Download Franz Reizenstein Johann Strauss, Jr.

Summer in Vienna!
the score. He proceeded to make a potpourri of its most
appealing tunes, including of course its biggest hit of
all, the can-can. Exactly a month later, on April 18, the
composer led his Orpheus Quadrille at a Viennese tavern,
following which the Wiener Theaterzeitung reported that
it “provoked thunderous applause.”
Most of Strauss’ 40-odd marches were written as tributes
to a country (Russia, Persia, Egypt, Spain), a theme
(patriots, festival, alliance, brotherhood), or a public
figure (Emperor Franz Josef, Duke Wilhelm, Emperor
Alexander). Emperor Napoleon III (1808-1873) was
honored with the Napoleon March, composed in 1854
and dedicated to the Frenchman “in deepest reverence.”
This zesty number proved so popular at its 1854 premiere
that it had to be played three times. In return, the
28-year-old composer received from Napoleon a gold pin
topped with a pearl.
Sommerfest
july 14
The Orel Foundation, which provides information on
composers who suffered under the Nazis, references
Reizenstein’s “technical mastery, complemented by a
brilliant talent for pastiche and a highly developed sense
of the absurd” in connection with its own summary of
the Concerto Populare, which he composed in 1956:
“Reizenstein’s Concerto Popolare—‘A Piano Concerto
to End All Piano Concertos’—is a concoction in which
the piano soloist (Yvonne Arnaud at the premiere)
performs on the assumption that she has been hired to
play the Grieg Concerto. However the conductor and
orchestra are intractably committed to the Tchaikovsky.
The ensuing pandemonium, with quotes from unrelated
pieces like Rhapsody in Blue and ‘Roll out the barrel,’ is as
brilliantly witty today as it was half-a-century ago.”
Johann Strauss, Jr.
Kaiser-Walzer (Emperors’ Waltzes)
Franz Reizenstein
Born: June 7, 1911, Nuremberg
Died: October 15, 1968, London
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Concerto Popolare
ranz Reizenstein was one of the many highly talented
German composers driven from their native country
by Nazi oppression—and Germany’s loss was
England’s gain. Having settled there in 1934 at the age
of 23, he continued his studies in composition (earlier
begun with Paul Hindemith) with Vaughan Williams
and in piano with the renowned Solomon Cutner. He
later taught at the Royal Manchester College of Music
(now the Royal Northern College of Music). Reizenstein
left a substantial catalogue of serious and well-regarded
orchestral, chamber and solo instrumental music (his
Piano Quintet was praised by Lionel Salter as worthy
to stand beside that of Shostakovich), but he is best
remembered today for his film score for The Mummy
(1959), Variations on the Lambeth Walk (a parody of
seven famous composers) and the work we hear tonight.
If any Strauss waltz can be said to hold the honor of second
place in popularity to the Blue Danube, it is probably
this one, usually misnamed the Emperor Waltz; properly
speaking, it should be “Emperors’ Waltzes.” Like many
other works of its kind, Kaiser-Walzer is really a whole
string of waltzes, not just one, and Walzer is plural or
singular, depending on context. Furthermore, there were
two Kaiser—this German word, too, remains unchanged
in the plural—involved in the creation of Strauss’s music.
One was Franz Josef of Austria, a symbol of Vienna, who
was in the 40th year of his reign when Strauss composed
his tribute (1888), and the other was the newly-elected
Wilhelm II of Prussia. Strauss wrote the Kaiser-Walzer
for some concerts which formed part of the ceremonies
surrounding the first state visit of Franz Josef to Berlin
in 1889. “By not dedicating the music to either Kaiser
specifically, Strauss could satisfy the vanity of both,” noted
Peter Kemp.
Program notes by Robert Markow.
S OMMER F ES T 2012
MINNESOT A ORCHEST R A
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