Strauss (Johann I) Waltzes

 Day 107

Strauss (Johann I) Waltzes

Täuberin Waltz op 1

Vienna Carnival Waltz op 3

Paris Waltz op 101

Vienna Symphony Orchestra

Robert Stoltz

Light music doesn’t exactly begin and end with the Strauss family but without them the repertoire would be severely diminished. So over the next few days I want to explore several members of the family, staring with the patriarch - Johann Strauss I.

I selected three waltzes more or less at random. All three were very pleasant but seemed rather under developed compared to the well-known waltzes of his son Johnan II. They are more like the dances of Schubert or Beethoven - not much by way of introduction, all rather rigid in form and ending fairly abruptly. One can well imagine people dancing to this music - whereas some of the later waltzes by his son, though they could be danced to, are more like concert pieces.

There were a couple of curiosities here. I was very surprised to hear the big tune from the overture to Weber’s  Oberon suddenly emerge in the second waltz - that’s another example of what I discussed yesterday of the light music composer freely adapting popular opera fragments into their dances. The same sort of thing happen in the last piece, where toward the end we hear La Marseilles.

Johann Junior eclipsed his father - the two had a famously uneasy reputation - and it must have been difficult for the father to realise the greater talent of his son. But taken on their own these pieces, which could never be called masterpieces, have a charm which does make them worth listening to.