Concert in Beijing

Johann Strauss II
Vienna Blood / Waltz
op. 354 (1873)

In the spring of 1873 Vienna was getting ready for the imminent opening of the World Exhibition. The festive mood was increased still more when Archduchess Gisela married Prince Leopold of Bavaria on 20 April.

The Imperial-Royal Court Opera also took advantage of the favourable moment to hold a ball in the Musikverein concert hall in order to boost their pension fund. In an interval in the dancing Otto Desoff conducted a programme of classical music, and then Johann Strauss II presented the waltz Vienna Blood, op. 354, which he had composed specially for the ball, with the Court Opera’s orchestra of eighty musicians. The title was taken from a collection of ‘small cultural sketches of the life of the people in the old imperial city on the Danube’ written by Friedrich Schlögl — a book that had become a bestseller.

In their reports, one journal, the Blätter für Musik, Theater und Kunst, wrote that the new waltz had the ‘freshness of original melody and the genuine spirit of the dance’, while one daily, the Wiener Tagblatt, summed it up as follows, ‘In this now cheeky, now sentimental music in three-four time there flows the lifeblood of Vienna — fresh, free, authentic, and red.’

The first editions for piano solo and duet, violin and piano, zither, as well as the orchestral parts, were published on 10 June 1873. This was the first of Strauss’s compositions to appear after the publishing house of C.A.Spina had been taken over by its new owner, Friedrich Schreiber. The relatively short time taken to produce these editions can be explained by the publisher wanting to make use of the increased market for sales resulting from the World Exhibition, a circumstance which also promised scope for international contacts. Some years later an edition appeared with the title page giving King Christian IX of Denmark as the dedicatee. In the operetta named after the waltz which Adolf Müller junior put together from melodies by Johann Strauss II its first theme is used for the final chorus; this begins with the title, which has since become a phrase everyone knows, ‘Vienna blood, a sap like no other, full of power, full of fire’.

Synopsis: Dr. Thomas Aigner

Translation: Dr. Leigh H. Bailey

Johann Strauss II. : Vienna Life (alt.: Vienna Blood or Vienna Spirit) op. 354
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