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
Friday, 26. October 200711.00 o' clock Vienna ⁄ Musikverein ⁄ The Große Musikvereinssaal
Concert at the Musikverein Vienna
Alfred Eschwé conductor
Program Johann Strauss II : Overture to the operetta «Waldmeister» (Woodruff) Johann Strauss II : By the Moldau / Polka française op. 366 Johann Strauss II : Tick Tock / Quick polka op. 365 Johann Strauss II : City Hall Ball Dances / Waltz op. 438 Josef Strauss : From Afar / Polka mazurka op. 270 Josef Strauss : Forward! / Quick Polka op. 127 Johann Strauss II : Vienna Blood / Waltz op. 354 Break Johann Strauss II : March of Rejoicing at the Deliverance of Emperor Franz Joseph I op. 126 Johann Strauss II : Viennese Bonbons / Waltz op. 307 Johann Strauss II : Quadrille on Themes from the Comic Opera One Night in Venice op. 416 Johann Strauss II : At the Double! / Quick polka op. 348 Johann Strauss II : « Happy Is He Who Forgets!», Polka Mazurka op. 368 Johann Strauss II : Bandits Galop / Polka schnell op. 378 Johann Strauss II : The Blue Danube / Waltz op. 314 Encore Johann Strauss I : Radetzky March op. 228
Veranstalter: Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien Zyklus: Außerordentliches Gesellschaftskonzert Quelle: Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien
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