On 5 April 1874 Johann Strauss’s operetta Die Fledermaus (The Bat) had its premiere in the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, at a time when the Viennese still had all too unpleasant memories of the stock exchange crash of 9 May 1873 and the gigantic deficit of nineteen million gulden made by the World Exhibition held in Vienna in the same year. Many of them may thus have seen a thoroughly positive side to a view of life such as that sung about in Alfred’s drinking song in the finale of the first act of the operetta Die Fledermaus, ‘Happy is he who forgets what can no longer be changed,’ that is to say not worrying about either the past or the future but living exclusively for the moment. The same attitude to life is described by the Spanish writer Baltasar Gracián y Morales in his Oracolo manual, published in 1674, two hundred years earlier. The educated bourgeoisie of Vienna may well have known about Gracían’s work, as a new translation by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer had been published in 1862. The polka mazurka, ‘Glücklich ist, wer vergisst’ is one of six dances arranged from the melodies of the operetta Die Fledermaus. The publication of the piano edition was announced in the morning edition of the Tages-Presse newspaper on 11 October 1874 with the comment that the polka mazurka was ‘already very well-known from the performances of Mr Eduard Strauss’s orchestra’, that is to say that its first performance must have taken place at an earlier date, probably in the summer or autumn of 1874. Synopsis: Prof. Norbert Rubey
Wednesday, 01. May 201911.00 o' clock Vienna ⁄ Musikverein ⁄ The Große Musikvereinssaal
Spring concert
Alfred Eschwé conductor
Program Josef Strauss : Watercolours / Waltz op. 258 Josef Strauss : Mailust / polka française op. 182 Josef Strauss : Allerlei / Polka schnell op. 219 Josef Strauss : Marien-Klänge / Walzer op. 214 Josef Strauss : Arm in Arm / Polka mazurka op. 215 Josef Strauss : Jockey / Quick polka op. 278 Josef Strauss : Music of the Spheres / Waltz op. 235 Break Johann Strauss II : Overture to the operetta «Waldmeister» (Woodruff) Johann Strauss II : Artist’s Life / Waltz op. 316 Johann Strauss II : Figaro-Polka / Polka op. 320 Johann Strauss II : Ball bouquet / Quick polka op. 380 Johann Strauss II : A Masked Ball, Quadrille on Themes from Verdi’s Opera «Un ballo in masquera» op. 272 Johann Strauss II : « Happy Is He Who Forgets!», Polka Mazurka op. 368 Johann Strauss II : Magic Bullets / Polka schnell op. 326 Johann Strauss II : Tales from the Vienna Woods / Waltz op. 325
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