‘On Tuesday evening the Medical Students’ Ball was held in the elegant and newly decorated rooms of the Sofiensaal establishment,’ the Vienna daily Neues Fremden-Blatt reported two days later, on Thursday 24 January 1867, and went on, ‘Joseph Strauss played an enchanting waltz, which was greeted with much applause and has already been published by Spina.’ ‘To the gentlemen students of medicine at the University of Vienna’ is the dedication which can be found on the title page of the piano edition of the new waltz. The term ‘delirium’ (‘Delirien’ is the plural form in German) is used to refer to a form psychosis with disorders of consciousness and orientation, sometimes with delusions. Such an acute psychic disorder can have organic causes, or be the result of drugs being consumed or withdrawn. Josef Strauss begins his new composition with an introduction which is completely atypical of previous Viennese waltzes: it is melancholy music which is struggling for freedom, which takes its direction from Richard Wagner’s art of instrumentation. The music is driven along for twenty-seven bars in 12/8 time, an ‘allegro maestoso’ with a nervous tremolo and frequent modulations as well as a series of diminished seventh chords, and in it there is a pathological component to be heard which certainly does justice to the title. In the spring and summer of 1867 the Viennese music publisher Carl Anton Spina quickly brought out an edition for piano solo and then one for piano duet, followed by an arrangement for violin and piano and, of course, the orchestral parts. Josef Strauss’s waltz Delirien is one of his best and most popular compositions, not least because of its introduction, a stroke of genius that places the work far above the reason why it was composed, that is to provide dance music for the medical students’ ball.
Wednesday, 26. October 201111.00 o' clock Vienna ⁄ Musikverein ⁄ The Große Musikvereinssaal
Konzert zum Nationalfeiertag
Johannes Wildner conductor
Program Johann Strauss II : Ouverture to «Die Fledermaus» Eduard Strauss I : Hektograph / Polka schnell op. 186 Josef Strauss : Ardent Love / Polka mazurka op. 129 Josef Strauss : Delirien / Waltz op. 212 Johann Strauss II : Chit-Chat Polka op. 214 Johann Strauss II : Thunder and Lightning / Quick polka op. 324 Break Johann Strauss II : Light of Heart / Quick polka op. 319 Johann Strauss II : Anna Polka op. 117 Josef Strauss : Music of the Spheres / Waltz op. 235 Johann Strauss II : Csárdás from the opera «Knight Pásmán» op. 441 Johann Strauss II : New Pizzicato Polka, from the Operetta «Fürstin Ninetta» op. 449 Eduard Strauss I : Clear the Track! / Quick polka op. 45 Johann Strauss II : The Blue Danube / Waltz op. 314 Encore Johann & Josef Strauss : Pizzicato Polka Johann Strauss I : Radetzky March op. 228
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