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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 f 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 45