [HD]
Richard Strauss - Vier Letzte Lieder | Four Last Songs | Quatre Derniers Lieder | Quattro Ultimi Lieder | Cuatro Últimas Canciones | Quatro Últimas Canções, o.Op. 150, 1948.
Orchestre de La Suisse Romande conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch. Jessye Norman.
Geneve, Victoria Hall, 19.IX.1979.
Vier Letzte Lieder | Four Last Songs:
00:00 I. Frühling | Spring | Printemps
03:58 II. September | September | Septembre
09:25 III. Beim Schlafengehen | When Falling Asleep | Lheure Du Sommeil
15:00 IV. Im Abendrot | At Sunset | Au Soleil Couchant
Jessye Norman talks about Richard Strauss Vier Letzte Lieder | Four Last Songs | http://youtu.be/o9tx41cP4P8?t=8m05s
Studio Recording | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDoqnjB7Um4
Do you still sing Four Last Songs?
Jessye Norman - I only do them with conducters who really understand whats happening with them. I dont want to say this condescendingly, but so many regional orchestras feel that if I show up, were sound like Sergiu Celibidache in Munich. But thats not quite the way it works. There was one bright, lovely man who was conducting Four Last Songs for the first time, and he had a vision the night before that it would be slower. And I said, I really appreciate that youre having an artistic moment, but its marked Allegretto
How long will you continue to sing?
J.N. - As long as it make sense.
Jessye Norman Interview to Gramophone IX.2010, p.39
Strauss Four Last Songs. For the profundity that is achieved not by complexity but by clarity and simplicity. For the purity of the sentiment about death and parting and loss. For the long melodic line spinning out and the female voice soaring and soaring. For the repose and composure and gracefulness and the intense beauty of the soaring. For the ways one is drawn into the tremendous arc of heartbreak. The composer drops all masks and, at the age of eighty-two, stands before you naked. And you dissolve.
Philip Roth
Strauss Vier letzte Lieder is a set of four songs for soprano and orchestra, composed between 1946 and 1948. The texts for the songs are Im Abendrot by Joseph von Eichendorff, followed by three texts by Hermann Hesse, Frühling, Beim Schlafengehen, and September. For many, these songs are regarded as the pinnacle of Strauss output as a composer of lieder. For the most part, Strauss had composed his earlier lieder with piano accompaniment and refrained from writing orchestral songs, like those Gustav Mahler composed earlier in the century. In terms of style, the music itself continues in the idiom that Strauss used for his later operas, especially Capriccio. The melodies are long and sinuous, with subtle, chromatic harmonies which support nuances in the text. For one, Im Abendrot, Strauss even quotes from Tod und Verklärung when the narrator of the poem expresses intimations of death. In all the settings of the Vier letzte Lieder, Strauss composed subtle music.
Richard Strauss extraordinarily beautiful Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) (1948) for voice and orchestra are among the last music the composer ever wrote. Actually, Strauss did not intend to place the songs into this grouping in which they are best known. The title Four Last Songs was provided posthumously by Strausss friend Ernst Roth, who published the four songs as a single unit after Strausss death. Three of the settings are on texts by Hermann Hesse; the last in the group, Im Abendrot (At Dusk), is a separate setting of a poem by Joseph Eichendorff. (Strauss also left behind another unfinished Hesse setting, Nacht.) Still, given the themes of the Hesse songs - Frühling (Spring), September, and Beim Schlafengehen (Time to Sleep) - the inclusion of the Eichendorff song seems a natural extension of and appropriate end to the cycle.
The Four Last Songs are virtually indistinguishable in technique and musical language from the fine songs Strauss wrote 50 years earlier. They are, in short, rich and fully Romantic, expressive in feeling and symphonic in sound. As such, they might well be thought of as the final masterpieces of the line of German Romantic Lieder that began with Beethovens An die ferne Geliebter. The final words of Im Abendrot are Is this really Death? Here, Strauss inserts the famous yearning theme from his own Death and Transfiguration, providing what can only be regarded as a most fitting epitaph to his own life and work.
Towards the end of Im Abendrot, exactly as the sopranos final intonation of der Tod (death) ceases, Strauss musically quotes his own tone poem Death and Transfiguration, written 60 years earlier. As in that piece, the quoted six-note phrase (known as the transfiguration theme) symbolizes the fulfillment of the soul into death.
Strauss died in September 1949. The premiere was given posthumously at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 22 May 1950 by soprano Kirsten Flagstad and the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler.")
